IMPROVEMENTS IN REAPING MACHINES
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Daniel Pidgeon and William
Manwaring at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their
Petition, on the 29th May 1872.
We, DANIEL PIDGEON and WILLIAM MANWARING, both of the
Britannia Iron Works, Banbury, in the County of Oxon, Engineers, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
REAPING MACHINES," to be as follows:-
Our Invention relates to reaping machines which deliver the sheaf
automatically at the side of the machine by means of rakes revolving
around an upright or inclined axis, and it consists in methods of causing
such rakes at will either to scrape the grain platform in their revolution
and thus discharge the sheaf or to pass over the platform at such a
height as to be clear of the grain thereon.
The first method we employ we describe as applied to machines in
which the sheaf discharging path of the rake is determined by a cam or
its equivalent, but the method is applicable to machines in which no
cam is used to determine the path of the rakes. Each rake arm is
pivotted independently to the carrier by which motion is communicated

page_text: to it from the rake axis, and when the machine is raking, each rake arm
is guided in its path over the grain platform by the usual cam and cam
roller. To this guiding cam we attach a supplementary cam which can
be raised above the level of the guiding cam and lowered again at
pleasure by the driver while the machine is at work. When it is so
raised it lifts the rake arm with it and forms a guide for it during its
passage over the grain platform, carrying the rake teeth high enough
above the platform to pass over any grain lying thereon. The
supplementary cam forms something more than the fourth part of a
circle and forms no guide for the rakes except during the passage of the
platform. On the driver again lowering the supplementary cam the
rake arm is lowered with it and again commences to follow the guiding
cam and deliver the sheaf.
In order to keep the teeth of the rake firmly down on the platform
when raking the rake arm is furnished with a jaw shaped frictional piece
which embraces both the top and bottom surface of the supplementary
cam.
We do not here describe in detail the mechanical device by which
the driver raises and lowers the supplementary cam, as any well known
arrangement of bell cranks or pulleys will suffice for this purpose.
•
The second method we employ is only applicable to such machines as
have revolving rakes governed in their path of revolutions around the
rake axis by a cam surface or surfaces. In this case the guiding cam is
attached to the general framework of the machine at two points upon
which it is free to rock within certain limits. By means of one of many
simple mechanical devices the driver has power to rock the cam upon its
pivots at pleasure, and at one extremity of such rocking or oscillation the
rake teeth will touch the platform and discharge a sheaf, while at the
other extremity the rake teeth will be lifted high enough above the
platform to pass over any grain thereon.
The third method we employ is applicable to all machines having
rakes revolving around an upright or inclined axis. In this case each
rake arm is pivotted to the carrier, by which it derives motion from the
rake axis, and each opposite pair of rake arms is coupled together by two
rods forming a toggle or rule joint. The axis of the rake is hollow, and
through its centre passes a rod by means of which the bars forming the
toggle joint are controlled; this rod is again by one of many simple
mechanical desices brought under the control of the driver. When a

page_text: pair of rake arms are thus connected the driver can at will make them
rigid, the one with the other, or vice versa, and by the same movement
he brings into or out of use a contrivance for carrying the rake high
over the platform, which is the exact equivalent of that which we have
described in method number one. When any pair of rake arms there-
fore is made rigid they follow such a path over the grain platform,
off. a
(whether determined by a guiding cam or otherwise) as will sweep
sheaf, but when the arms are unlocked by the driver the contrivance
already described throws each rake up so as to pass over the platform
clear of any grain lying thereon.