IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR DRYING WOOL, HAY, STRAW, AND OTHER MATERIALS, AND FOR BREAD AND BISCUIT BAKING
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Lee Norton at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 18th
November 1872.
I, JAMES LEE NORTON, of No. 17, New Bridge Street, Blackfriars,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN MACHINERY FOR DRYING WOOL, HAY, STRAW, AND OTHER MATERIALS, AND FOR
BREAD AND BISCUIT BAKING," to be as follows:-
My Invention relates to machinery for the purpose of drying wool,
hay, straw, and other materials, and for bread and biscuit baking, and
consists in certain improvements in such machinery.
For drying wool and fibrous materials generally I make a machine
with one or more trays or drying surfaces; these trays are formed as
follows:-I take a number of laths, lags, or bars of wood, or other
suitable material, and attach them to frames so as to allow a very small
space between every two lags; the lags are not all attached to the same
frame, but are formed into two series, one series being attached to a
frame which is intended to be fixed in the machine, and the other series
being attached to a frame which is intended to have a certain amount of

page_text: motion imparted to it. The lags and the frames are so arranged that the
lags of each series will lie alternately, that is to say, the lags of the
moving part will lic alternately with those of the fixed part; the moving
tray with its lags has a to-and-fro motion imparted to it by means of any
suitable gear, but it is also arranged that in the forward stroke it will be
slightly lifted, while in the backward stroke no lifting will take place;
and the lags are so arranged that when in the backward stroke they will
be slightly below the surface of the lags in the fixed part, and when
lifted in the forward stroke they will rise slightly above the surface of
the fixed lags. It will thus be clearly seen that if wool or other fibrous
material be fed on to a tray so constructed, and the motion imparted to
the moving part as described, the moving lags rising above the fixed.
ones and at the same time moving forward, they will carry the wool or
other material with them, and then returning below the surface of the
fixed lags they will leave the wool resting on the fixed lags while they
return to their original position, and another forward stroke will again
lift the wool and move it forward on the tray, and thus the wool will be
gradually moved forward by a series of intermittent actions, being lifted
with each forward movement. This method possesses the great
advantage that the wool or other material is lifted up at every stroke
and is thus lightened, and the air has an opportunity of getting below
it, thus more effectually drying it and keeping it open.
Both series of lags may be arranged so as to have the motion
described above, in which case the frames which carry them would move
alternately.
When using more than one tray I fix them one below another, and
so arrange them that when the material has been carried to the end of
the top tray, it is caused to drop on to the tray next below it, the action
of which is in the reverse direction to that of the upper one, so that the
wool is carried back again towards the front end, where it is delivered on
to the third tray which carries it in the same direction as the first, and
so on in a zig-zag direction throughout the machine. The to-and-fro
motion may be imparted to the moving portions of the trays by means
of an arrangement of cranks and connecting rods, and the necessary
lifting action may be imparted to the lags in the following amongst
other methods
To the sides of the frame which carries the moving lags I attach
small cams; these cams are hung on strong pin joints and are perfectly

page_text: drying, the current of air being created or increased by means of a fan
or other suitable blower for forcing the air through or exhausting it
from the machine, and I prefer to exhaust the air from the top of the
machine and connect a heating apparatus to the bottom of the machine,
closing up all openings as much as possible so as to prevent any air
from entering the machine except what passes through the heating
apparatus. A layer or layers of steam pipes may also be applied
under each tray.
Various methods may be employed for feeding the material to
be dried into the machine and delivering it therefrom; for instance,
a plain endless feed sheet may be employed attached to chains which
work over suitable pulleys on shafts driven by ordinary gearing.
The feed sheet should be so arranged as to deliver the material on
to the top tray, and it may either be made of just sufficient length
for the requirements of a feed sheet or it may be made long enough
not only to form the feed sheet but also to carry the wool horizontally
to the far end of the machine and deposit it on the top tray, which
carries it back in the manner already described.
When an exhausting apparatus is used to produce a current this feed
sheet should be made of some close woven material, and the opening by
which the wool enters the machine should be closed as much as possible
so as to exclude the air and prevent it from entering that way. This is
necessary in order to cause as much air as possible to be drawn in at the
bottom of the machine, and thence through the wool or other material
on the various trays until it is drawn off at the top of the machine by
the exhausting apparatus in a more or less saturated condition.
Another form of feed consists of a tray formed of two series of lags
arranged as already described for the trays in the machine, except that
in this case the lags of the moving portion may be furnished with a
series of spikes, and the machine furnished with a hopper into which the
wool to be dried is thrown, and which is so arranged that the spikes on
the moving portion of the feed tray take the wool out of the hopper
and gradually carry it forward into the machine.
In making a machine for bread and biscuit baking I form the lags of
which the trays are made of rods or bars of iron, and I cause the fire to
pass through flues under each tray. These flues are connected together
by flues at the sides of the machine so arranged that the fire is caused

page_text: to pass from one flue into another in a zig-zag direction, so that the
greater part of the heat is absorbed before it passes off by the chimney.
The biscuits or loaves should be put in tins previous to going through
the machine.
For drying sewage, grain, and similar materials I make a machine
consisting of one or a series of plates or trays, which may be heated
cither by fire or steam heat. In connection with these plates I use a
series of scrapers attached to a frame, and so arranged that the material
to be dried can be continually agitated by moving the scrapers to and
fro, and that from time to time the scrapers can have a certain motion
imparted to them, so as to cause them to lift over the material in one
direction, and draw it forward to a certain extent in the next stroke.
The material is thus kept in a constant state of agitation which allows
the evaporated moisture to pass off freely, and at the same time there is
an intermittent forward motion imparted to it causing it gradually to
pass from one end of the tray to the other; and where a series of trays are
used I prefer to fix one above another, and cause the scrapers to move
alternately in opposite directions, so that the material is caused to pass
in a zig-zag direction through the machine. The material may thus be
fed in continually at one end of the machine and delivered in a dried
state at the other.
The trays may be made either in the form of flat plates, in which case
I prefer to form ridges upon them running with their length, or they
may be made in a series of arcs of a circle, and the frame which carries
the scrapers in this case should be suspended by links of a length
corresponding to the radius of the circles, so that the scrapers will have
the same sweep as the trays. A swinging motion is imparted to these
scrapers, and the material is thus kept in a state of agitation, and when
required to give a forward movement to the material the scrapers are
caused to lift in the back stroke. A continuous agitation and an almost
continuous forward motion may be imparted to the material by causing
the scrapers to lift very slightly in every back stroke so as to allow a
small portion only of the material to get to the front side of them.
In the next place my Invention relates to improved methods of
partially drying sewage by extracting the superfluous water by means
of pressure. For this purpose I put the sewage into bags formed of
cocoa-nut fibre or other suitable material, these bags are placed in cases
sufficiently strong to bear a high pressure and arranged to form a

page_text: support for the bags, and they are also arranged with openings or
channels that the water is free to flow away when squeezed through the
substance of the bag by the applied pressure. The bags retain the solid
portion of the sewage.
The liquid sewage itself may be made the source of the necessary
pressure by pumping it up to a sufficient height to get the head required
to give the necessary pressure, and letting it descend through pipes
on to a piston below which the bags are placed, or the pressure may be
applied externally by means of an hydraulic press.
My Invention next consists in a novel arrangement of steam pipes
for heating air required for drying purposes. I arrange the heating
pipes in a chamber in rows or layers one above another, and between
every two rows or layers I introduce bafflers which I prefer should have
a slight incline. These bafflers should not be the full width of the
chamber, so that when put into their places they leave an opening, and
they should be so arranged that these openings are left at one side or
the other of the chamber alternately, so that cold air entering at the
bottom of the chamber must pass over a row of pipes before it reaches
the opening, it then rises into the next compartment and has to pass
back again over another row of pipes before it reaches the next opening,
and so on in a zig-zag direction until at last it escapes through the last
opening in a heated state into the machine. The bafflers are inclined
in order to assist the circulation of the air.
In the next place my Invention relates to a novel mode of making
coupling pipes for connecting steam tubes together for heating and
drying purposes. For this purpose I furnish the tubes with small
flanges at their ends, and I make the connecting pipes in two portions,
one being simply a flat bar and the other made of a certain form such
that the section is something like a horse-shoe with flanges at the ends
thus
The flanges at the ends of the tubes are provided with small
holes for bolts and the flat bar is punched with two scries of holes, one
series corresponding in size and position to the pipes and the other to
the bolt holes. The flanges on the horse-shoe shaped portion of the
connecting pipes are also furnished with holes corresponding to the bolt
holes in the other part.
Ω
In connecting the pipes together the flat bar is placed between the
flanges on the ends of the pipes, and the flanges on the horse-shoe

page_text: shaped piece and bolts passed through the holes to attach them
altogether. I prefer to introduce strips or pieces of vulcanised india-
rubber to make the joints good.
The tubes and connecting pipes are so arranged that when they are
all connected together they will form a sheet of pipes with a connecting
pipe of the construction described above at cach side. One of these
connecting pipes is connected to the steam supply pipe and the other to
the exhaust or waste pipe.