A MACHINE FOR BREAKING, CLEANING, AND PREPARING FLAX, HEMP, AND OTHER VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES CONTAINING FIBRE
Year: 1822

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
BUNDY, of Fulham, in the County of Middlesex, Mathematical Instrument
Maker, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of His United Kingdom, bearing
date at Westminster, the Sixteenth day of December, 1822, in the third
year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said William Bundy, my
exors, adiñors, and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole privilege and
authority, that I, the said William Bundy, my exors, admors, and assigns,
during the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of
Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also in all His Majesty's Colonies and Plantations
abroad, my Invention of "A MACHINE FOR BREAKING, CLEANING, AND PREPARING
FLAX, HEMP, AND OTHER VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES CONTAINING FIBRE;" in which
said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso that if I, the said William
Bundy, shall not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument
in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to be inrolled in His

page_text: Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent, that then the said
Letters Patent, and all liberties and advantages whatsoever thereby granted,
shall utterly cease, determine, and become: void, as in and by the same,
relation being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
William Bundy, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly
described and ascertained in and by the Drawings hereunto annexed, and the
following description thereof (that is to say):-
My Machine for Breaking, Cleaning, and Preparing Flax, Hemp, and
other Vegetable Substances containing Fibre, consists of a series of vibrating
levers connected together and actuated by eccentric rollers, which may be put
in motion by manual labour, or by any other suitable power. In the Drawings,
Fig. 1 is a perspective view of one of these machines, containing a number of
beaters; Fig. 2 is an end view drawn to scale; and Fig. 3 is a section of the
same, cut across the machine, and shewing its external construction, the
respective letters referring to the same parts in each Figure. a, a, a, is the
standard or frame by which the operating parts are supported; b, b, are the
rocking frames carrying the lines of grooves g, h, g, h, into which the beaters
strike; these are made capable of falling back on joints i, i, at bottom, by
which they are attached to the standard; c and d are the lower and upper
beaters, of which I propose to. employ. six. in. cach row, as shewn in the per-
spective view, Fig. 1; to the lower beaters c the teeth or. grooves e, e, are
fixed (as seen particularly in the section, Fig. 3), to the upper beaters D
other teeth ff, are fixed, both rows of which teeth are intended to strike
into the corresponding rows of teeth or groove g, h, fixed to the frames b, b;
k and are two shafts extending through the machine; to one of these the
first mover gives a rotatory motion (by means of a winch or rigger),
which is communicated to the other by the gearing of a pair of toothed
wheels respectively attached to the ends of the shafts k and 1, though
not seen in the Drawing. Upou the shafts. I and there are fixed eccentric
rollers n, n, corresponding in number to the beaters, in the crutched parts
of which they act, and by their eccentric revolution cause. the beaters. to
vibrate.
Having thus far explained the general construction of the principal parts of
my machine, I proceed to describe their operation:-I take a quantity of the
flax in the stem (say one pound or thereabouts, according to its length), and
having spread it out evenly upon a flat surface, confine the root end between' a

page_text: pair of clams o, o; these clams are then placed in front of the machine, and
hooked on to the cords p, p, in the perspective view, the flax hanging down
between the beaters, as seen in Fig. 3). The rocking frame b is now to be
brought up from the situation shewn on the right-hand side of Fig. 3, to that
shewn on the left of the said Fig. by means of a lever q, which rocking frame
is then held in a perpendicular position by the bearing arms r falling into
-notches in the rail of the frame. Rotatory motion being now communicated to
the axles and 7, the eccentric rollers n, n, will cause the beaters c and d
to vibrato and strike the flax into the grooves g and h for the purpose of
breaking the clams or woody part; but in order to prevent the fibre from being
crushed by the violent force of the beaters, the resisting grooves of the rocking
frame are rendered slightly elastic by removing a portion of the substance of
the rocking frame, and thereby producing a spring. At the end of the
shaft there is an endless screw 8, as shewn in Figs. 1 and 2, which is
intended to actuate the wheels and axles t, t, for the purpose of coiling the
cords p, p, and thereby drawing up the clams with the flax by a slow pro-
gressive motion from the bottom to the top of the frame. The manner of
effecting this will be seen by the lines p, p, and pulleys shewn by dots in Fig. 1,
and also a counter-weight employed to balance the clams, which will be
necessary when the wheel and axle is out of gear. When the clam has
ascended sufficiently far up the front of the machine to have drawn the whole
length of the flax through the teeth of the beaters, the rocking frame 6 is
thrown back, and the wheel and axle t drawn out of. gear by the clam
striking against the arm which hangs down in the centre of the front of the
machine. These rods are connected to the levers w, w, Fig. 1, and by
their ascent lift the rods x, x, and levers y, y (shewn particularly in Fig. 2),
which levers y, y, coming in contact with small arms extending from the bearing
arms r, raise them out of their notches and cause the rocking framesto fall back,
as seen on the right-hand side of Fig. 2. Immediately after this a small pin in
the rod. lifts the latch and thereby releases the hanging lever & from it's
catch. This lever & is connected by a rod to the frame of the wheel and axle
t, which is pressed outward by a spring, so that by raising the latch = the hang-
ing lever is unlocked and enabled to draw the wheel and axle on one side,
and release its teeth from the endless screw s, thereby causing the coiling of the
cord p and the further ascent of the clams to be discontinued. The clams
with the flax will now descend by their gravity, and on the lever q being made
to force up the rocking frame as before, the parts will be thrown in gear, and
the operation be repeated until this end of the flax is sufficiently clean. After
this the clams are to be taken out of the machine and the flax turned, by

page_text: which the reverse ends of the stem may be operated upon in like manner
until perfected clean. In order to loosen or seperate the fibre and clear off
the boon after being broken, I employ a row of needle or hackle points, which
may be single or double, and also a lath, both of which extend along the
front of the machine, as seen particularly at Fig. 1. The hackle points I fix
by casting them in metal and attaching them in a convenient length (say, three
inches, with ten points to the inch) to a wooden rail A, connected by arms to
the shaft B; the lath C is also held by arms to the shaft D, and powerful
helical or worm springs are coiled round the shafts for the purpose of impelling
the hackle points and edge of the lath inwards, so as to enter or press against
the flax. These points and lath are withdrawn from the flax at every stroke
of the beater, by means of the rod E jointed to the arm of A, against which
the beater strike and causes the points and lath to retire, while the retro-
grading of the beater enables the points again to strike into the flax and
seperate its fibre.
As the machine above described is composed of many mechanical agents
and parts which are common to a variety of other pieces of mechanism,
I do not claim any of those agents or parts as new in themselves, distinct
and away from their present combination and object. But the construction of
a machine applicable to the breaking and cleaning of flax or other fibrous
material from its boom by means of vibrating beaters with indentations, the
pressure to the line of beaters being given in regular divided times by eccen-
tric wheels on the shafts, so that each beater head (having two reversed faces)
gives two pressures in every revolution of the shaft, the contrivance for pro-
gressively passing the length of flax between those beaters, the springs which
are part of the frame that receives the pressure from the beaters, the regular
mode of passing fine hackles or needle points through the flax incessantly
while the operation of breaking is going on, and likewise adapting the same to
be worked by power upon the principle and in the manner above described,
being to the best of my knowledge and belief entirely new, and my own
Invention, I claim the solo privilege and right to the said combination, as
in and by the above-recited Letters Patent set forth and granted to me
exclusively.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Bundy, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fourteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and twenty-three.
WILLIAM (L.S.) BUNDY.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Fourteenth day of June, in
the year of our Lord 1823, the aforesaid William Bundy came before our
said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according
to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.