AN IMPROVED STOPPER AND DRAW OFF NOZZLE For BOTTLES CONTAINING AERATED AND OTHER LIQUIDS AND PROCESS OF DEODORISING AND SCENTING STOPPERS AND OTHER ARTICLES MADE OF INDIARUBBER
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Manuel Léopold Jonas Lavater and
William James Tranter at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the
27th March 1879.
MANUEL LEOPOLD JONAS LAVATER, of Paris, France, Civil Engineer, and
WILLIAM JAMES TRANTER, of Wednesbury, in the County of Stafford, Mineral
Water Manufacturer. "AN IMPROVED STOPPER AND DRAW OFF NOZZLE For
BOTTLES CONTAINING AERATED AND OTHER LIQUIDS AND PROCESS OF DEODORISING
AND SCENTING STOPPERS AND OTHER ARTICLES MADE OF INDIARUBBER."
This Invention relates, 1st, to an improved construction of indiarubber plug or
stopper for stoppering or closing bottles, more particularly bottles containing
aerated or effervescing liquids; 2nd, to a syphon stopper for unstopping such bottles
and drawing off the contents; and 3rd, to a process of deodorising and scenting
these indiarubber stoppers as well as other articles made of vulcanised india-
rubber.
Our improved stopper consists at the upper part of a solid head of sufficiently
small diameter to pass through the neck of the bottle, and at the lower part of a
hollow and preferably slightly conical portion of larger diameter than the solid head,
open at the base to the interior of the bottle, and forming a sort of cup or cavity of
which the sides are sufficiently thin to be readily expanded by the internal pressure,
and so become adapted to any irregularity in the configuration of the bottle neck
and make a perfectly tight closure, with which object also the sides are preferably
diminished in thickness towards the lower edge. On the outer periphery of the
stopper where the cupped or hollow base part of larger diameter unites with the
solid head of smaller diameter, a shoulder or flange is formed which bears against
the inner rim of the bottle neck.
In order to open bottles thus stoppered we provide a sort of syphon stopper which
serves as a pusher to drive the indiarubber stopper above described into the bottle,
and also as a means of drawing off the liquid without spilling. It consists of a
stopper of suitable length and diameter, which when inserted in the mouth of the
bottle displaces the indiarubber stopper and at same time itself fits tightly in the
bottle neck. It has a thoroughfare through it terminated in a suitable nozzle for
the passage of the liquid. The thoroughfare may be open, in which case the nozzle
would be so directed, as in the case of aerated liquids, to discharge the contents of
the bottle when the latter is in an upright or nearly upright position into the glass
or other vessel placed beside it.

page_text: The thoroughfare may however be controlled by a cock or by a rotary valve
operated by the nozzle itself, or by a spring push valve consisting of a sliding rod
having an indiarubber valve at the inner extremity and an indiarubber washer at
the outer extremity, serving at once as a spring to close the valve and to prevent
the liquid escaping otherwise than by the nozzle.
In order to deodorise stoppers and other articles made of vulcanised indiarubber,
we first partly desulphurize them in the usual solution of potash. We then place
them in a close vessel in vacuo, whereby the uncombined portion of the sulphur is
_completely extracted and the indiarubber is thus freed from the principal cause of
its decay and of its offensive odor, namely, sulphuretted bydrogen. The articles are
now subjected in the same vessel to the pressure of compressed air or gas, or to
hydraulic pressure in order to fill the pores of the indiarubber opened by the
desulphuring process, and at the same time when required the pores of the indiarubber
are impregnated with some perfume (previously introduced in the same vessel)
which remains permanently imprisoned in the mass of the rubber and contributes
in a great measure to its preservation.