Year: 1886

page_text: I ABRAHAM MARTIN, of 177 Aston Lane, Witton, near Birmingham, in the
County of Warwick, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to
be as follows:-
My invention relates to a means of more readily and conveniently securing and
adjusting a lamp wick in position in the lamp whether the wick be tubular
or flat.
I will describe the invention as applied to a tubular wick, which may either
be a complete tube or be bent to a tubular form.
The wick-holder consists of an internal support for the wick of tubular form,
and of an external clasp or clamp in the form of two semi-cylindrical jaws adapted
to embrace the wick, placed upon the inner support, the jaws being hinged together
and held closed upon the wick by the case or tube within which the wick and its
holder slide up and down.
The clamping jaws are provided with holes to permit access of the oil to the
wick and with a rack for the pinion to gear with by which the height of the wick
is adjusted.
The clamp is provided with vertical ribs which are received in corresponding
grooves in the case or tube in which it slides up and down.

page_text: I ABRAHAM MARTIN, of 177 Aston Lane, Witton, near Birmingham in the
County of Warwick, Engineer do hereby declare the nature of this invention
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described
and ascertained in and by the following statement :-
My Invention relates to an improved means of securing and adjusting a Lamp-
wick in position in the Lamp. The Invention, although described in connection
with a tubular wick may with slight modification be applied to a flat wick. The
Invention as applied to a tubular wick consists in a wick holder or clamp formed
by two semi-cylindrical jaws hinged together and adapted to clasp and hold the
wick in, combination with an internal supporting tube for the wick, the clamp being
held tightly closed around the wick and its supporting tube by the wick casing.and
being provided with a rack formed by punching a row of holes in the clamp for
the wick-adjusting pinion to gear with.
Reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings forming part of this
specification, wherein figure 1 represents a half sectional elevation figure 2 an
elevation (partly broken away) at right angles to figure 1 and figure 3 a plan of a
lamp provided with my improvement. Figures 4 and are perspective views of
the two parts of the wickholder separately. Figure 6 is a similar view of the
wickholder as adapted for a flat wick.
The same letters of reference indicate the same parts in all the figures.
The oil-reservoir has a central vertical tube a rising from the bottom of the
reservoir to the top of the burner and open throughout for the supply of air within
the flame. Upon this tube which constitutes the inner wall of the burner or wick
case the tubular wick b and its internal supporting tube c slide. d d are the two
semi-cylindrical jaws forming the clamp. They are made of sheet metal bent to a
curvature corresponding to the outer circumference of the wick and are hinged
together at e and provided at the free edges with outwardly turned flanges f which
are received and slide up and down in a groove g made in the outer wall h of the
burner, the flanges and groove serving to hold the jaws clasped tightly upon the
wick without any other fastening. The hinge e may be received in a similar
groove at the opposite side. In one of the jaws, slots i are punched in a vertical
row extending from top to bottom, the intervening portions of metal constituting
a rack for the engagement of the ordinary pinion k whereby the height of the wick
may be adjusted. Both jaws have also holes punched in them to permit access
of oil to the wick, and to enable the jaws to obtain a firmer grip of the wick. The
internal supporting tube c is of the same length as the clamp and it slides freely
on the tube a. Being removable, the wick can be easily slipped on to the tube c
and clamped by the jaws d before being placed in the lamp. The outer tube or
wall h is made in two parts of which the lower part is fixed upon the reservoir and
the upper part is removable with the rest of the burner and if, as is usually the
case, the burner is secured to the reservoir by a screw, bayonet, or equivalent joint
necessitating the partial rotation of the burner upon the reservoir, it is necessary,

page_text: before giving it this motion, whether for fastening or unfastening, to move down the
wick and its holder until the latter is clear of the movable part and is held only by
the groove of the lower fixed part of the tube h.
By means of this wick-holder a wick of the largest size can be easily and
uniformly raised and lowered by means of a single pinion. The wick holder above
described can also be applied without alteration to a flat wick bent to a tubular
form and be used in other kinds of lamps.
In the case of a simple flat wick lamp the holder would be modified in form (as
shown in Figure 6) so as to clamp the wick on opposite sides (no internal
supporting tube being of course used) the wick holding tube being held closed on
the wick by sliding within the fixed outer tube, as before.
In the case of a duplex lamp, one such holder would be used for each wick.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is :-
1. A holder for a tubular wick constituted by a pair of semi-cylindrical jaws
hinged together at one side, and embracing the wick as herein described and held
closed in any suitable manner in combination with an internal supporting tube for
the wick, substantially as herein specified.
2. A wick holder formed of a pair of jaws hinged together at one side and
embracing the wick as herein described in combination with a rack and pinion for
adjusting its position, substantially as specified.
3. A wick-holder formed of a pair of jaws hinged together at one side and
embracing the wick and held closed at the opposite side by flanges at their free
edges, entering and sliding in a groove in the surrounding tube of the wick casing
or burner, substantially as described and shewn.
4. A wick-holder constructed and held closed upon the wick as herein described
and having a rack formed in the manner described for engagement with the
adjusting pinion.