IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY AND APPARATUS FOR PREPARING, SHAPING, AND DRYING PEAT AND OTHER VEGETABLE AND MINERAL SUBSTANCES
Year: 1868

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Frederick Ludwig Hahn
Danchell at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 22nd January 1868.
I, FREDERICK LUDWIG HAHN DANCHELL, of Horwich, in the County
of Lancaster, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY AND APPARATUS FOR PREPARING,
SHAPING, AND DRYING PEAT AND OTHER VEGETABLE AND MINERAL SUBSTANCES,"
to be as follows:-
The nature of my Invention consists, first, in the general arrange>
ment of the machinery for macerating or preparing the peat or
other substance for forming it into square, cylindrical, or spherical
blocks, and delivering the same on to boards or troughs, on which
they are either left to dry, or which are employed as means for
conveying them to the drying ground; also in the general arrange-
ment of a drying shed under which the peat or other substance is
exposed to the draughts of air. The shed consists of a series of inclined

page_text: floors placed one above the other, down which the cylindrical or
spherical blocks of peat or other substance roll by their own gravity,
thereby being dried by the currents of air passing through the shed.
The macerator consists of two rollers. with diagonal grooves and
projections, and with diagonal ribs on the casing within which they
work. The macerator forces the peat out through a spout and
deposits it in troughs supported on rollers. These troughs are carried
forward by the peat, and the peat in travelling forward is cut into
blocks by wires distended between cross arms placed above the trough.
When the drying shed above referred to is used the blocks cut
by the wires are lifted by an archimedean screw to the top of the
shed, and in rolling over on the screw the cylindrical blocks are
converted into spherical or nearly spherical blocks. The portable
macerators are mounted on rails laid on the bog or drying ground
in the positions required for dividing it into plots of suitable size,
and the troughs with the blocks of peat in them are laid side
by side on the ground and left there to dry by exposure to the
atmosphere.
Secondly. In the general arrangement of the machinery for pre-
paring the peat or other substance for forming it into blocks and
delivering the same on to a series of endless travelling bands by
which the blocks are moved to and fro in a drying stove and turned
over at each end thereof; also in the arrangement of apparatus for
distributing heated air or currents of air in the drying stove.
:
In this arrangement the macerator is stationary and delivers the
peat or other substance to a moulding machine consisting of two
sets of moulds and plungers, the latter worked by eccentrics or
otherwise. The blocks of peat are delivered on to the upper endless
band of a series of endless bands which traverse to and fro in a
drying stove. These bands are made of strips of metal fixed at.
their ends to the links of two endless chains; part of the links are
cast of malleable iron and part of hoop iron. The blocks of peat or
other substance in dropping from one endless band to the other slide
.down inclined planes and. turn partly over, so as to present all sides
in succession to the action of the currents of air which are produced
by a forcing or exhausting fan or by a chimney, and which may be
artificially heated or not.

page_text: By means of the improved machinery and apparatus above
described the peat or other substances under operation are more
thoroughly prepared, shaped, and dried in less time and with less
manual labour than by the machinery heretofore employed for those
purposes.