Improvements in Reversible Seats or Chairs for use on Tramcars, Char-a-bancs, and also for Garden-seats, Deck Seats and for other Out-door Seats.
Year: 1899

page_text: Date of Application, 25th Oct., 1899
Complete Specification Left, 10th Apr., 1900-Accepted, 7th July, 1900
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Reversible Seats or Chairs for use on Tramcars,
Char-a-bancs, and also for Garden-seats, Deck Seats and for other
Out-door Seats.
I, SAMUEL CRAVEN NUTTER, of 27, Queen's Road, Halifax, in the County of
York, Tailor, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
My improvements in such reversible chairs consist in making the seat of a
series of parallel lengths of horizontal wire made secure at each end to a cross-bar
or roller, and in order to stiffen these horizontal metal wires, I may employ
cross-wires placed at any suitable distance apart. The ends of the horizontal
wires may be connected to rollers capable of being turned on their axes, for
tightening the said horizontal wires. The wire employed may be tinned or
It is
galvanised; or it may be made of copper or other suitable material.
evident that if the seats are made of wire, as above described, rain descending
upon them cannot lodge upon the wire, but will pass through the interstices or
small openings formed by the meshed wire. By means of my improvements
the seats of tramcars and the like will always be practically dry, both in fair
and wet weather. Chairs made as above described will be very durable, and cheap
in construction. The said seats require no attention, as the rain descending
upon them will pass between the spaces formed by the wire bars.
Dotad this 4th day of October 1899
TASKER & CROSSLEY,
Patent Agents, Halifax, Agents for Applicant.
Improvements in Reversible Seats cr Chairs for use on Tramcars,
Char-a-bancs, and also for Garden-seats, Deck Seats and for other
Out-door Seats.
I, SAMUEL CRAVEN NUTTER, of 27, Queen's Road, Halifax, in the County of
York, Tailor, 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:—
The object of my invention is to produce a chair or seat for outdoor use,
which, when the weather is wet and rain is falling, will not collect the drops
of water upon the surface of the seat, but will, by virtue of the construction of
the seat allow the same to readily pass away, so that any person or persons
desiring to use the chair or seat may sit in comfort, and without his or her
clothing picking up and absorbing the rain and moisture, which if the seat was
011

page_text: made in the ordinary manner of those now in public use might lie upon the
surface of the seat for some time; also to achieve this desirable end without
the aid of any mechanical or moveable contrivances whatever.
For this purpose I form or construct my seat by attaching and securing a
series of straight, smooth, stout, noncorrosive, parallel wires to a rectangular
frame of wood, the four sides of which represent the crossbars to which I attach
and secure the wires, whether placed lengthways of, or across the seat.
In the rectangular frame I fix inner stays, over which the wires are placed--
and to which I sometimes may also additionally secure them-in such a manner,
that when a person or persons uses the seat to sit upon, the weight of the persons
is instantly transferred from the wires, upon which they sit, to the framework
of the seat..
I may also strengthen and tie the stout wires by a series of thinner and more
flexible wires placed across and around them at suitable distances apart, securing
the ends of the same to the wood framework.
Or I may sometimes omit the smaller transverse wires, and bind the stout
wires to the inner stays with strips of non-corrosive sheet metal, or with wire
staples.
In order that my invention may be more fully understood and easily carried
out, I will more particularly describe the same and refer the reader to the
drawings on the accompanying sheet.
The figures represent the construction of a seat suitable for two persons, such
as a tramcar seat. Seats may be constructed of any length upon the principies
here shewn and explained.
A, A, B, B, Fig. 1 represents a rectangular frame of wood, the outside frame
of the seat of which A, A, are crossbars to which I attach and secure my stout
wires when placed lengthways of the seat, and B, B, the crossbars to which I
affix the wires when placed across the seat.
C, C, C, C, and D are interior rods or stays fixed in the rectangular frame, and
may be either round or rectangular. These rods serve a threefold purpose.
They give strength and rigidity to the rectangular frame; prevent the wires
which pass over them from bending or sagging under the weight of the persons
sitting upon them; and transfer the weight and strain in a great measure from
the wires to the wood framework; and they should be fixed in the rectangular
frame so, that when the wires are placed in position on the frame A, A, B, B,
they nearly or just touch the wires. The stout wires are those to which I refer
here.
When I desire to construct a seat with stout wires placed lengthways of the
scat, as shewn in Fig. 2, I cut grooves or recesses in the crossbars A, A, at
suitable distances apart, in which to rest the ends of the stout wires.
The grooves or recesses E, E, I cut to the same depth as the diameters of the
wires to be used; one eigth, three sixteenths, or one quarter of an inch in
diameters, or any intermediate or other guage as may be desired.
The wires F, F, Fig. 2 may be cut to the exact length to reach across the
seat, and rest in the grooves E, E, E, or they may be cut to such a length as will
admit of them being turned at right angles at each end for about an inch, and
holes of the same diameters as the wires may be drilled in the outside ends of
the grooves E, E, and the turned ends of the wires put down into the holes with
a hammer.
When the stout wires are all placed in position, I secure them there by
screwing down over them, at each end, a thin plate of non-corrosive metal.
The stout wires F, F may now be strengthened by transverse wires H, H, H.
The wire used for this purpose must be comparatively fine and soft so that it
can be easily passed around the thicker wires and drawn tight around them,
as represented in Figs. 3 and 4. Either of the methods of wiring there repre-
sented may be used.
These transverse wires should be placed at suitable distances apart, and the

page_text: ends of the same I take over the top edges of the frame B, B, and pass through
holes drilled through the same to the other side of the frame, and there make
them secure by hooking the ends around a flat headed brass nail provided for
cach end, and putting down the nail heads tight over the hooked ends of
the wires.
By these methods of cross wiring, shewn in Figs. 3 and 4, the stout wires F, F,
are held firmly and securely in position by loops of wire.
A shallow groove may be cut in the woodwork of the frame B, B, for each wire
where it passes over the frame, in which the wire may rest level with, or slightly
below the surface of the frame B, B.
I may sometimes make my seat without the transverse wires H, H, H, and
secure the stout wires F, F, direct to the rods C, C, C, C, with strips of non-
corrosive sheet metal-such as zinc, aluminium, or phosphor bronze--a half or
three quarters of an inch in width; screwing the same over the wires to the
rods C, C, C, C, in the manner represented in Fig. 6.
The wires, at the central rod D may be secured with non-corrosive wire
staples driven over the wires into the central rod 1. In this manner the wires
are made secure against lateral disturbance and fixed in a secure position without'
those sitting upon the wires feeling any uncomfortable irregularities.
I may also sometimes construct my seat, by placing the stout wires across the
seat in the direction of its breadth as shewn in Fig. 5, resting the wire rods in
grooves cut in the crossbars B, B, and securing the same with strips of non-
corrosive sheet metal fastened along from end to end of the seat; or by a beading
of wood secured over the ends of the wires to the crossbars B, B. When making
the seat this way I fix the rods C, C, C, a little lower in the rectangular frame
to admit of two stout wires K, K, being laid across them from end to end of
the seat, the stout wires F, F, being placed above and across the wires K, K,
as shewn in Figs. 7 and 5.
It will now be seen and understood that when a person or persons use a seat
constructed in either of the ways here described, and which is mounted upon
suitable supports for the purpose of a seat, that the stout wires F, F, F, are
pressed down directly upon the rods C, C, C, C, D, and the weight of the persons
is immediately transferred from the wires to the wood framework A, A, B, B.
By these means the wires F, F, are prevented from bending, sagging, or
stretching, and the use of smooth, straight wires are rendered practicable for
seat construction. It will also be seen, that when rain is falling, and the seat
is out of doors, that it will rain through the seat, and that the drops of rain
which fall upon the wires are immediately broken up and drop off, it being
physically impossible for water to remain upon the upper surfaces of round
smooth wires.
Fig. 1 shews the frame of the seat A, A, B, B, and the arrangement of the
stays, C, C, C, C, D). These stays may be rods of wood, round, about three
quarters of an inch in diameters; or they may be rectangular, half an inch in
thickness, by one inches and a half in depth. E, E, E, E, are the grooves for
the reception of the wires F, F, Fig. 2.
Fig. 2 shews the stout wires F, F, F, in position, and secured at one end by
a plate screwed over them. H, H, H, shews the finer transverse wires; the
marks across the stout wires on the central rod 1 represent the wires fastened
to the rod D with staples.
Figs. and 4, are cross sections of Fig. 2, and shew two methods of fixing
the finer transverse wires around the stout wires F, F, and passing the ends of
the same to the underside of the frame B, B.
Fig. 5 shews arrangement when the stout wires F, F, are placed across the
seat, K, K, being two stout wires placed across from A to A over the rods C, C.
Fig. 7 shews cross section of the same.
Fig. 6 shews my method of securing the wires F, F, to the rods C, C, with
strips of sheet metal about half an inch in width.

page_text: Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, what I claim as of my
invention is:-
1st. The construction of a seat for out door use by arranging, placing, and
securing upon a rectangular frame of wood or crossbars, provided with an inner
series of stays or rods C, C, C, C, D, as shewn in Figs. 1, 2, and 5-a series of
straight, smooth, stout, non-corrosive parallel wire rods, resting the same in
grooves cut in the framework of the seat, at suitable distances apart; the said
wire rods being placed as may be desired either lengthways of the seat, or across
the seat in the direction of its breadth.
2nd. Lacing and strengthening these stout wire rods with thinner and flexible
transverse wires placed across and around them at suitable distances apart as
shewn in Figs. 2, 3 and 4.
3d. Securing the stout wire rods against lateral disturbance by screwing thin
strips of non-corrosive metal over the wires down to the inner rods or stays
Figs. 1 and 6; or by securing the wire rods down to the same with non-corrosive
wire staples.