Improvements in Adjustable Ball Heads for Cycles.
Year: 1895

page_text: Date of Application, 9th May, 1895
Complete Specification Left, 10th Dec., 1895-Accepted, 1st Feb., 1896
•
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Adjustable Ball Heads for Cycles.
We, ROBERT FREDERICK HALL, Managing Director of The Cycle Components
Manufacturing Company Lunited of "Ferndale," Church Road, Moseley, near
the City of Birmingham, and FREDERICK WATERS, of the Alma Street Branch
Works of The Cycle Components Manufacturing Company Limited, Birmingham
aforesaid, Manager of Works, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be
as follows:-
This invention relates to improvements in the ball head adjustments of safety
bicycles and tricycles, and has for its object, the simplification of the said adjustment
or the construction and fitting of the parts.
According to one form of the said improvements, the steering post or pillar of a
machue is terminated by a partially split socket, outside collared and screwed at
its lower part, whilst its upper part is embraced by a band clip, terminated by eyed
Jugs through which a cross pin having a D-shaped head passes. The flat of this
head rests against a shoulder of the band clip and prevents the pin from rotating,
whilst the screwed end of the said pin receives a nut for drawing to the split of the
socket and the affixing of it to the post.
Taking upon the screwed lower part of the socket is a cone or bell shaped sleeve,
inside screwed and adapted, on being rotated, to rise and fall, and bring the ball
race, which is sunken upon its lower edge and is hooded by a flange, up to the ball
bearings located within a corresponding aunnlar ball race sunken within the
thickened or flanged edge of a fixed junction lug carried at the upper end of a
tubular socket or sleeve, to which the framing members of a machine are connected,
and within which the post rotates.
The cone or bell-shaped sleeve of the top adjustment has an annular rack, with
which a tooth of a detent or spring engages for keeping the cone or bell in its
adjusted position.
The adjustment hereinbefore described has been that of the upper ball bearings,
and the adjustment of the lower bearings is practically the same as the upper
once.
Instead of the split socket being made separate from the clip the eyed lugs may
be made integral with the socket which is cross split, and woimed upon its inside
for taking upon a correspondingly screwed part of the post or supplementary
thickening sleeve made fast thereon. A screw pin passes through the eyed lug of
the sochet, upon the under edge of which (in the top bearings) come the ball
race, which is hooded by a flange.
To prevent the socket rising upon the post, we cross-gap the post lying within
the socket, and cause the side of the shank of the screw pin which draw the opposite
sides of the split together, to lie crosswise through the gap in the post, hence the
preventing of the sing of the sleeve upon the post.
Or the rising may be prevented by a screw being passed both through the sleeve
or post, or the innei tube.
Dated this 8th day of May 1895.
ROBERT FREDERICK HALL,
FREDERICK WATERS,
By Henry Sherrett,
Agent for Applicants.

page_text: We, ROBERT FREDERICK HALL Managing Director of The Cycle Components
Manufacturing Company Limited, of "Ferndale," Church Road, Moseley, near
the City of Birmingham, and FREDERICK WATERS, of the Alma Street Branch
of The Cycle Components Manufacturing Company Limited, Birmingham aforesaid,
Manager of Works do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement:―
This invention relates to improvements in the ball head adjustments of safety
bicycles and tricycles.
Figure 1 of the accompanying drawing represents a ball head with its adjustment
made according to my invention.
Figure 2 is a vertical section of the same.
Figure 3 represents a topside plan of Figure 1.
Figure 4 is a section of Figure
upon the dotted lines x-x, looking downwards.
Figure 5 is the detent or catch for locking the supplementary ball-race-carrying
sleeve Figure 7.
Figure 6 is the clip-lug separately.
Figure 7 is the supplementary ball-race-carrying alcove separately.
Figure 8 shows the screwed and split upper end of the steering post.
Figure 9 is the lower adjustment socket or sleeve carrying a ball race at its 1
upper end.
Figure 10 is a cross section of Figure 7.
The same letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in the several figures
of the drawing.
a 13 the post, working within a socket or sleeve b, with the upper end of it split 2
at a', and wormed upon its outer sido at a², upon which a partly cross split lug-
clipe, having lugs and being screwed at the upper inside part e, of it and drawn
together or closed at the upper part by a cross pin d, having a flat d', upon one
side of its head, takes and screws. The lower part of the said clip is unyielding
and is outside screwed at e, upon which a supplementary inside screwed adjustment 3
sleeve e, having locking gaps or serrations e, around its upper edge and having a
ball race 2, takes, and upon which it is capable of rising and falling when rotated,
80 as to set up the said ball race e, to the ball bearings, which run within. the
ball race 6, at the top of the socket b.
gis a rising and falling catch, with the long eye g', of it taking upon the shank 3
of a screw pin h, carried by the clip and with the end of it adapted to engage
within one or other of the gaps or serrations e', in the sleeve e, for the purpose of
locking the ball bearing sleeve in its set-up or adjusted position.
is the adjustable down bar of the handles, which is made fast to the post by the
closing-in of the split parts of the end of the post on the drawing-to of the clip 4
by the screw pin d, which draws together the lug ends. The bearings are set up
by first lifting the catch y, and rotating the supplementary adjustable sleeve and
on the same being brought down with its race coming upon the balls, the
catch 3, is then allowed to drop, its tooth end to engage with one or other of the
gaps e, of the sleeve. Then by the screwing up of the piu 4, the catch is itself 4
made rigid and the supplementary adjustment sleeve 18 locked in its adjusted
position.
It will be thus seen that no releasing or derangement of the handle bar is
necessary before the adjustment of the ball head can be effected, as according to
any improvements, tho said adjustment can be made without in any way interfering

page_text: with the handle bars, so that the two adjustments, viz. :—handle bars and ball head,
are perfectly independent of each other.
Figure 11 represents a modification of my invention, in which the supplementary
adjustment sleeve is carried by the socket of the steering post.
a is the adjustable sleeve, inside screwed and rising and falling upon the outside
screwed upper end of the socket b and secured in position by a nose end of a
catch g, engaging with one or other of a series of notches formed in the underside
edge of the said sleeve, which said catch is carried by the socket and is held in its
locking position by a screw, spring or equivalent.
"
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim 18:
First. In the ball heads of cycles, employing in connection with the lug clip,
or its equivalent, a supplementary and independent adjustable sleeve carrying a
ball race or contact, substantially as and for the purpose described and set forth.
Secondly. In the ball heads of cycles, employing in connection with the lug clip
or equivalent part, a supplementary and independent adjustable sleeve, carrying a
ball race or contact and held in its adjusted position by a locking device such as
represented in Figures 1 to 11, substantially as and for the purpose described and
set forth.
Thirdly. In the ball heads of cycles, the modified form of independent
adjustment described and represented in Figure 12.
Fourthly. The improvements in the ball heads of cycles, whereby independent
adjustment of the same can be effected without interfering with the handle bars,
substantially as herein described and set forth.
Dated thin Osh day of December 1895.
ROBERT FREDERICK HALL,
FREDERICK WATERS,
By Henry Skerrett,
24 Temple Row, Birmingham, Agent for Applicants.