IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING MACAROONS AND OTHER FANCY CAKES AND BISCUITS FROM SOFT DOUGH
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Daniel Morey Holmes at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 4th July 1877.
DANIEL MOREY HOLMES, of New York, in the County and State of New York,
United States of America, and temporarily of Harrington Square, in the County
of Middlesex. "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING
MACAROONS AND OTHER FANCY CAKES AND BISCUITS FROM SOFT DOUGH."
This Invention consists in improvements in a machine for making fancy biscuits
and cakes, such as macaroons, ratafias, and sponge cakes, of soft dough or
batter, for which Letters Patent were granted to Alexander Melville Clark, bearing
date April 3rd, 1876, No. 1425, and also in additional apparatus for applying a
coating of powdered sugar, cocoa nut, or other material to the top of the biscuit
or cake. The improvements in the machine for making the biscuits or cakes have
for their object to make it more convenient in use and reliable in operation.
The Invention consists in the combination of movable plungers with the hollow.
cutters, the cutter plate, and the dough box of a biscuit-making machine; in the
combination of the plungers, the cross bar and its spring and stops, the two pairs of
sliding bars and the two pairs of cams, with the cutters, and their cross bar and the
driving shaft; in the combination of the ratchet wheel, the forked pawl, the lever, the
spring, and the connecting rod with the roller of the endless carrier, and with the
driving shaft; in the use in connection with a dough box having holes for the dis-
charge of the dough, and pans with moulds to receive the same; of a stopping or a
propelling device for ensuring the proper correspondence of the moulds with the
holes of the dough box, and an endless carrier arranged to feed the pans either
beyond or short of the point at which they are required to stop, according as the
one or the other device is employed; in the combination of the slide bar provided
with the two arms, the bent lever and the sliding bar provided with the two forked
arms, with the cross bar of the plungers and the two clutches for throwing the gear
wheels into and out of gear with the swivelled screws that operate the plungers;
and in the combination of the two gear wheels and the three gear wheels with the,
two shafts, to enable one of said shafts to be driven in either direction by the
continuous movement of the other in the same direction, as herein-after fully
described.

page_text: The dough box is at the upper forward part of the machine frame. It may be
made in one or more compartments, each provided with a plunger entering at the
rear, and at the forward side of the dough box is formed an extension, the
bottom of which is at a lower level than the bottom of the main part of the dough
box. The bottom of the extension of the dough box can be detached and replaced
by another when desired, and in it are forined one, two, or more round holes which
are deeply bevelled off or countersunk on the upper side and slightly bevelled upon
the lower side, all much as described in the said former Patent. The extension is
secured in place by dowel pins, and by a board placed against its forward side and
held against it by wedge keys or set screws driven between it and grooved blocks
attached to the frame. The ring cutters are also similar to those described in the
former Patent and act in the same way, but in this case the stems of the cutters
are made hollow, pass up through the top of the extension of the dough box, and their
upper ends are attached to a cross bar which moves up and down upon guide pins
attached to the said extension near its ends, and is forced down to cause
the cutters to make a cut by spiral springs placed upon the upper part of said guide
pins, and confined between the cross bar and the heads of the said pins.
Within the cavity of the cutters are placed cylindrical plungers whose lower ends
are concaved, and whose stems pass up through the hollow stems of the cutters and
are attached to another cross bar placed above the first one and kept in place by
the same guide pins, the holes for their passage being made large enough to allow
the spiral springs to pass through and work freely in them. The upper cross bar is
placed downward to disengage the ring of dough from the cutters by a spiral spring
placed upon the upper part of a screw, passing freely through the upper bar, and
screwed into the lower cross bar.
The point to which the plungers descend in the cutters is regulated by set screws
on the upper cross bar striking against the lower cross bar. The ends of the cross
bars rest upon the upper ends of pairs of vertical sliding bars which pass down
through guides and rest upon cams attached to the ends of the driving shaft.
The endless carrier for the pans passes around rollers which revolve in bearings
attached to the frame. To one of the journals of the forward roller is attached a
toothed wheel with which engages a pawl pivoted to the upper part of a lever
which rides upon the said journal and is attached at its lower end by a connecting
rod to a crank pin attached to one of the cams above mentioned.
The lower end of the pawl is made forked, so that by adjusting it to bring one
or the other of its branches into contact with the toothed wecel, the endless carrier
may be carried in either direction by the driving shaft which always revolves in the
same direction. The pawl is held in place when adjusted in either position by
a spring attached to the wide upper end of the lever. The spring rests upon a
shoulder formed upon, or a pin attached to, the pawl, and is covered and protected
by a flange formed upon the upper end of the lever.
The pans in which the dough is deposited from the dough box have rows of
concave depressions or moulds formed in them corresponding in arrangement to
the holes in the dough box, and to bring these moulds directly beneath the holes of
the dough box, a stopping or a propelling device is employed, and the endless
carrier is adjusted to feed the pans rather beyond, or not quite rp to, the point
required, as the case may be. The stop motion consists of a pair of levers, one near
each side of the pans, with arms arranged to drop down in front of turned-up
flanges or ribs on the pans, the said levers being so operated by cams on the
driving shaft as to arrest and hold the pans at the precise point required, whilst the
endless carrier moves farther on.
The propelling device may be a pair of levers near either side of the pans with
pawls engaging with flanges, ribs, or notches on the pans, said levers being
connected to a lever operated by a cam, as before. In this case the endless carrier
stops before the moulds in the pans arrive quite beneath the holes in the dough box,
the propelling device continuing the movement of the pans until they arrive quite
at the point required. Both devices may be provided with means for accurately

page_text: adjusting them, and they have the advantage of putting the pans straight upon the
carrier if they should happen to be fed one end in advance of the other. A second
cross shaft parallel to the first or driving shaft is driven therefrom through an
intermediate longitudinal shaft and bevel gear. This second cross shaft has a gear
wheel at each end in gear, the one directly and the other through an intermediate
wheel with gear wheels running loosely on the ends of a third cross shaft. This
shaft may be revolved in one or the other direction, according as the one or other of
the sets of wheels are thrown into gear. The shaft is geared by bevel gear wheels
with two screws swivelled to the frame and passing through nuts or screw holes in
a cross bar, to which are rigidly attached the stems or rear ends of the plungers, so
that the latter may be pushed forward or drawn back, according as the screws are
turned in one or the other direction, and upon the shaft are placed two sliding
clutches to engage with the inner ends of the hubs of the loose gear wheels before
referred to, so that either of the said wheels may be made to carry the shaft with
it as desired by shifting the clutches. Around the clutches are formed ring grooves
to receive the forked ends of arms which are rigidly attached to the ends of a cross
bar slotted to receive the bolts by which it is secured to and allowed to slide upon
the machine frame; or it may slide in keepers attached to said frame, so that by the
movement of the said bar either of the clutches may be thrown into gear with its
gear wheel as required. The transverse sliding bar is connected to one arm of a
bent lever pivoted at its angle to the frame or other support, and to its other arm
is pivoted the rear end of a longitudinal sliding bar, to which are attached two
arms near the ends of the swivelled serews above mentioned, against which the end
of the cross bar to which the plungers are attached strikes as the plunger completes
its movement in either direction, so as to operate the clutches and reverse the
motion of the plunger automatically at the proper time. To the transverse sliding
bar is connected a lever pivoted to the frame or other support, so that the clutches
may be shifted to reverse or stop the motion of the plunger by hand.
The pans into which the dough has been dropped are removed from the said
machine by hand, or preferably by a pair of lever arms operated by suitable
mechanism and arranged to be alongside the endless carrier beneath the pans, which,
as they arrive successively over the said levers, are lifted by the levers and turned
over on to the apparatus for coating the surface of the biscuit with sugar, desiccated
cocoa nut, or other fruit or powdered substance.
This apparatus consists of a water bed formed of a flexible waterproof fabric
floating on water or other liquid contained in a pan to which the edges of the
waterproof fabric are secured. This fabric is buoyed up by the liquid beneath it,
and it is covered with a thick layer of sugar or other powdered substance to be
applied to the dough in the moulds.
When the pan is inverted and deposited on this water bed, the fabric is pressed.
up by the water beneath into the hollows of the pan until the layer of sugar or
other substance upon it comes in contact with the soft dough in the moulds.