IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR WORKING AND SPLITTING WOOD FOR VARIOUS USEFUL PURPOSES
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Hardinge at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 6th April 1881.
JAMES HARDINGE, of 177, Finborough Road, South Kensington, in the County
of Middlesex, Consulting Engineer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR WORKING
AND SPLITTING WOOD FOR VARIOUS USEFUL PURPOSES."
My Invention relates to improvements in machinery, which may be used for
various useful purposes in connection with the working or adapting of wood, by
which in one machine divers operations may be performed, such as mortising,
mitreing, and tenoning wood at any angle, also firewood and other wood splitting,
and with which may be combined arrangements for boring, grooving, sawing, lath
punching, and other purposes.
This Invention consists in an arrangement for readily setting the mortising,
mitreing, or tenoning tool to the desired angle. According to my Invention the
guides in which the cutter block or carrier slides are not fixed in one position as
usual, but are made adjustable, and are so arranged that the mortising, mitreing, or
boring can be accomplished at any angle. The carrier guides are made in the form
of a quadrant, which is pivoted at its lower end to the frame of the machine.
The quadrants have teeth cut in their internal diameter from a certain distance
from where they are pivoted. A pinion wheel actuated by a worm and worm-
wheel moves these quadrants, so that they can be adjusted with the greatest ease
and with facility and without loss of time. The quadrants are graduated to
facilitate the adjustment of the tool to any desired angle.
For mitreing it is only necessary to replace the mortising tool with a boring
tool. This boring tool is actuated by the bevel gearing attached to the cutter
block or carrier, and the feeding is accomplished by means of the mortising lever.
The table on which the timber to be acted upon is placed is clamped by means
of a suitable screw clamp so arranged as to be movable by means of a double
threaded screw and hand wheel.
In using the machine for any purpose or operation of mortising, mitreing,
or boring, the tools can be set and held at any angle by means of the binding
screws.
My Invention consists further in adapting and using the machine above
described for splitting firewood for tenoning or punching by the insertion of

page_text: tools suitable therefor, and the addition of arrangements suitable for the bundling
and tying up of firewood; and by my improved method of constructing the several
parts of the machine and the mode of working the same, greater facilities than are
possessed by machines heretofore constructed are obtained.
These improvements have for their object mainly the cutting up of short blocks
of timber into firewood, but they adapt the machine also for cutting up wood for
many other purposes.
The main improvements consist in constructing the knife, chopper, or cutter, either
in one piece or in several parts, with the cutting edges arranged at right angles to
each other. These knives or cutters are attached to a cast iron block or crosshead
which is suitably formed for carrying the same, and which is capable of moving up
or down in guides and is worked by means of cranks or other suitable devices; also
in the arrangement of a binding apparatus, by means of which the split material
can be made up into any sized bundle.
The material to be cut is fed beneath the knives either direct or at an angle, and
the machine vertically cuts or chops the wood at one action into any number and
size of pieces. The knife or knives can be constructed either separately or in Vor
other suitable forms, which can be properly fixed at suitable distances, or a single
cutter with the cutting edge set at an angle in the way hereinabove described may
be employed, but for various reasons it will be found preferable to form the cutting
tool of any convenient number of separate V shaped cutters arranged together and
firmly secured to a movable block or carrier, as above mentioned.
The bundling is accomplished by means of a suitably arranged mechanical
movement, which is so constructed as to be adjustable to form a bundle of any size
that may be desired.
The cut material as it falls down the shoot from the cutters will be carried away
on an endless band having an intermittent motion.
This band is divided into a series of compartments. As each division becomes
filled, the band moves away from the mouth of the shoot. At the end of
the band is fixed a curved receiver. As the cut material falls from the band on to
the receiver, it is gripped or compressed by two suitably arranged jaws or clamps,
an arm having a barbed end then descends over the material, bringing up the
string for binding. The two ends of the string can then be tied in the usual
manner, and the bundle on being released by the jaws thrown on one side, or the
binding can be arranged to be mechanically done.