IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF CABLES FOR TELEGRAPHIC OR OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Clayton Mewburn at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 22nd February 1882. A communi-
cation from abroad by La Société Alamagny et Oriol of 1 Boulevard St Denis
Paris France.
JOHN CLAYTON MEWBURN of 169 Fleet Street in the City of London Patent
Agent and Consulting Engineer. " IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR THE
MANUFACTURE OF CABLES FOR TELEGRAPHIC OR OTHER PURPOSES." A communi-
cation from abroad by La Société Alamagny et Oriol of 1 Boulevard St Denis
Paris France.
The improved machinery which forms the subject of this invention has for
object to facilitate the operation of covering with lead the wires or cables
intended to be used as electric conductors for telegraphic or other purposes.
Hitherto it has been usual to employ lead pipes the internal diameter of which
is nearly equal to the thickness of the cables so that the insertion of the cable is
difficult and the friction sometimes causes a rupture of the wires or at least injures
their insulating covering. According to the present invention on the contrary the
lead pipe has an internal diameter much larger than the diameter of the final cable
so that the insertion of the cable of wires is easy; this pipe is then rolled during a
single passage through a rolling machine so as to make it adhere to the cable
without the latter being drawn or pressed.
The manufacture of the cable is effected as follows:-If the cable with its lead
covering should have a diameter of 5 millimetres for example I take a lead pipe of
about 10 millimetres; and I lay it on a horizontal support. I insert into this
pipe, by pulling or pushing, a small piston to which is attached a sufficiently strong
connecting piece. By attaching the conducting wires to one end of this connecting
piece and pulling on the other end the wires are introduced into the pipe. Each
of the wires is wound on a bobbin. These bobbins the number of which will
vary according to the number of wires in the cable are mounted on a small
carriage placed on a railway. In the centre of the railway is a series of grooved
pulleys on which the lead pipe rests. tube or guide is fixed at the front of the
carriage through which the wires pass. The lead pipe containing the wires passes
through a rolling machine composed of several pairs of rolls alternately horizontal
A

page_text: and vertical and placed one after another so that the rolling is effected during a
single passage through the machine. The grooves in the successive rolls gradually
diminish until they correspond with the final diameter of the cable. The lead
pipe elongates, its section or diameter diminishes, and changes alternately from an
ellipse to a circle and vice versâ, each circle having a diameter equal to the small
diameter of the ellipse immediately preceding. During this operation the wires
unroll from their bobbins to correspond with the lengthening of the pipe and they
are neither rolled nor drawn because it is only in the last pair of rolls that the pipe,
which leaves them in a round form, becomes as it were moulded upon the internal
cable.
The gearing which drives the rolls is so calculated that the speed shall
progressively increase to an extent corresponding with the elongation of the
pipe so that the latter may remain straight during its passage through the rolls.
The finished cable is wound upon a drum. In a shop or factory 100 yards long
cables can be made in lengths of 200 yards.
As the lead pipe is rolled without the wires being touched except in the last
groove which binds it to the wires, there is no fear of the wires getting injured.
Instead of each pair of vertical rolls a draw plate may be employed to return
the pipe to the round form, rolling and drawing of the pipe being thus combined.