IMPROVE- MENTS IN MACHINERY FOR CLEANING AND POLISHING BOOTS AND SHOES
Year: 1875

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Hardy Kent at the
. . Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
22nd December 1875.
I, WILLIAM HARDY KENT, of Blackfriars Road, in the County of
Surrey, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN MACHINERY FOR CLEANING AND POLISHING BOOTS AND SHOES," to be
as follows:-
This Invention relates to improvements in machinery or apparatus for
cleaning and polishing boots and shoes, whereby the dirt is cleaned off,
the blacking put on, and the boots or shoes polished at one operation.
For this purpose a pair (or any number of pairs) of brushes are arranged,
having a straight reciprocal motion imparted thereto, also a side action,
allowing the brushes to take any angle to suit the shape of the boot or
shoe to be clean ed. There is also an arrangement for contracting or
expanding the distance between the pairs of brushes, and airevolving
platform on which the boot or shoe is fastened, together with an arrange-
ment for conveying the necessary quantity of blacking to the boot or
shoe. A suitable frame of wood or metal is arranged with bearings to

page_text: carry a shaft, having two or more cranks with rods attached extending
to blocks having the brushes hinged to them with springs on the back
of the brushes, arranged to keep a continuous pressure in whatever
positions the brushes are in.
The slides carrying the blocks on which the brushes are attached work
on rods on which they are caused to slide by means of a cam arranged
at the lower part of the machine, levers being attached which expand or
contract the space between the brushes.
The boot or shoe is put upon a suitable last which rests upon a plat-
form running upon centres, the lower centre under the platform, the
upper centre on the top of the last being kept in its place by suitable
springs or levers, the platform and last revolving on their centres driven
by cog wheels connected to main shaft.
For conveying the blacking to the boot or shoe a suitably shaped
bottle of blacking is fixed to the bottom of machine in the centre
between and just below the brushes. Inserted in the bottle is a round
piece of wood of suitable diameter and long enough to reach from
bottom of bottle to the top of the case; the machine is enclosed in and
working through suitable bearings with a knob attached on top.
The lower part of the wood or instrument that goes into the blacking 2
has a coarse screw thread cut in it to hold the blacking when withdrawn
from the bottle; when the blacking is to be put on the boot or shoe the
knob is pulled up, the brushes then come in contact with the end of
wood or instrument carrying the blacking, and a few turns of the handle.
of machine throughly blackens the boot or shoe, the knob falling to its 2
place; on withdrawing the hand it is immediately polished. The boot or
shoe to be cleaned and all the machinery being perfectly enclosed there
is no escape of dirt, the three operations, namely, brushing off the dirt,
putting on the blacking and polishing, being all completed in a few
revolutions of the machine without even seeing the boot after it is put 8
in the machine.
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