IMPROVE- MENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR CUTTING COAL
Year: 1872

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Benson, of Allerwash, near Hexham,
in the County of Northumberland, for the Invention of "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR CUTTING COAL."
Sealed the 22nd May 1872, and dated the 21st March 1872.

page_text: or wrought-iron arms or spokes cast into a boss, the said arms being
caused to enter the rim of the wheel, which may be of wrought iron at
or near the upper and lower edge, alternately crossing each other, and
being set in the boss at alternate sides, thereby imparting greater stiffness
to the wheel; additional stiffness is obtained by introducing a metal
V shaped ring above and below the arms alternately. These arms are
secured by nuts or are rivetted into the said rim. The cutters are
fitted in one or more tiers, by preference three, into the periphery of the
wheel, which should project sufficiently beyond the side of the carriage
or framing of the machine to make the greatest depth of cut required.
The vertical shaft which carries the cutter wheel is driven through the
intervention of any suitable or well-known arrangement of reversing
gear acted upon by a clutch and lever, or by quick pitched screws and
gearing.
The gearing preferred in this machine is that known as the wedge and
groove friction gearing, although ordinary toothed gearing may be
employed. This gearing is set in motion by means of a wire, Mannilla,
or other rope, which by preference extends between the drums of two
separate and distinct winding engines situate one at each end of the
working, the said rope being caused to pass partially or entirely round
a V groove or gripping pulley mounted on the driving shaft of the
machine.
In some cases a single engine with two drums may be used, the rope
being guided, as in the roundabout system of steam ploughing, round
any required number of guide pulleys, the said rope being wound on to
one drum as it is uncoiled from the other, and vice versa, till it completes
the line of work set out to be cut. When making the return cut, the
cutters in the wheel may be reversed, or the wheel itself may be taken
out and turned so as to present the cutters in a reversed direction. The
machine is caused to travel to and fro along the working by means of a
separate rope and hauling drum or drums, the latter being worked at
a slower speed and being of smaller diameter than the actuating or
driving drums. In using this machine the cutter is brought up to the
end of the working, a groove of the full required depth is commenced,
which groove is continued along the entire stretch of the working. The
coal is then broken down and removed, as is well understood, after which
the machine is caused to travel back again. The actuating rope which
was previously running in one direction, and has been wound on to one

page_text: of the drums, is now driven in the contrary direction and wound on to
the other drum, the motion of the cutter wheel having been reversed in
the meantime in order to ensure the constant rotation in the same
direction of the said cutters.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
BENSON, of Allerwash, near Hexham, in the County of Northumberland,
> send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-first day of March, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-two, in the 35th
year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give
and grant unto me, the said William Benson, Her special license that I,
the said William Benson, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or
such others as I, the said William Benson, my executors, administrators,
or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time
to time and at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands,
and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR
APPARATUS FOR CUTTING COAL," upon the condition (amongst others) that
I, the said William Benson, my executors or administrators, by an
instrument in writing under my hand and seal, should particularly
describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed
in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said William Benson, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
nerformed to be nartioulasly desoxibed and

page_text: following statement, reference being had to the accompanying Drawings,
and to the letters and figures marked thereon, that is to say :-
:-
My said Invention relates to a peculiar combination and arrangement
of machinery or apparatus for cutting, "holeing," or "winning" coal,
and in the mode of driving or actuating the same, and consists in the use
of a horizontal cutter wheel of about 4 or 5 feet diameter, composed
of steel or wrought-iron arms or spokes cast into a boss, the said arms
being caused to enter the rim of the wheel, which may be of wrought iron,
at or near the upper and lower edge, alternately crossing each other, and
being set in the boss at alternate sides, thereby imparting greater stiffness
to the wheel; additional stiffness is obtained by introducing a metal
wedge-shaped ring above and below the arms alternately, which arms
may be secured by nuts or may be keyed or rivetted into the said rim.
The cutters are fitted in one or more tiers, by preference three, into the
periphery of the wheel, which should project sufficiently beyond the side
of the carriage or framing of the machine to make the greatest depth
of cut required, say from 18 inches to 2 feet. The vertical shaft which
carries the cutter wheel is driven through the intervention of any
suitable or well-known arrangement of reversing gear acted upon by
a clutch and lever, or in lieu of the lever by quick pitched screws and
gearing. This gear is set in motion by means of a wire, Manilla, or
other rope, which may extend between the drums of two separate and
distinct winding engines, situate one at each end of the working, the
said rope being caused to pass partially or entirely round a V grooved or
gripping driving pulley mounted on the driving shaft of the machine.
In some cases a single engine with two drums may be used, the rope
being guided, as in the to-and-fro system of steam ploughing, round any
required number of guide pulleys, and wound on to one drum as it is
uncoiled from the other, and vice versa, till it completes the line of work
set out to be cut. When making the return cut the cutters in the wheel
may be reversed, or the wheel itself may be taken out and turned, so as
to present the cutters in a reversed position. The machine is caused to
travel to and fro along the working by means of screw and worm gearing
driven from the cutter shaft and driving one of the axles of the machine,
or in lieu of this a separate rope and hauling drum or drums may be
used, the latter being worked at a slower speed and being of a smaller
diameter than the actuating or driving drums. In using this machine
the cutter is brought up to the end of the working, a groove of the full

page_text: required depth is then commenced, which groove is continued along the
entire stretch of the working. The coal is then broken down and
removed, as is well understood, after which the machine is caused to
travel and cut its way back again. The actuating rope which was pre-
viously running in one direction, and has been wound on to one of the
drums, is now driven in the contrary direction and wound on to the
other drum, the motion of the cutter wheel having been reversed in
the meantime in order to ensure the constant rotation in the same
direction of the said cutters.
And in order that my said Invention may be fully understood I shall
now proceed more particularly to describe the same, and for that purpose
shall refer to the several Figures on the annexed Sheets of Drawings, the
same letters of reference indicating corresponding parts in all the
corresponding Figures.
Figure 1 (Sheet 1) of my Drawings represents a side elevation of my
improved coal cutting machine as placed on its rails; Figure 2 is a
corresponding transverse section of the same (taken along the line 1-2
in Figure 1), showing the reversing and other gears in connection there-
with; Figure 3 is a plan of the top of the machine, corresponding to
Figure 1, and showing the arrangement of pulley gearing, round which
the driving ropes are passed to and from the actuating drums for working
the machine; Figure 4 is a horizontal section (taken along the line 3-4
in Figure 1), shewing the cutting wheel, the gearing for driving the
same, and the propelling gear for moving the machine forward whilst
the cutting is being performed; and Figures 5 and 6 are details drawn
to an enlarged scale of the cutting wheel.
A is the framing of the machine mounted on the running wheels B,
which travel along rails C laid parallel to the face of the working. On
the top of the frame A there are fitted to rotate horizontally the five
V grooved pulleys D, E, F, G, and H, the four smaller pulleys serving
to guide the actuating ropes I and K on to and off the central and main
actuating large pulley D, which is formed with double grooves one for
each of the ropes, the rope I being caused to pass once round the pulley
in order to obtain a better hold thereon, whilst the return rope K only
passes over a portion of the periphery of the said wheel. This pulley ])
is fast on a vertical shaft L rotating in bearings attached to the framing
and carrying the spur wheels M and N, connected together by the sliding

page_text: clutch O, which latter with the said two wheels slides on a feather in
the shaft L. This clutch and spur wheels are actuated by the clutch
lever P in order to throw the wheels M and N into or out of gear.
The lever P may be fixed in its position by the rack P¹. The wheel M
when in action gears into a corresponding spur wheel Q fast on the axis
of the cutter wheel R, herein-after more fully described, and the wheel N
when in action (as shewn in Figure 1) gears into the carrier or inter-
mediate spur wheel S, which gears into a third spur wheel T mounted
on the axis of the cutter wheel. The object of the two sets of
gearing M, Q, and N, S, T, is for the purpose of reversing the motion
of the cutter wheel without changing the direction of motion of the
driving ropes when required, that is to say, on arriving at the end of the
working, and on commencing the back cut, by simply throwing the
wheels N or M into or out of action by the clutch lever, as will be
evident on referring to Figure 2. The reversing gear also enables the
motion of the ropes to be reversed without involving thereby the reverse
motion of the cutter.
Although I find this arrangement of reversing gear to answer well in
practice, I do not confine myself thereto, as other well-known reversing
movements may obviously be employed, one of which I shall herein-
after describe in reference to Sheet 2 of my Drawings.
On the axis of the cutter wheel there is mounted a worm U, which
drives a worm wheel V fast on an inclined shaft W, working in bearings
attached to the main framing. The lower end of this shaft carries a
worm W' which gears direct into a worm wheel X mounted loosely on
one of the running axles of the carriage. Y is a sliding clutch mounted
on the same axle and engaging with the said worm wheel, the said
clutch being thrown in or out of gear according as the machine is
required to move forward or to stop by means of an ordinary clutch
lever not shewn in my Drawings. The cutter wheel R (shewn at
Figures 5 and 6) is situate underneath the carriage, close down to the
rails, and is by preference about four or five feet diameter. The arms or
spokes a are of steel or wrought iron, and are cast at their inner ends
into the cast-iron boss b, their outer ends entering the steel or wrought-
iron rim c at or near its upper and lower edge alternately, so that they a
will cross each other, the arms which enter the boss or hub near its
upper edge being caused to enter the rim near its lower edge, and vice
versa, as is clearly shewn in Figure 5. d is a metal wedge-shaped ring,

page_text: which is disposed between the two series of arms for the purpose of im-
parting additional stiffness to the wheel, the inner ends of the arms
being clamped so as to nip and keep the ring d securely in its place
whilst casting the boss. The outer ends of the arms may be secured
into the rim either by nuts, keys, or rivetting. The actual cutters e, e,
of which I prefer to use three tiers or annular series, disposed at different
heights round the rim, may be secured to the said rim by nuts or keys,
or in any other suitable manner. The rope I, K, may consist of one
rope passing at one end of the working round a carrier drum or pulley,
whilst at the opposite end of the working the two ends of the rope I, K,
are respectively wound on to and unwound from two separate drums
driven from a portable steam engine, as herein-after more fully explained
in reference to Sheet 3 of my Drawings.
When it is required to reverse the cut, the cutter wheel may be slipped
from off the lower end of its shaft by first removing the nuts f, then
turned over so as to reverse the position of the points of the cutters, and
again secured in its place, when on reversing the gear in the machine,
or on reversing the ropes by throwing what was previously the winding
drum out of gear, and throwing into gear the drum from which the rope
was in the first instance unwound, the machine may be made to re-
traverse the face of the working in an opposite direction, and cut its way
backwards.
By adopting what is known in steam ploughing as the "round-about"
system, it is obvious that the driving rope I, K, may be led through
several workings, and be made to actuate two or more coal cutting
machines simultaneously in different parts of the pit, as herein-after
described in reference to Sheet 3 of my Drawings.
Figure 1 (Sheet 2) of my Drawings represents a side elevation of a
slightly modified arrangement of my coal cutting machine fitted with a
vertical driving pulley and bevel gearing in lieu of with a horizontal
driving pulley and spur gearing, as illustrated on Sheet 1; Figure 2 is a
transverse vertical section of the machine; and Figure 3 is a plan of
the same.
A is the main framing; B are the running wheels; C, C, are the rails;
and D is the main single V grooved driving pulley rotating vertically,
and made fast on the horizontal shaft L; E and F are vertical guiding
pulleys for guiding the actuating part of the rope on to and off the

page_text: pulley D, the return rope or that part which does not act directly upon
the pulley being caused to pass over separate carrier pulleys fitted on to
the machine or otherwise arranged. The shaft L works in bearings a, a,
secured to the main framing, and has keyed on to one end a bevel
wheel M, which may either be a toothed wheel or a friction wheel, as
shewn in my Drawings, and which drives one or other of the two friction
bevel wheels N and Q cast in one piece with the sliding collar O, which
works on a feather in the vertical shaft P of the cutter wheel R. This
collar is raised or lowered slightly, as herein-after described, in order to
bring one or other of the wheels N and Q in contact with the wheel M
according to the direction in which the cutter wheel is to be driven.
This adjustment of the sliding collar O along the shaft P may be effected
in various ways, but I prefer to adopt the arrangement shewn in my
Drawings, which consists of a horizontal frame b engaging into an
annular groove in the collar, and secured at each end to the lower ends
of the two vertical screw spindles d, d, having quick pitched screw
thread formed on each. The upper ends of these screw spindles work in
an internal screw made in the boss of each of the spur wheels e, e.
These spur wheels are maintained in their position vertically by means
of the boxes f, f, which are bolted down on to the main framing and
serve as the guides for the screw spindles. Both the wheels e, e, gear
into the larger spur wheel g, on the axis of which there is mounted the
reversing lever h. On shifting this lever along its quadrant guide i,
the wheel g imparts a rotating motion in one direction or the other to
the two spur wheels e, e, the fixed nuts or internal screwed bosses of
which by their rotation round the screw spindles cause them to rise or
fall, and elevate or lower the clutch frame, thereby moving the sliding
collar O and bringing one or other of the bevel wheels N or Q, as the
case may be, into contact or gear with the driving wheel M. By having
a retaining notch or catch at each end and in the centre of the quadrant
guide, the reversing lever h can be fixed in a position for driving the
cutter wheel in either direction required, or can be fixed in a central
position, as shewn in my Drawings, wherein both the wheels N and Q
will remain out of gear with the wheel M, and consequently the cutter
wheel will cease to work. The feed or propelling motion of the machine
may be taken from the shaft L by a shaft fitted with a worm and driving
a worm wheel on one of the axles of the machine, as herein-before
described, or in any other suitable manner.
Figure 4 (Sheet 2) represents an end elevation and partial vertical

page_text: section of an arrangement of combined winding drums and steam engines
for driving the ropes which actuate the coal cutting machine according
to my Invention. A is a stout travelling frame mounted on wheels B, B;
and carrying in suitable bearings C, C, a crank shaft D, which is driven
by an oscillating steam engine E, E, at each end of the platform of the
frame. On the crank shaft D there are mounted loosely the two winding
drums F, F, and between these drums there is fitted the double-friction
clutch G, which is moved to and fro along a feather or feathers on the
shaft, by a clutch lever H (shewn in dotted lines) or otherwise, the
object being to throw into gear one or other of the two drums whilst the
other drum is out of gear or running loosely on its shaft. The ends of
the rope I, K, before referred to, are coiled in the same direction on
the two drums, so that the driving motion will be reversed without
reversing the engines by simply changing the position of the friction
clutch. The pulley L is shewn for the purpose of illustrating the
actuating of the drums by a separate engine and rope, the engine being.
situate either in the pit or on the bank. M, M, are friction surfaces for
break straps.
Figure 1, on Sheet 3 of my Drawings, represents a sectional plan of,
the workings of a coal mine, shewing the mode of driving one or more.
cutting machines on the "to-and-fro" system, as herein-before men-
tioned, one machine only being shewn in my Drawing. In this Figure
(1) represents a solid mass of coal, and 2 is the working face of the
same. A is my improved coal-cutting machine, and I, K, is the ac-
tuating rope, herein-before referred to; 3 is an anchor pulley, round
which the rope I, K, is passed at the extreme end of the working;
4, 4, are guide pulleys for guiding the ropes round the various angles of
the workings; and 5 represents a pair of winding drums situate near the
pit 6. These drums may either be driven direct from a pair of engines
mounted on the same frame, as herein-before described in reference to
Figure 4, on Sheet 2 of my Drawings, or they may be mounted on and
actuated by a portable engine in the same manner as the drums em-
ployed in steam ploughing, or if it be preferred, to keep the steam
power on the surface, the winding drums may be driven by an endless
rope 7 from an engine at or near the top of the pit, the said rope being
guided up the shaft to the engine by suitable tension guide pulleys 8
at the bottom of the shaft.
Having now described and particularly ascertained the nature of my

page_text: said Invention, and the manner in which the same is or may be used or
carried into effect, I would observe in conclusion that what I consider
to be novel and original, and therefore claim as the Invention secured to
me by the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent, is,―
First. The peculiar construction of cutter wheel, and the peculiar
combination of machinery for actuating the same for cutting coal, as
herein-before described.
Second. The system or mode of driving or actuating the rotatory
cutters of my improved coal-cutting machines by means of single rope
grooved pulleys, and coiling and uncoiling drums worked by steam or
other power, substantially as herein-before described.
Third. The peculiar combination of driving rope grooved pulleys and
reversing gear for driving in either direction required the horizontal
rotatory cutter wheel of my improved coal-cutting machine, as and for
the purpose herein-before described and illustrated by my Drawings.
Fourth. The driving or actuating of machinery for cutting coal, on
what is known in steam ploughing as the to-and-fro system, by means
of a single rope, which is simultaneously coiled on to and uncoiled from
two separate drums, substantially as herein-before described.
1
In witness whereof, I, the said William Benson, have to this my 2
Specification set my hand and seal, the Nineteenth day of Sep-
tember, One thousand eight hundred and seventy-two.