A METHOD OF MAKING A MACHINE FOR CUTTING PAPER ON A DIFFERENT PRINCIPLE FROM ANY HITHERTO USED
Year: 1806

page_text: FOURDRINIER'S SPECIFICATION.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, HENRY
FOURDRINIER, of Sherborne Lane, in the City of London, Stationer and
Paper Maker, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-fourth day of
July, in the forty-sixth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said
Henry Fourdrinier, my exors, admors, and assigns, His special licence that I;
the said Henry Fourdrinier, my exors, admors, and assigns, during the terin
of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and
also in all the Colonies and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "A METHOD
OF MAKING A MACHINE FOR CUTTING PAPER ON A DIFFERENT PRINCIPLE FROM
ANY HITHERTO USED;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained' a
proviso obliging me, the said Henry Fourdrinier, by an instrument in writing
under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my
said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months after
the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, relation
being thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Henry Fourdrinier, do hereby declare that my said Invention, and the

page_text: manner in which the samo is to be carried into effect and practice, are
described in manner following (that is to say):-
In the Drawings hereunto annexed Figure 1 represents, by an upright
section, the frame and mechanism of an apparatus for carrying and cutting
with a knife or strait edge.
Figure 2 represents the same apparatus by an upright section by a plano at
right angles to the plane of the section Figure 1, and Figure 3 represents the
whole of my said machine by an upright section, and Figure 4 represents the
same machine by an horizontal section or ground plan, and throughout each
of the said Drawings the same letters of the alphabet do severally denote the
same things. Letter A shews the axis and handle by which a small vertical
wheel is turned. The wheel A drives another wheel B, which communicates
with a third wheel C, upon the axis of which is a smaller wheel or pinion
which drives the horizontal wheel of a screw, which carries down a frame,
having at its lower part or termination a knife or strait edge, placed or disposed
so that the line of the said edge shall be at right angles to the run of the screw.
In Figures 3 and 4 a well connected horizontal frame is exhibited, round
which are endless web or cloth L, M, N, O, is made to circulate by means
of the wheels, cylinder, and leading rollers, which are clearly shewn at
I, K, R, N, or otherwise the said web may be fastened to cach of the end
rollers or cylinders I, K, and worked by winding and unwinding the same
instead of making the said web endless by joining its extremities; the upper
part L, M, of the said cloth or web, supported by a table or platform which
constitutes the upper part of the framework, and upon the said upper part a
number of similar blocks or pieces are laid close beside cach other (as repre-
sented by the parallel lines and divisions along the lines L, M, in Figure 8),
and upon the said blocks or pieces the paper usually consisting of a great
number of long pieces or sheets is placed or laid. P, P, represents a frame or
carriage for receiving and supporting a roller containing a quantity of tho said
paper, to be applied or disposed upon the platform by rolling back the carriage
as.occasion may require. The structure of my said machine being thus com-
pleted, I make use of the same as follows:-When a portion of the paper
hath passed to a sufficient distance beyond the knife towards the end K, I
depress the said knife by turning the bandle A, and cut off the said portion,
which may amount to a ream, more or less, according to the charge or number
of long pieces or sheets put into the machine. This being done, I remove the
said portion to cut off, and also the block or blocks or pieces of wood which
were disposed beneath the said portion, and I do also place other blocks beneath
such additional portion of the length of paper as shall or may have been

page_text: brought forward upon the other end of the platform towards I, by the working
of the machine as aforesaid, or laid down by means of the carriage p, and in
this state of the operation I again raise the knife, and then turn the handle or
handles, which give motion to the web and to the paper thereon, until a like
portion or any other acquired portion or part of the said paper shall have
advanced, as before, beyond the said knife towards the end K, and I then cutt
off and remove the said second portion; and I do proceed in the manner afore-
said until the whole of the paper applied to or placed or disposed in or upon
my said machine is or shall be cut into such portions, or reams, or quantities, as
the nature and kind of the goods and the demands of the market may require.
And lastly, I do declare that my said machine may be constructed with
considerable variations, as to the form, dimensions, and structure of the
several parts of the same respectively, but that such and the said variations are
not needful to be described to any workman who may or shall be sufficiently
skilled in merchanical constructions to be employed in works of this or the
like nature.
In witness whereof, I, the said Henry Fourdrinier, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-third day of January, in the year of our
HENRY FOURDRINIER. (L.S.)
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-third day of January,
in the year of our Lord 1807, the aforesaid Henry Fourdrinier came before
our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowleged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according
to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Twenty-third day of January, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and seven.