Improvements in Paper Cutting Machinery.
Year: 1898

page_text: Date of Application, 2nd Aug., 1898-Accepted, 17th Sept., 1898
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Paper Cutting Machinery.
A communication from abroad by IRWIN PETER DILLON, of 62, Butler Street,
Lawrence, in the State of Massachusetts, one of the United States of America,
Manufacturer, and HENRY CLAY KING, of 361, Lowell Street, Lawrence, aforesaid,
Grocer.
I; ALFRED GEORGE BROOKES, of 55 and 56, Chancery Lane, in the County of
London; Chartered Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature of this invention, and
in what manner the saine is to be perforined; to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement :-
The present invention is an improvement in paper cutters having for its object
the provision of means to accurately regulate the length of sheets cut, or in other
words, to regulate with absolute definiteness the frequency with which the cutter
operates; and also to vary. the rate of feed of the paper; a further object of iny
invention being to greatly increase the range of the machine above that ordinarily
possible in paper cutiers.
It is ordinarily the custom in paper cutting to feed a number of sheets or webs of
paper simultaneously, ten or more super-imposed sheets being often fed through the
eutler, and, therefore, it becomes highly desirable that there should be as little waste
as possible, for the reason that each time a false cut is made or a sheet is cut of the
wrong length not only is one sheet spoiled; but the ten or more sheets which are
being fed together are all spoiled.
As at present constructed, however, the means for ascertaining the precise adjust-
ment of the machine necessary is crude and imperfect depending largely upon trial
and experiment.
Accordingly, my correspondents have devised a perfected mechanism which not
only prevents any accidental slip or uncertainty of movement of the parts, but
accurately indicates the precise adjustment necessary for a given cut.
Also in the different kinds of speed changers at present found in paper cutters
there is always more or less uncertainty of movement, especially when a number of
thicknesses of paper are being cut together, more or less slip of the parts being
produced, such slip, of course, destroying the accuracy of relative movement which
must exist with absolute uniformity between the feeding of the paper and the cutting
thereof.
My invention ains at removing all the difficulties above alluded to. Various other
details of improvement and advantages thereof will be more fully pointed out in the
course of the following description, reference being had to the accompanying draw-
ings forming a part of this specification, and the invention will be hereinafter defined
in the claims at the end of the specification.
In the drawings,
Fig. 1 is a rear elevation of the preferred embodiment of my improved paper
cutter showing clearly the speed changing and feed regulating improvements forming
a leading part of any present invention, looking towards the left, Fig. 2:

page_text: Fig. 3 is a rear elevation of the speed changers for the cutting, blades, showing
also, in broken detail, my improved gauge.
Fig. 4 is a vertical cross-section taken on the line 4-4, Fig. 3.
Fig. 5 is a vertical cross section taken on line 5--5, Fig. 1.
Mounted in suitable end standards A, A, and cross braces and framework B are
the usual feed rolls C, cutter cylinder D, provided with one or more cutting blades d
cooperating with a fixed blade d, and gears c, d, all as usually found in paper
cutters.
Suitably journaled in the frame is a shaft E on which is mounted a cone
pulley E cooperating with an oppositively placed cone pulley E³, carried by a
shaft Es.
Various kinds of speed changers have been proposed and used for paper cutters,
but so far as my correspondents are aware no mechanism has been provided which
would at the same time permit of delicate and accurate adjustment and also be
certain in operation, the best of them being very liable to slip and thereby ruin one
or more cuts of the paper.
Accordingly there is herein provided the cone pulleys, as above described, on which
a belt E is mounted in usual inanner, and have arranged a combined belt shifter and
tightener E, shown in detail in Figs. 3 and 4, and comprising a lever pivotally
mounted at its middle portion on a threaded shifting rod e and carrying at its upper
end a friction roll el between projecting ears e² which embrace the belt between them,
as clearly seen in Figs. 2 and 4, and a rigid laterally projecting rod es at its lower
end on which is adjustably mounted a tension weight or device et, so that the
pressure of the lever E against the belt may be definitely regulated to correspond
to the weight of paper being fed through the machine simply by adjusting the
tension thereof by moving the weight one way or the other on the rod e³.
By reason of the mechanism just described the belt is never permitted to slacken
but is always maintained uniformly under the same frictional resistance on its
pulleys.
The pulleys E, E³, are those employed for regulating the speed of the rotation of
the cutter D, being geared therewith through the train of gears, shown in Fig. 2,
at es, es, e, es, the latter gear meshing with the gear wheel d².
In the simplest form of machine the shaft E will be the driving shaft of the
machine, having fast and loose pulleys E6, E7, at one end thereof, as indicated in
dotted lines Fig. 1, it being understood that in machines of this class, as commonly
constructed, the feeding of the paper by the roller C is uniform and unchanged, no
matter what grade of paper or how many thicknesses thereof are being fed, it being
the rule in such machines to change the speed of the cutter only, the same
However it is
amount of paper always passing thereunder in a given time.
frequently desirable to be able to change the rate of feed of the paper;
for instance in the case of light paper, and few thicknesses thereof it is perfectly
practical to cut it more rapidly than in the case of heavy weight and many thick-
nesses, and accordingly I have herein shown the driving shaft of the machine at F
with fast and loose pulleys F1, F2, the shaft F having a cone-pulley F3 connected by
means of a belt F* to a cone pulley E³, fast on the shaft E, a belt shifter and
tightener G being provided to keep the parts from slipping, and to shift the belt,
being operated by a screw rod g and hand wheel g¹, see Figs. 1 and 5. If preferred,
the belt tightener and shifter E5 may be substituted for the one marked G.
By reason of this construction it is evident that simply by turning the hand wheel
g¹ one way or the other the speed of the shaft E, and therefore of the feeding roll C
through the gears c and e, may be varied, as desired; and this may be accomplished
either with or without increasing the speed of the cutting cylinder D simply by
shifting the hand wheel of the main shifting rod e, at the same time that the belt
F is shifted.
Referring to Fig. 3, it will be seen that the rod e is provided with one set of threads
to shift the belt and with another set of threads e10 of finer pitch on which is inounted
the indicator el, shown in side elevation in Fig. 4, where it will be seen that it rests

page_text: on an inclined plate 18 graduated as a gauge, see Fig. 3, the indicator projecting
below the rod e, and having a socket e containing a spring e¹s bearing against the
beam B, so as to hold the indicator in free sliding engagement with the plate e¹³.
This construction permits the operator to determine with the utmost accuracy
precisely how far the belt must be shifted in order to cut a given length of paper.
A further important feature of my invention remains to be described, and consists
in providing mechanism whereby the range of relative rates of feed and cut may be
greatly increased in the same machine without the necessity of dismembering the
machine in any way or requiring any particular skill in order to adjust the parts.
The mechanism for this purpose comprises a quadrant or shifting plate G¹, pivoted
at g, and capable of being swung up or down to a limited extent by the handle glo
and cam clamp g², operating in a slot g³ see Fig. 2, to securely clamp the angle
bracket or quadrant G firmly against the frame of the machine so as to prevent any
vibration or looseness thereof, and a spring pin g*, serving to engage a series of holes
g, properly fixes the bracket G in its adjustment. By this means the gear pinion e
inay be raised or lowered to mesh with either one of a series of different sized gears
es, ele, el, see Fig. 1, these gears being splined on the shaft and freely movable
longitudinally thereof, said gears having side flanges e18, as clearly shown in Fig. 1, to
prevent their getting out of mesh with the gear e when the machine is running.
The provision just described permits a certain range of adjustment corresponding
to the length of the cone pulleys e, e, for the geared for instance, and then, the
shaft being shifted back to its original position and the gear 610 being brought into
nesh with the gear e, a further adjustment of the cutting mechanism is rendered
possible similar in extent to that before accomplished but in addition thereto, and
so likewise, the belt being again shifted back to its original position and the gear e¹7
being brought into mesh with the gear e, a further increase of adjustment is accom-
plished, and all this is done without any inconvenience and delay.
I have herein described the preferred embodiments of my invention but many and
various changes may be resorted to both in the details of construction and in the
combinations thereof without in anyway departing from the spirit and scope of my
invention, and therefore I do not limit myself to the precise construction herein shown
and described.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is :-
..
1. In a paper cutter, the combination with feeding mechanism for the paper, cut-
ting mechanism, and a main driving shaft having unvarying speed, of means perma-
nently mounted and journaled in the organised machine to vary at will the speed of
said cutting mechanisin, and of said feeding mechanism independently of each other,
substantially as described.
2. A paper cutter, having in combination, feeding mechanism adapted to receive
and feed a plurality of superimposed thicknesses of paper of different weights or
grades, severing devices to which said thicknesses of paper are simultaneously fed to
be cut, and operating mechanism, including an intermediate cone-and-belt device, for
driving said severing devices and feeding mechanism with relative speeds required
for producing the uniform lengths of sheets desired, said operating mechanism in-
cluding means to accurately change the frictional engagement of said belt AB, and
according to, the different resistances offered by the different thicknesses and differ-
ent weights or grades of paper being cut, and means to vary the relative speed
of the severing devices for cutting sheets of different lengths, substantially as
described.
:
3. The combination in a paper cutter, with the feed rolls for feeding the paper,
and severing devices for cutting the paper, of a cone-and-belt speed changer geared
between and with said feed rolls and severing devices, and means to maintain friction
in said cone-and-belt device varying in proportion to the varying loads, a second
cone-and-belt speed changer mounted adjacent and driving said first mentioned cone-

page_text: and-belt mechanism, whereby the speed of said severing devices and of said feed
rolls may be varied at will either together or independently of each other as desired,
substantially as described:
4. A paper cutter having, in combination, paper severing mechanism, feed rolls to
feed the paper thereto, and a pair of co-operating cone pulleys between said feeding
and severing mechanisins and driving, the latter, a belt passed about said cone
pulleys; a pivotted lever having a friction roll at one end between two ears, said ears
embracing said, belt, and said roll resting against the latter, and at its other end
having a laterally projecting rod on which is mounted a weight, and means to adjust
said weight on said rod, whereby the tension of said belt inay be varied according to
the paper being fed and cut by the machine, substantially as described.
5. The combination; in a paper cutter, with the paper severing devices, feed rolls
to deliver the paper thereto; and driving mechanism for said parts, said driving
mechanism including a power shaft and gear driven thereby, of a shifting plate
permanently mounted on the frame of the machine and carrying a train of gear
wheels, said train meshing at one end with the said driven gear, said train and said
driven gear being one permanently provided with a plurality of different sized gear
wheels, and the other being adapted to nesh with any one of said different sized
gear wheels, and one being freely movable laterally relatively to the other, said
train meshing at its opposite end with the mechanism driven thereby for operating
said paper severing devices, and means to move said plate concentrically with the
gear wheel at said last mentioned end of said train, in order to operate the train
through any one of said different sized gear wheels; substantially as described.
6. The combination in a paper cutter, with the feeding mechanism for feeding the
paper, and severing devices for cutting the paper, of operating mechanisin geared
between and with said feeding mechanism and severing devices, said operating
mechanism including a main driving shaft, a cone-and-belt speed changer, and gear
driven thereby, means to maintain friction in said cone-and-belt device varying in
proportion to the varying amounts or kinds of paper being fed, a shifting plate
mounted on the frame of the machine and carrying a train of gear wheels, said train
meshing at one end with the said driven gear, said train and said driven gear being
one permanently provided with a plurality of different sized gear wheels, and the
other being adapted to mesh with anyone of said different sized gear wheels and one
being freely movable laterally relatively to the other, said train meshing at its
opposite end with the mechanism driven thereby, and means for moving said plate
concentrically with the gear wheel at said last mentioned end of said train;
substantially as described.
7. The combination in a paper cutter, with the paper severing devices, feed rolls
to deliver the paper thereto, and driving mechanism for said parts, said driving
mechanism including a power shaft and gear driven thereby, of a shifting plate
mounted on the frame of the machine and carrying a train of gear wheels, said train
meshing at one end with the said driven gear, said train and said driven gear being
one provided with a plurality of different sized gear wheels, and the other being
adapted to mesh with anyone of said different sized gear wheels, and one being freely
movable laterally relatively to the other, and one having side flanges e18 to prevent
accidental shifting out of mesh, said train meshing at its opposite end with the
mechanisin driven thereby, and means to move said plate concentrically with the
gear wheel at said last mentioned end of said train, in order to operate the train
through any one of said different sized gear wheels, substantially as described.
to feed the
.8. The combination, in a paper cutter, with feed rolls
paper, and severing devices to cut the paper, of a frictional speed changer
capable of a long range of delicate variations, means to vary said friction
in proportion to the varying resistance of the paper fed, said friction being
maintained always sufficient to prevent slip, said speed changer comprising a pair of
cooperating cone pulleys, a belt passed about them, a combined belt shifter and
tightener in engagement with said belt, an adjustable tension device thereon to vary
the frictional engagagement thereof with the belt, a threaded shifting rod on which

page_text: said shifter and tightener is mounted, said rod extending in the organized machine
parallel to said pulleys and having a portion thereof, beyond the range of movement
of said shifter and tightener, provided with finer threads than the shifting threads
thereof, an indicator mounted on said fine threaded portion, and a gauge fixed on
the machine and over which said indicator is caused to travel by the fine threads,
whereby an indicator is provided within the compass of the machine for and in
connection with a long range of movement of said, shifter and tightener, substantially
as described.