IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINES FOR WASHING WOOL AND OTHER FIRDANG MAMEDAY
Year: 1867

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Petrie, junior, of Rochdale, in the County of
Lancaster, Machine Maker, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN
MACHINES FOR WASHING WOOL AND OTHER FIRDANG MAMEDAY"
Sealed the 1st October 1867, and dated the 4th April 1867.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Petrie at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
4th April 1867.
I, JOHN PETRIE, jun"., of Rochdale, in the County of Lancaster, Machine
Maker, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN MACHINES FOR WASHING WOOL AND OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS," to be as
follows:-
My Invention refers to those machines in which the wool or other fibrous
material is lifted from the washing trough and deposited upon a travelling
apron, "brat," or system of rollers, and consists, firstly, in applying to such
travelling surfaces a squeezing apparatus to press the water from the fibrous
material.
In carrying out my Invention I propose to use a roller or rollers, between
which and the usual travelling surface the washed material passes.
cases the said roller or rollers may be stationary, excepting as regards their

page_text: rotation, but when the lifting apparatus would project over them they may be
mounted in a frame, which by turning upon a centre carries them bodily out
of the way until the material is deposited on the usual travelling surface;
this part of my Invention may be applied between two or more washing
troughs, if desired, and act therefore as a delivering apparatus.
Another part of my Invention relates to the construction of travelling
surfaces for feeding and for delivering wool and other fibrous materials; for
this purpose I employ notched bars which have a reciprocating as well as a
rising and falling motion imparted to them by excentrics or other ordinary
mechanical means; these bars receive rods and pass them forward, and the
said rods thus constitute the required travelling surface; or the bars with
their rising and falling and reciprocating motions may themselves form the
surface for conveying the material forward, in which case they may have plain
instead of notched surfaces, and will be placed side by side for the necessary
width; being caused to move alternately, as above described, they pass forward
the fibrous material instead of the rods which in the first-mentioned case
support it.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said John Petrie in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 4th
October 1867.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
PETRIE, junior, of Rochdale, in the County of Lancaster, Machine Maker,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Fourth day of April, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, in the thirtieth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said John Petrie, Her special license that I, the said John Petrie, my
executors, 'administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said John
Petrie, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree
with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during
the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the
Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
MACHINES FOR WASHING WOOL AND OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS," upon the
condition, amongst others, that I, the said John Petrie, by an instrument

page_text: in writing under my hand and seal, should particularly describe and ascertain
the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be
performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office
within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said
Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said John Petrie, do hereby declare the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement and accompanying Drawings, that is to say :-
My Invention refers to those machines in which the wool or other fibrous
material is lifted from a washing trough and deposited upon a travelling
apron or "brat," and consists, firstly, in applying to such travelling surface a
squeezing apparatus to press the water from the fibrous material.
Another part of my Invention relates to the construction of travelling
surfaces for feeding and delivering wool and other fibrous materials which
have to be washed.
In the accompanying Drawings Fig. 1 represents the first part of my
Invention, and as applied to apparatus for lifting the washed material from
the washing trough according to that method for which Letters Patent were
granted to me, bearing date February Twenty-fourth, One thousand eight
hundred and sixty-six, Number 577. At a is the washing trough, and at b
the fork which raises the material therefrom, and actuated so as to pitch it
forward upon the travelling surface c; this travelling surface, as shewn in
the Drawing, consists of a series of rollers to which rotatory motion is commu-
nicated in any ordinary manner so as to pass the material onward and deliver
it to the squeezing rollers d. The fork when pitching the material upon
the travelling surface extends inward and over it, but there is also a con-
siderable quantity of water carried forward, which is liable, especially in the
case of short fibred materials, to float a portion of such material back into the
trough, and it is for this reason that I apply rollers to squeeze the fibres and
so deprive them of the fluid. The squeezing apparatus may, as hereafter to
be mentioned, be stationary, but as in this instance the fork 6 projects at
intervals over the surface where it is to act I cause the same to move bodily
upward and downward. Upon a rotatory part of the lifting apparatus I
apply a crank pin e, which by means of a rod f communicates a vibrating
movement to a lever g turning upon a fixed centre at h; to this lever is also
jointed a rod i, which at its upper end is connected to an arm j turning upon
a fixed centre k. The armj is in duplicate, there being another on the other
side of the machine, and between and carried by them is a frame 1, also in

page_text: duplicate, and within which is mounted a series of rollers m situate in slots,
so that they can when necessary rise and fall. When the material is raised
from the trough a and pitched forward by the fork b upon the rollers c the
said fork retreats, and then the crank pin e by causing the lever g to turn upon
its centre draws down the arm j through the rod i, and the rollers m will thus
be brought to press upon the material which is being carried forward by the
rollers c. By these means rotatory motion will be communicated to the rollers
m, and the fibrous material will thus be deprived of water and will be conducted
onward in a comparatively dry condition to be subsequently delivered to the
usual squeezing rollers d. In the above-described arrangement the rollers m
are, as before stated, made to move upward at intervals so as to make way for
the pitching motion of the fork b, which during such pitching action extends
over the "brat," but such upward motion of the said rollers may be dispensed
with when the apparatus which deposits the material upon the travelling
surface does not project over it, as, for instance, when the lifting cylinder is
employed for which Letters Patent were granted to me in conjunction with
Samuel Taylor, dated January Eleventh, One thousand eight hundred and
fifty-three, Number 75, or in other similar arrangements.
In such cases I
P
use a series of rollers, as represented at n, Fig. 2, for the travelling surface,
and above these place another series of rollers o mounted in slots formed in a
bar which carries their axles. As the material is delivered it is passed
onward between these two sets of rollers, those shewn at n being driven by
the motive power, while the other series o are caused to rotate by friction of
contact, and thus the fibrous material is deprived of the bulk of fluid on its
way to the ordinary squeezing rollers. I have above described the ordinary
travelling surface as consisting of a series of rollers, but it may be made in any
other ordinary manner which is sufficiently rigid to bear the pressure of the
rollers placed above it.
This part of my Invention has been described above as conveying the
material from the washing trough to the ordinary squeezing rollers, which
deliver it in a finished condition, but it may, as will be evident, be employed
between two washing machines, that is, for conveying the material from oue
machine to another. The rollers o are mounted in slots, so as to enable then
to rise as the material passes beneath them, but to press by their weight for
the purpose aforesaid.
The next part of my Invention is shewn in longitudinal section at Fig. 3
in partial plan view at Fig. 4, and in cross section at Fig. 5. At a, a*
are two bars formed with fluted parts b on their edges, and provided with
slots c, c, within which are rollers d, d, and d*, d, the said rollers d, d

page_text: being in the slot c of the bar a, and the other rollers d*, d*, in the slot of the
bar a; these rollers are mounted on arms e, e, carried by shafts f, f*, to
which are affixed levers g, g, connected together by a rod h. The shaft f*
extends beyond the casing i, and has a vibratory motion imparted to it from any
convenient part of the washing machine to which the "brat" is applied, and
the rollers d, d, d*, d*, therefore rock with the shafts f,f*, and in so doing
depress one of the bars a or a while they raise the other. Upon the bar a*
there are plates k, between which is situate an excentric mounted upon a
shaft m, and receiving rotatory motion from any convenient part of the
washing machine. On the sides of the bars a, a*, are formed short racks'n, n*,
in gear with a pinion o carried by a bracket; when therefore the excentricl
revolves it moves the bar a* to and fro longitudinally, and these motions, but
in the opposite direction, are communicated to the other bar a by the pinion o.
At q, q, are fluted rollers, and in the flutes thereof are bars r, extending also
all round the casing i, and situate after leaving the roller alternately in the
flutes of the bars a, a*, as will hereafter be described. The entire series of
bars is not shewn in the Drawing, they being omitted in the middle part.
The cross section, Fig. 5, shews that that the bars a, a, and parts con-
nected therewith are enclosed by the easing i, but slits are left for the ends
of the rods r, and in which they may travel around the said casing, the part **
being a loose piece.
The operation is as follows:-The shaft f* being caused to vibrate, the
rollers d will lift the bar a*, while it at the same time depresses the bar a by
means of the rollers d, and the flutes of the former in rising will embrace
the rods situate above them, at the same time leaving those which it
held at bottom, and which rest upon the casing i; on the other hand the
bar a will leave the rods r and take those which the bar a* has just left.
Simultaneously with these movements the revolution of the excentric will
impart a longitudinal movement to the two bars a, a*, and the one a* which
has just risen and taken hold of the top bars will move the said bars forward,
while the other bar a will cause the bottom bars to travel backward. It has
been mentione that the rollers q are loose upon their shafts, and the driving
of the bars which are already in the said rollers q causes them to revolve, and
thus a continuous travelling round of the bars is effected, constituting the
required "brat." The plan view represents one side only of the brat, but
there is of course another casing i on the other side thereof, containing another
set of fluted bars and similar parts to those already described for giving them
motion. The bars r may be moved forward singly or in groups; that will of
course depend upon the throw of the excentric l.

page_text: Having thus described and ascertained the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, I desire it to be
understood that I claim as secured to me under the above in part recited
Letters Patent,―
Firstly, the application of a squeezing apparatus to such travelling surfaces
as aforesaid.
Secondly, constructing such travelling surfaces for feeding and delivering
by the use of detached bars successively passed on, substantially as above.
described.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Petrie, have hereunto set my
band and seal, this Third day of April, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven.
JOHN PETRIE, JR. (L.S.)