IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR MAKING PAPER BAGS
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Amasa Mason at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 10th
September 1870.
I, AMASA MASON, of Boston, Massachusetts, United States of
America, now of No. 8, Southampton Buildings, London, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY
FOR MAKING PAPER BAGS," to be as follows::
The nature of this Invention consists in the general arrangement of
the machine for the purpose of making paper bags with more ease and
rapidity than can be obtained by other machines.
I provide a frame made of suitable material and dimensions in the
sides of which all the rollers and shafts have their bearings; at one end of
this frame is the roller on which the paper to be made into bags is rolled.
The paper is carried around the roller between it and the paste box,
which box is fastened in the side of the frame. In this box is a shaft with
turned by a band around
a pasting wheel fastened on it which shaft is
pulleys on the ends of the said shaft and another shaft or roller when
the paper is carried forward, thereby turning the last-mentioned shaft

page_text: or roller.
The pasting wheel in this manner distributes the paste on
the edge of the paper, and it may be moved to any point on the shaft
according to the size of the bags being made. The paper being thus
carried around and over the roller and its edge pasted is brought in
between two rollers, one of which I call the forwarding roller, the same
being fastened in the centre of its shaft. These rollers carry the paper
forward over the knife which moves on a slightly inclined plane in slots
in the sides of the frame and is operated by a cam wheel on the main
driving shaft. This wheel. lifts a lever fastened to a rocking shaft
whereon the knife is secured by means of other levers, so that when
the first-mentioned lever is lifted or raised by the cam wheel the knife
will move backward in the aforesaid slots. A spiral spring fastened
to and under the rocking shaft lever and in the side of the frame
moves the knife forward again into its proper place. The teeth of
this knife extend further in the centre than on the sides, according to
the width of the bag which is being made, and fit exactly into corre-
spondingly cut teeth on another knife, so that the paper is cut by the
two knives coming into contact with each other. The last-mentioned
knife is fastened to collars on a revolving shaft. Spring forwarders
fastened to the collars press the paper that has been cut against a sliding
plate and carry it forward till the edge of the paper is under the forward
end of a former, and on two india-rubber carriers which run around a
roller fastened on a shaft. On the end of this shaft is a pulley which
by means of a band around the same drives or turns a pulley on a shaft
which is provided with another roller at the other end of the said former
and around which the rubber carriers already mentioned run, thus
carrying the paper bag forward under the said former. When the paper
first enters between this former and the rubber bands on the roller its
edges are turned up by guides which are properly bent and held in
position by suitable arms, and as the paper is carried forward by
the rubber carriers under the aforesaid former the edges thus turned up
will slip in under the folders, thus forming a tube while passing on
around the former; but to prevent the premature dropping of the pasted
edge of the paper down on the other edge, a holder is fastened on the
former which holds the pasted edge up until the bag is formed by the
folders. One, two, or more rollers serve to hold up the rubber carriers
against the bottom of the aforesaid former when carrying the bag
forward, they have rings at proper distances apart around them to hold
the rubber carriers at any required distance from each other, so that when

page_text: the bag arrives at the roller over which the carriers pass there will be
a space between them to allow a roller fastened on a shaft above the
carriers to press the pasted edge down.
The bag thus formed and pasted together has one side of its bottom
(the lower one) longer than the other, as the paper is cut unevenly by
the arrangement of the teeth in the two knives, and when the bag has
passed between the last mentioned two rollers, this lower end of the bag
will extend on and through a plate which is bent over and has a slot cut
through the bent portion. Through this slot the bag passes, its lower
or bottom end is pasted by a pasting roller, and the folder turns the edge
thus pasted down, the bottom of the bag being brought down between
a pair of cylinders or rollers and passing between these cylinders drops
down beneath the machine. These cylinders or rollers are turned by
cogged wheels on their journals and on a shaft inside the frame. The
pasting roller is supplied with paste from a large roller which runs in a
paste box and which is turned by means of a band and pulleys. This
pasting roller and the folder work perpendicularly in grooves on the
sides of the frame, being operated by means of bell cranks on rock
shafts and arms or rods attached to levers near the main driving shaft, so
that when the latter is turned a cam wheel will press the levers forward
with the rods or arms and then turn the bell cranks so that the folder
and pasting roller are moved downward, spiral springs attached to the
said levers will bring them back and the folder and pasting roller will
move up again.
The machine is operated by means of a crank on the main or driving
shaft and by means of gear wheels turns the various rollers and gives
motion to the other parts of the mechanism. Instead of allowing the
finished bags to drop down under the machine they may be made to
come out at the end of the machine by means of bands passing around
a roller and beneath the aforesaid pair of cylinders or rollers to and
around another shaft with a similar roller under or beneath the forward
end of the former; this shaft may be operated by a pulley and band from
one of the said cylinders or rollers.
To make bags of different sizes; one of the gear wheels can be changed
for either a larger or smaller wheel, the other gear wheels being set
closer together or farther apart; these wheels are fastened in slots on the
side of the frame to allow them to be so moved. For the same purpose
the knives must also be changed. The folders can be moved cither out

page_text: or in to suit the former which must be changed according, to the width
of the bag required.
I may also employ a movable guard on the revolving knife to
press
the paper
down beneath the circle of its motion in order
that the knife may pass without interfering with the paper in its 5
passage.