IMPROVEMENTS IN HARVESTING MACHINES KNOWN AS REAPING MACHINES, MOWING MACHINES, AND COMBINED REAPING AND MOWING MACHINES
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Charles Stuart Baker at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 13th
January 1866: A communication from abroad by Sewell Gillam, of the
City of New York, in the United States of America, Engineer.
I, CHARLES STUART BAKER, of Fleet Street, in the City of London, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
HARVESTING MACHINES KNOWN AS REAPING MACHINES, MOWING MACHINES, AND
COMBINED REAPING AND MOWING MACHINES," to be as follows:-
These improvements have reference to that class of machines which have
reciprocating cutters. Heretofore the cutters have extended in one series the
whole width of the cutting part of the machine, and have been rivetted
or otherwise attached to one cutter bar, so that the cutters all travelled
in the same direction, and at the same speed simultaneously. The shocks
caused by the rapid intermittent chops of the cutter against the cutter guards
throughout the whole width of the cutting part of the machine are too much
for the strength of the stock or stem of the cutter bar, and frequent breakages
and loss of time to the farmer are the result.
My improvements consist, firstly, in using two or more series of cutters to
make up the width of the cutting part of the machine. I prefer having two
series, each series being on a separate cutter bar, and that one cutter bar

page_text: shall work in advance (horizontally) of the other. They may both be on
the finger or guard beam, or one may be on the finger guard and the other
on the beam; or these bars may be arranged one over the other so long as
two or more series of cutters are used to make up the width. I propel these
cutter bars in such a way that, whilst the cutters of one are at the slowest
motion and doing the least amount of traverse in its reciprocating movement,
the cutters of the other bar shall be at the quickest motion and doing the
greatest amount of traverse in its reciprocating movement. This reduces
the strain on the stock of the cutter bars, the pitmans or connecting rods, the
gearing, and the horses. The alternating motion required may be attained in
several ways well known to mechanicians. The one I prefer is a two-throw
crank, the two cranks being situated at right angles to each other or at a greater
distance from each other in the circle described by them in their revolution.
Two pitmans hung on these cranks and connected at their other ends to the
cutter bars give the necessary reciprocating motion when actuated by the
propelling gear in the usual manner.
These improvements in the second place consist in rounding off or counter-
sinking the angles of the rivet boles on that surface of the cutters which is
intended to be against or nearest to the cutter bars. This prevents the
tendency of the sharp angle to shear the rivets or screws in two against the
cutter bars, and of detaching the cutters from the bars. For the same reason
I would also round off or countersink the angles of the rivet holes in that
surface of the cutter bars which is intended to be against or nearest to the
cutters.