IMPROVE- MENTS IN EMBROIDERING MACHINERY
Year: 1870

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to James Lec Norton, of Belle Sauvage Yard,
Ludgate Hill, in the City of London, for the Invention of "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN EMBROIDERING MACHINERY."-Partly a communication froni
abroad by Johann Ulrich Billwiller of Saint Gall. in Switzerland.
Scaled the 12th July 1870, and dated the 18th February 1870.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said James Lee Norton
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 18th February 1870.
I, JAMES LEE NORTON, of Belle Sauvage Yard, Ludgate Hill, in the
City of London, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN EMBROIDERING MACHINERY," to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in embroidering
machinery. For this purpose a number of jointed frames are employed
each carrying tambouring or sewing apparatus. They are so arranged
and connected together that the needles they carry may be made to
traverse in any direction over the surfaces of the fabrics to be
embroidered, and that the movements of the several needles shall be

page_text: simultaneous and similar.
The needle frames are also connected with
a pentagraph having a tracing point capable of being led by the
workman over the lines of a pattern which it is desired to copy, and
when this is done the needles will each travel in and work along a path
similar to that passed over by the tracing point. Thus cach needle
will produce embroidery resembling the pattern, but not necessarily of
the same size; usually it is preferred that the pattern should be on a
larger scale than the work produced by its means. The pattern may be
indented or cut in cardboard or other material to facilitate the passage
of the tracer along it. The tracer as it follows along the lines of the
pattern is kept always with the same face leading, and a pointer may
be fixed upon it in such a position as always to be a tangent to the curve
which the tracer travels over. The needles are connected by gearing with
the tracer, so they turn in unison with it, each on its own axis; this
arrangement ensures the eye of the needle being at all times properly
placed in relation to the line of work. Any number of needles may be
thus combined, and they may be arranged to work in two or more tiers.
The pentagraph may in some cases be dispensed with, one of the
scries of needles being in this case guided directly by the workman.
The fabrics to be embroidered are stretched between rollers mounted on
a carriage.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said James Lec Norton in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 18th August 1870.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS. SHALL COME, I, JAMES 2
LEE NORTON, of Belle Sauvage Yard, Ludgate Hill, in the City of
London, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters. Patent, bearing date the Eighteenth day of February, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy, in the thirty-
third year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give
and grant unto me, the said James Lee Norton, Her special licence
that I, the said James Lee Norton, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as I, the said James Lee Norton, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others,

page_text: 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 EMBROIDERING
MACHINERY," the result partly of communication from abroad made to
me by Johann Ulrich Billwiller, of Saint Gall, in Switzerland, and
partly of Invention and discovery made by myself, upon the condition
(amongst others) that I, the said James Lee Norton, my executors or
administrators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of
their hands and scals, 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 Scal Patent Office within
six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said
Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said James Lee Norton, do hereby.
declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in. and
by the following statement thereof, that is to say :-
This Invention has for its object improvements in embroidering.
machinery. For this purpose a number of jointed frames are employed,
each carrying tambouring or sewing apparatus. They are so arranged
and connected together that the needles they carry may be made to
traverse in any direction over the surfaces of the fabrics to be embroidered;
and that the movements of the several needles shall be simultaneous and
similar. The needle frames are also connected with a pentagraph having
a tracing point capable of being, led by the workman over the lines of a
pattern which it is. desired to copy, and when this. is donc the needles.
will each travel in and work along a path similar to that passed over by
the tracing point. Thus each needle will produce embroidery resembling
the pattern, but not necessarily of the same size;, usually it is preferred
that the pattern should be on a larger scale than the work produced by
its means. The pattern may be indented or cut in cardboard or other
material to facilitate the passage of the tracer along it. The tracer as it
follows along the lines of the pattern is kept always with the same face
leading, and a pointer may be fixed upon it in such a position as always
to be a tangent to the curve which the tracer travels over. The needles
are connected by gearing with the tracer, so they turn in unison with it,
each on its own axis; this arrangement ensures the eye of the needle

page_text: of the frame connected by gearing with the shaft A, as is shown, drives by
bevilled gear three horizontal axes with cranks at their ends which give
reciprocating movements to the needles and the hooks, and these act to
produce tambour stitches, as is well understood, the needle in each caso
protruding a loop of the thread through the fabric submitted to it,
which loop is caught and held by the hook so that at its next passage
the needle with the new loop may pass through it; the new loop is then
similarly caught, and so the work goes on. The standards E are con-
nected together at the top by the bar H, and the moving frames & are
coupled the one with the other by the rod J. K is the pentagraph and
L is a table upon which an enlarged design for the embroidery is placed.
The frame M receives the fabrics; the length of the frame is sufficient
to receive three fabrics one beyond the other, and in height it takes two
rows of pieces one over the other, so that in all six pieces are stretched
upon it; m, m³, are rollers carried by the frame M on to which the
fabric to be embroidered is wound. Each fabric passes from its roller m¹
between the friction holding rollers m², m², to the rollers m³, on which
from time to time the finished part of the work is wound.
The pressuro
rollers m² serve to hold and stretch the fabric which is being embroidered.
The cross bars m of round iron tie the frame together and also serve to
support the fabrics at the proper height; m³ are rollers on axes supporting
the frame M to facilitate its movement from time to time in a longitudinal
direction to pass from one figure or pattern to another across the fabric; N
are guide ways on which the frame travels. O is the horizontal guide of the
pentagraph serving to support the principal lever which is moveable around
a fixed point. P is a second horizontal guide supporting the front or anterior
part of the pentagraph. The parallel coupling Q placed at the front of
the moving frames F beneath the bar H tyeing together the standards E
is composed of two similar levers q¹ and of a rod q2 tyeing them together
of two rods q³ at the extremities uniting the levers with the outer
frames F, and of two fixed chairs q*, supporting the two levers q' at their
centres. Thus the different parts of the machine are connected the one
with the other.
1st. By a long rod J placed at the top of the moving frames G. This
rod is moveable on its joints, and serves to transmit the movement from
one frame G to another, keeping their outer ends equidistant.
2nd, By a bar H connecting the uprights the one with the other;
this bar serves as a fixed point to the pivot of the pentagraph.

page_text: 3rd. By a parallel coupling connecting the outer frames the one with
the other..
4th. By a driving axis A common to all machines and placed behind
the uprights. E. The pentagraph is constructed to reduce three times,
that is to say, so that the drawing for the embroidery placed under the
pentagraph shall be three times as large as the ornament produced.
k¹ is the fixed centre of the pentagraph; on this a lever K¹ turns; it is
jointed at its outer end to another lever k³, carring the tracing: point at
its outer end. The parallelogram is completed by other levers or rods K³
and K jointed together, and to K¹ and K at points one-third of their
lengths. from their respective pivots. The reduction joint of the penta-
graph is connected with the upper arm of the centre frame G;, above it
is the bar J connecting the arms. The design for the embroidery is
made in sunken lines either upon a board or upon cardboard indented
or burnt so as to serve as a guide to the point of the pentagraph. This
point itself is suitably rounded at its end, and it is of the same size as.
an embroidery needle. No skill is required for the work except in
regulating the speed at which the tracing point is moved along the
pattern surface, so that the stitches may be neither too long. nor too
short. As to the formation of the stitches they are made in the usual
way, that is to say, that the to-and-fro movement of the needle repeated
5 or 6 hundred times in a minute produces as many chain stitches. In
working it is necessary that the hook and the eye of the needle should
be at all times suitably placed in relation to the line in which they arc
caused to traverse over the fabric. With this object there is placed upon
the guiding point of the pentagraph a pointer or indicator. The position
of all the hooks and needles is regulated in such manner as to be the
same as that indicated by the pointer, so that the person working the
pentagraph by keeping the pointer directly towards the line along which
he is moving the tracing point. This is effected by the spur and
bevilled wheels and light axes clearly shown in the Drawings. The
first train of gear is carried by the pentagraph frame, and controls the
hook carried by the upper arm of the centre frame G, and makes it
rotate in unison with the tracing point at ². From this by an axis
running along the bar J the motion is taken to the upper hooks of the
other frames, and these by axes carried on the frames G, and connected
with the other hook and with the needles.
The machine above described is composed, as the annexed Drawings
show, of three similar parts connected firmly together, each part working

page_text: or embroidering in chain stitch with two needles placed vertically one
above the other, making in all six needles.
In the same way that I have grouped together three similar parts I
could combine a greater number without experiencing any mechanical
difficulty.
:
In the same way in place of two needles only four or a greater
number may be arranged one over the other.
It is unnecessary to say that the work done by the machine increases
proportionally to the number of needles.
Having thus described the nature of the said Invention, and the
manner of performing the same, I would have it understood that what
I claim is, the combining together frames or parts carrying needles and
sewing instruments in such manner that such needles and instruments
may traverse simultaneously and in similar courses over the fabrics on
which they respectively operate when one of the frames is moved and
guided, such needles and working instruments being also so geared
together that when one set is rotated to keep it properly directed to the
line of work the other sets or set may similarly rotate.
I also claim the combination with frames or parts carrying needles
and sewing instruments coupled together, as above set forth, of a
pentagraph in such manner that the movements of the said frames or
parts and the rotation of the needles and sewing instruments may be
controlled by the movements of the tracer of the pentagraph over a
pattern surface.
I also claim the general arrangement of the apparatus substantially as
described.
In witness whereof, I, the said James Lec Norton, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Eighteenth day of August, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy.
KANNAT