IM- PROVED MEANS OF PACKING OR SECURING TAPS IN CASKS OR BARRELS
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Taylor at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 19th December 1878.
WILLIAM TAYLOR, of Waterloo, near Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster. "IM-
PROVED MEANS OF PACKING OR SECURING TAPS IN CASKS OR BARRELS."
The objects of this Invention, which relates to improved means of packing or
securing taps in casks or barrels containing ale, wine, spirits, or other liquids, are
to render the tap more certain of being properly knocked by a mallet or other
instrument firmly into the desired position in the cask or barrel, to prevent the
tap from being knocked too far in to ensure a better fit and such a closure of the
usual opening for the tap in the cask or barrel as will altogether prevent any
leakage of the contents, and to provide better and more easily applied means of
ensuring the desired packing than heretofore.
The means hitherto most generally used for packing taps have been strips of
brown or other kinds of paper lapped round the roughened barrel of the tap, but
such strips are difficult of application owing to the conical form of the barrel of the
tap, which has needed a lapping of several short pieces of such paper. These short
pieces when the tap is being held in order that it may be knocked into the tap hole
of the cask are very liable to slip, and great difficulty is experienced in holding
them in. position, while at the same time holding the tap by such a part as will
prevent the fingers from being hit or damaged by the mallet or tap, as the latter is
driven by the former into the tap hole.
Now the object of my Invention is to provide a ready made packing device which
is capable of instant application, and which will not itself require to be held while
the tap is being held previous to receiving the blow of the mallet.
The improved means I adopt, and which in addition to being very simple and
cheap, I also find to be much more fit to perform the required functions than the
paper strips hitherto used, consist of a packing made of paper or pasteboard, or
cardboard, or paper or wood pulp, or cloth, or any suitable fibrous material, either
alone or in combination, compressed in moulds as hereinafter described, or other-
wise formed of a hollow conical form of such a taper as will easily slip onto and
fit like a collar around the roughened part of the barrel of the tap and clear of the
[Price 9d1

page_text: usual openings formed in the end thereof. These collars if slightly pressed up the
barrel of the tap will retain their position thereon and allow of the tap being lightly
held by the fingers to receive the blow of the mallet without any further manipu-
lation, and allow of the hand being quickly moved out of the way of the descending
mallet without danger of the packing slipping from position, which, should it do so,
would be altogether immaterial, as it would be driven tightly onto the barrel of the
tap as the latter is driven into the tap hole, and firmly jammed between them and
perform perfectly the part it is intended to fulfil.
One method by which I propose to form these improved conical collar packings is
as follows: —
I take a sheet of stout pasteboard and paste on one side any suitable fibrous
material, such as coarse calico, and I cut such a compound sheet into strips of a
suitable shape and length, and lap it round a mandrel or die, which I then place or
cause to descend into a mould formed preferably in two parts or halves, and by a
press or other suitable means I depress the die and cause it to compress the collar
or packing between it and the mould, after which the pressure is relieved and the
die is turned round to free the packing, and the mould is opened apart to allow of
the latter being removed. Should the packing cling to the die when the latter
ascends or is lifted out of the mould it may be easily removed therefrom, and the
mould will not necessitate being opened apart.