and other Fibrous Materials.
Year: 1885

page_text: and other Fibrous Materials.
We ALEXANDER FERGUSON, of N° 15, Deepdale Terrace, Preston, in the County
of Lancaster, Mill Manager, and JOHN ELCE, of N° 9 Hopwood Avenue, Manchester,
in the said County, Machine Maker, do hereby declare the nature of said Inven-
tion for IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR OPENING AND CLEANING COTTON AND
OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS, to be as follows:-
The chief object of our Invention is to adapt an opening or cleaning machine to
clean cotton and other fibrous materials of different lengths and qualities and our
Invention is chiefly applicable to the machines known as "Lords exhaust openers".
and "Crighton's openers."
In applying our Invention to an opening machine we substitute for the ordinary
cone beater or beaters a hollow conical cylinder or cylinders the outer surface of
which is provided with teeth or knives secured firmly to the cylinder; doors are.
employed by which the end or ends of the cylinder or cylinders may be closed
when desired. The cylinder is connected to the beater shaft at each end by arms
or otherwise.
The conical cylinder is surrounded by grate bars as usual.
When the machine is used for cleaning certain classes of cotton, the ends of the
cylinder are closed and the cotton passes from the feed port on to the conical
cylinder where it is beaten and opened in its passage to the fan.
When opening or cleaning the better classes of American, Egyptian, and Sea
Islands cotton the operation of beating may be advantageously dispensed with and
in such cases we open the door at the end of the cylinder to the feed port and close
the space between the cylinder and its surrounding grate bars; the opposite end of
the cylinder is also opened to the fan and after the machine is set in motion the
cotton passes directly through the hollow cylinder into the fan whence it passés in
the ordinary manner over grate bars to the cages..
The cylinder may be lined to form a tube of equal diameter for the cotton to
travel through.

page_text: COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Machinery for Opening and Cleaning Cotton
and other Fibrous Materials.
We ALEXANDER FERGUSON, of N° 15 Deepdale Terrace, Preston, in the County
of Lancaster, Mill Manager, and JOHN ELCE, of N° 9 Hopwood Avenue, Manchester,
in the said County, Machine Maker, do hereby declare the nature of said Invention
for IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR OPENING AND CLEANING COTTON AND
OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to
be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement :-
The chief object of our Invention is to adapt an opening or cleaning machine to
clean cotton and other fibrous materials of different lengths and qualities and our
Invention is chiefly applicable to the machines known as Lord's exhaust openers
and Crighton's openers.
In applying our Invention to an opening machine we substitute for the ordinary
cone beater or beaters a hollow conical cylinder or cylinders the outer surface of
which is provided with teeth or knives secured firmly to the cylinder; doors are
employed by which the end or ends of the cylinder or cylinders may be closed
when desired. The cylinder is connected to the beater shaft at each end by arms
or otherwise. The conical cylinder is surrounded by grate bars as usual.
When the machine is used for cleaning certain classes of cotton the ends of the
cylinder are closed and the cotton passes from the feed port on to the conical
cylinder where it is beaten and opened in its passage to the fan.
When opening or cleaning the better classes of American, Egyptian and Sea
Islands cotton the operation of beating may be advantageously dispensed with and
in such cases we open the door at the end of the cylinder to the feed port and close
the space between the cylinder and its surrounding grate bars the opposite end of
the cylinder is also opened to the fan and after the machine is set in motion the
cotton passes directly through the hollow cylinder to the fan whence it passes in
the ordinary manner over grate bars to the cages.
The cylinder may be lined to form a tube of equal diameter for the cotton to
travel through.
And in order that our Invention may be fully understood and readily carried
into effect we will describe the accompanying Sheet of Drawings, reference being
had to the figures and letters marked thereon.
Figure I is a sectional elevation of part of a horizontal opening machine to
which our Invention is applied; the beater cylinder is in this view shown as
arranged when opening short stapled cotton and Fig. 2 is a similar view to Fig. 1
the doors of the beater cylinder being shown as arranged when treating long
stapled cotton according to our Invention.
In these views. a is the trunk or tube and a¹ the feed port through which
cotton or other fibrous material is drawn into and through the machine by the
action of the rotating fan b; c is the hollow cone or conical cylinder constructed
according to our Invention with teeth c¹ secured to its outer surface; the cone c is
secured upon the fan shaft 61 with which it revolves, by the arms c² or otherwise
F

page_text: and is surrounded by the conical grid d; e is the door or damper which we employ
to close the end of the cone c when opening short stapled cotton as illustrated by
Fig. 1.
When opening long stapled cotton the entrance to the space between the outer
surface of the cone c and the grid d is closed by a door or damper f and the
damper e is opened so that the cotton passes freely through the inside of the conical
cylinder c as illustrated by Fig. 2; g is the grid or grate bars over which the fibre
passes in the ordinary manner from the fan b to the cages h h¹ on to the creeper i,
or to the ordinary beater in a combined opening machine.
The doors or dampers e and fare or may be plain rings or strips of metal secured
by bolts or otherwise to two or more arms secured on the shaft b¹ so that by
removing the beater cylinder or cone c from the machine and substituting the
ringe for the ring f, or vice versâ, an opening and cleaning machine of either the
horizontal or vertical type fitted with our improvements can be readily altered to
clean either short or long stapled cotton.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said
Invention and in what manner the same is to be performed we declare that what
we claim is―
1. The herein described improvements in machinery for opening and cleaning
fibrous materials, said improvements consisting chiefly in constructing and arranging
such a machine to adapt it for cleaning cotton and other fibrous materials of
different lengths, qualities, and staples.
2. In an opening or cleaning machine, the combination with a revoluble
cylinder surrounded by a grid and provided with beater teeth or knives on its
outer surface of doors or dampers arranged to control the passage of the cotton or
other fibrous materials, substantially in the manner and for the purposes herein set
forth.