IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR PRINTING AND FOR NUMBERING, AND PERFORATING DOCUMENTS
Year: 1859

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert Besley at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 29th August
1859. A communication from abroad by William Shaw, of Melbourne,
in the Colony of Victoria, Australia.
I, ROBERT BESLEY, of Fann Street, Aldersgate Street, in the City of
London, Type Founder, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention.
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR PRINTING AND FOR NUMBERING, AND
PERFORATING DOCUMENTS," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to improvements in the arrangement of printing.
machinery, whereby perfecting and other machines may be rendered self-
feeding, and also made capable of printing consecutive numbers, and of
dividing, perforating (when such is required) the printed. paper.. To this end
continuous bands of paper in lieu of sheets are supplied. to the printing
machine, whether constructed on the principle of cylinder or platten. presses,
and led over and under the printing surfaces by means of tapes, bands, or
rollers to receive the impression upon the opposite sides thereof.
When applying the Invention to cylinder machines, the cylinders may be
arranged either horizontally or vertically,. and made to print one or more
colours. In numbering consecutively and perfecting, the first pair of cylinders
may be made to print the numbers, the second pair one form of type, and the
third pair the second form. The printing cylinders are each to be furnished,
as usual, with a set of inking and spreading rollers, the ink delivering rollers
having imparted to them a reciprocating motion (from excentrics on the axles

page_text: of their respective cylinders) for transferring the ink from the supply roller to
the printing surface. The numbering cylinder, with its figure, wheels, drum,
and central springs, are constructed on the same general principle as those
in numbering machines, with the following exceptions:-The first or unit
wheel has ten projections, but as it revolves with and not on the drum, it may
be firmly attached to and form part of the latter. The second, third, and
fourth wheel, commonly called the tens, hundreds, and thousands, must be
made to move on the drum; each of these latter wheels are provided with one
hundred projections, on which are engraved ten successive series of figures,
each series being from 1 to 0. After the figure 9 is printed, the second or tens
wheel has to be retarded for 1 100th of its revolution; this change brings the
series of figures 1 in the position previously occupied by the figures 0 on that
wheel, ready to receive the pressure of the raised impress surfaces of the under
cylinder. All the intervening figures not receiving any impressions from the
under cylinder, will of course escape being printed. The retarding of the
cylinders as required may be effected in any of the well known ways. When
the band of printed paper is required to be perforated, to divide it for example
into checks or tickets that may be readily detached, a pair of perforating
cylinders is employed, the same being so constructed that the perforating
points in the one cylinder enter the cavities in the other cylinder.
cutting or dividing apparatus need not be explained; it may be on the same
construction and operate on the paper in the same manner as when connected
with the paper-making machine.
The
For printing progressive numbers in a platten press the following arrange-
ment may be adopted :-Instead of having the figures engraved upon circular
rings, let them be engraved in straight columns, and let the changes be
effected by the outward motion of the table of the press, a click or catch
attached to the table operating upon a ratchet cut in the under part of each
figure slide. The self-acting changes, however, being exhausted at every tenth
change, the slides must occasionally be moved back to their original position
by hand or otherwise, and when several columns of figures are worked
together, as in the case of printing railway tickets, the corresponding slides,
the unit slides, for instance, in the respective columns, may be simultaneously
moved by bars fixed on or under the table of the press, working into cogs cut
in the bottom of the slides. The figures which are not to be printed must be
shut off from contact by the intervention of the frisket, this principle being the
important means to produce the required result, and corresponding in effect
with the cutting away of the under cylinder in the cylindrical numbering
apparatus.

page_text: When applying the self-feeding process to platten machines, the paper is to
be drawn by rollers at regulated equal intervals between the reversed plattens,
the printing on both sides of the sheet being completed in its progress. The
cutting process may be added and the roll of paper divided into sheets, in the
manner previously referred to.