IM- PROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF REAPING AND MOWING MACHINES
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edward Tenney Bousfield at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 24th
August 1866.
I, EDWARD TENNEY BOUSFIELD, of Bedford, in the County of Bedford,
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF REAPING AND MOWING MACHINES," to
be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is to increase the efficiency of reapers and
mowers.
The first head of the Invention relates to an improvement in the arrange-
ment of the mechanism for giving motion to the knife bar of reapers and
mowers, and in the arrangement of the blades on the cutter bar. The second
head relates to improvements in the construction of the reel of reapers.
It has hitherto been found a difficulty to bring the crank shaft which works
the knife bar sufficiently low to keep the rod which connects the crank shaft
and knife bar and transmits motion to the latter at a proper angle for efficiently
delivering the thrust. Now in order to effect this, and at the same time to
economise space, the shaft which carries the bevel pinion that gears with the
ring of bevil teeth on the driving wheel of the machine is fitted at its inner
end with a spur wheel which drives a pinion on the crank shaft. This shaft
is mounted horizontally, and parallel with the shaft that takes the motion

page_text: from the driving wheel. The two shafts are mounted in the same casting,
the crank shaft being below the other but in the same vertical plane. This
arrangement allows of the speed of the knife bar being altered by shifting the
spur gearing.
As an improvement in the arrangement of the knives I make the knives
of, say, one half the breadth of the knives hitherto used and give the
bar the same length of traverse as heretofore. This arrangement gives an
increase of pitch to the knives and double the length of cutting surface,
and thereby ensures the knife edges keeping much longer in order than
ordinarily.
The chief object of the improvements in the reel is to enable the reel to
gather in the corn to the cutters and sweep it off when cut at the side of the
machine. This is done by setting the reel shaft at an angle to the cutter bar
and substituting say one rake bar for one of the reel bars. The rotation,
therefore, of the reel will sweep the cut corn off the platform on to the ground
in sheaves. The like object I propose to effect when using a reel whose
axis of motion is parallel or nearly so with the knife bar. The bars of the
reel are in this case carried at one end only (as is common) by radial arms,
and one of the bars is fitted with rake teeth. The radial arm carrying this
raker is hollow, and forms a socket for a rod which carries the raker. This
rod receives an axial motion in its socket, and it is fitted at both ends with a
projecting lever; these levers, as the reel rotates, by striking against cam
projections will give the desired axial motion to the rod which carries the
raker, and will thus move round the rake bar and cause it to sweep off the
cut corn. Instead of depending on the action of the levers and fixed cams a
coiled spring attached to the rod may be wound up as the reel rotates, and
being suddenly freed it will cause the rake bar to sweep off the corn. This
arrangement serves to equalize the power to be given out by the machine.
I propose to apply to the rake bar instead of the rigid tines heretofore used
elastic tines made of cane or stiff fibrous material, which when sweeping over
any irregularities in the surface of the platform will yield or accommodate
itself thereto.