Improvements in Combing Machines and in Machines for Preparing Fibres for Combing.
Year: 1888

page_text: [Communicated from abroad by JOSEPH IMBS, of 48, rue de Bondy, Paris, France,
Engineer.]
Improvements in Combing Machines and in Machines for Preparing
Fibres for Combing.
I, ERNEST DE PASS, of 68 Fleet Street, in the City of London, Fellow of the
Institute of Patent Agents, 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 reference being had to the accompanying drawings
and to the letters and figures marked thereon, as communicated to me, that is
to say -
This invention relates to improvements in certain parts of the combing machine
described in the specification of the British Letters Patent No. 2761, dated 4th June
1883 (granted to me as a communication from the said Joseph Imbs), and in a detail
of the carding machine preparing the fibres for combing, all of which are hereinafter
fully described.
In the accompanying drawings Figures 1 and 2 represent respectively a vertical
section of the principal parts of the machine, and a plan of a slide support for the
comb. These two figures are on a scale of about half full size.
Fig. 3 shews, full size, a detail of the feeding nipper.
Fig. 4 shews also a detail of the seizing nipper.
Fig. 5 has reference to a particular application of the Imbs extracting device
to the carding machine preparing the fibres for the combing operation.
According to my first improvement I calender and push, at the mouth of the feed
nipper, the fibrous fleece by means of a fluted roller C revolving on a planed support,
such roller being either placed on the nipper itself, and moving with it, or upon the
edge of the fixed table t receiving the fleece. The said roller is driven by means of a
chain, which is suitable for either case.
According to my second improvement I construct the feed nipper F, at its opening
and closing part, of two bars which work together on the fibrous fleece. R₁ is the

page_text: a
counter nipper whose distance, relatively to R², is adjustable so as to work beyond
the longest fibres that the seizing nipper A, A' may have to lay hold of. This counter
nipper is furnished with a strong pressure P¹. R² is the front nipper which advances
up to the edge of the side of the comb, it receives successively two different pressures,
slight pressure arising from its natural weight, and, if needed, a slight external
additional one P², during the seizing operation, then during the combing a strong
additional pressure to vigorously nip the fibres. R' is here only an intermediate
organ (the arrangement of which can be modified in several ways) which serves to
raise R and R³ during the feeding; to allow them to rest upon the fleece during the
seizing operation by their respective pressures, and finally to bear with all the power
of the particular pressure P³ upon R during the combing.
According to my third improvement the extraction of the combed fleece from the
seizing nipper A, A', is effected by a fluted roller a revolving intermittently in a
trough b, or trough portion, forming part of the lower nipper or fixed jaw A, at the
moment that the moveable jaw A¹ is raised vertically to receive from the feed nipper
the combed head just placed on the preceding tail. This fluted roller a is accompanied
by a clearing roller a¹, revolving without contact with the roller a, and in the same
direction as this roller, and which prevents all rolling around the roller a.
The intermittent rotary motion is imparted to the roller a (placed in the nipper A
which oscillates in front and at rear) at the moment that the nipper A is nearest to the
feed nipper F.
The shaft O carries a driver having one or two teeth d. In the former case, this
tooth causes the pinion D to describe a fraction of a revolution, and a pinion E
transmits, by means of a chain e, such motion to the pinions of the rollers a and a¹,
surrounded by this chain. A star pinion E ensures the accuracy of each rotation of
the pinion E, and an adjustable roller y determines the tension of the chain at the
moment that the nipper A, A' is quite apart, at which position the rotation of the
roller a
has to take place.
A metal sheet h, fixed to the nipper A, serves as a support for the combed fleece,
and as this sheet moves to and fro with the nipper it pushes in front of it, upon the
table T, the combed fleece which accumulates thereon while becoming narrower before
passing under the roller B which carries it towards the drawing rollers I, I, I. The
trough may be reduced to the width desired, provided that the roller a works against
a polished and straight surface, even very narrow, near the nipper proper; this will be
sufficient to ensure the carrying over and the superposition.
1
I further employ to move the trough roller a, a single driver Q (fig. 4) mounted on
the shaft O. This driver actuates and turns one tootli of the cross arm mounted on
the end of the roller a. At the other end the second roller a' carries a like cross arm q
which is likewise actuated by a second driver, similar to Q mounted on the opposite
extremity of the shaft O.
To the seizing nipper I only impart a single movement to separate it from the feed
nipper at the moment of the seizing. I no longer separate it after the combing of
the tail to remove this tail from the comb, as this gave it an unfavourable horizontal
direction. proceed, on the contrary, by leaving it simply closed and continuing to
approach the feed nipper, and only opening it when the comb, on descending has
completely abandoned the tail, this tail is thus perfectly and naturally inclined to
receive above it the head which must be joined thereto.
I am thus enabled to introduce the head above the tail until this head is taken up by
the roller moving at the same time, and thus to start spontaneously the feeding of the
empty seizing nipper, and an exact superposition without any back action, and without
any fold in the fibres, however short may be the same operated upon, which I could
not obtain before.
According to my fourth improvement, the comb X, which was hitherto actuated by
a series of gear wheels forming a knee joint, receives, while ascending and descending,
a continuous rotary motion by means of cords, or belts; this is effected in the following
manner." The shaft'0' carries a pulley V having one or more grooves for one or more
cords. Two rollers G, G, are placed at a height suitable for bringing back the two

page_text: ends of these cords in directions perpendicular to the plane travelled over by the axis
of the comb when this comb is in the middle of its travel. The grooved pulley of tho
comb, and this comb, may thus effect their ascending and descending travel without
appreciably altering the length of the cord, and this latter is at its maximum of
tension when the comb is either at the top or at the bottom of its travel, that is to say,
when it operates either for combing, or for being cleaned against the cleaning
brush K.
If the comb is formed of contiguous rings mounted upon an axis, I tighten all these
rings together upon such axis between two tapped nuts, or between one nut and a
shoulder of this axis. In order to ensure the rigidity of this axis in all cases, and to
allow an exact and unbending working of this comb in large size machines, 1 fit in a
strong and wide slide guide M, (figs. 1 and 2) each one of the long sleeves N which
carry the two extremities of the axis of the comb and whose stems n are bolted to the
comb holder.
According to my fifth improvement, and in order to ensure the correct penetration
of the comb pins in the head to be combed which is rendered as short as required, and
to prevent the fibres being pushed back above this comb, I apply to the feeding
nipper a blade S (fig. 3) under which is secured a thin and flexible sheet, of soft
material extending beyond the lower part of the blade, and whose lower edge is
regulated by the position of the blade so as to be grazed by the pins when the comb
arrives at the top of its travel. Strong paper of suitable quality, or parchment, fulfils
this object perfectly and does not leave any space for the escape of the fibres.
With the most simple combing machine, the carrying out of the combing is always
comparatively expensive if the preparatory carding cannot be effected on a large
production. Unless the sheet of fibres supplied by the doffer of the carding machine
is loaded and thickened, which is bad, the production by the usual carding machines
is always limited by the speed of the detaching comb of the doffer, which doffer is
consequently maintained within the limits of a circumferential speed of from 25 to
30 metres per minute at the maximum. For the purpose of being able to impart
much greater speeds to the doffer, and to the whole carding machino, I apply to such
machine (fig. 5) as the extracting device of the doffer A, an extracting piece analogous
to that which I have devised for the seizing nipper of the combing machine, that is
to say, a roller Y (either fluted or covered with a suitable clothing) working in a
polished trough U. This roller has obviously a continuous rotary motion whose
speed is not limited like that of an intermittent detaching comb. I thus, moreover,
impart to my extracting device an excess of speed over that of the doffor, thus
causing the fibres from the doffer to become straightened and parallel, much better
than in an ordinary sheet of fibres, which is suitable for the subsequent combing.
Besides, the trough U may be reduceed to a very small width, a very small fixed
straight and polished surface in contact with the roller in close proximity to the
doffer sufficing to produce the action of a continuous nipper carrying the fibres away
from the doffer.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said inven-
tion and in what manner the same may be performed I claim, as communicated to
me by my foreign correspondent,
1. In a combing machine the combination with a feeding nipper of a front nipper
subjected to pressure in two positions, a slight pressure during the seizing, and a
strong one during the combing, as hereinbefore described and as shewn.
2. In a combing machine, the method consisting in bringing the combed head
towards a seizing nipper holding the combed tail naturally deviated or inclined by the
action of the circular comb, and in introducing the head above the tail through the
open nipper until it reaches a roller contained in the nipper and causing friction by
turning at this moment against the exterior surface of the nipper, adjusted and
suitably polished for this purpose, as hereinbefore described and as shewn.
3. In an Imbs combing machine, or, in an analogous machine, the combination
with the extracting device of a second clearing roller having no contact with the

page_text: trough roller and turning in the same direction, as hereinbefore described and as
shown.
4. The combined mechanism of the driver of the star pinion and of the chain
surrounding the pinions of the rollers of this extracting device, or the mechanism of
the drivers acting directly upon the cross arms of the rollers in order to move these
rollers, as hereinbefore described and as shewn.
5. In an Imbs combing machine having a rapid and moveable rotary comb, the
general mode of actuating by cords or belts such rotary comb, and the particular
mode of obtaining a maximum tension of these cords or belts at the active positions
of the comb, as hereinbefore described and as shewn.
G. In an Imbs combing machine having a rapid and moveable comb of small
diameter, the mode of execution ensuring the rigidity of the axis of the comb,
consisting in fitting the long sleeves of this axis in suitable and fixed wide slide
guides, as hereinbefore described and as shown.
7. In a combing machine the use of a thin and flexible sheet of paper, or of
parchment, just touching the pins above the head to be combed in order to force
such head to be exactly entered by the said pins, as hereinbefore described and
as shewn.
8. In carding machines effecting the preparatory combing, the application to the
doffer of these machines of an extracting device consisting of a continuously rotating
roller revolving in a trough, or trough portion, or against a fixed straight and
polished surface in order to nip and carry the fibres away from the doffer, as herein-
before described and as shewn.