IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR DECORTICATING, CRUSHING, AND GRINDING GRAIN OR SEEDS
Year: 1871

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Robert Girdwood, of Edinburgh, in the County
of Mid Lothian, North Britain, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS
IN APPARATUS FOR DECORTICATING, CRUSHING, AND GRINDING GRAIN OR
SEEDS."
Sealed the 12th January 1872, and dated the 26th September 1871.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Robert Girdwood
.
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 26th September 1871.
I, ROBERT GIRDWOOD, of. Edinburgh, in the County of Mid Lothian,
North Britain, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR DECORTICATING, CRUSHING, AND GRINDING
GRAIN OR SEEDS," to be as follows, that is to say :-
66
This Invention has for its object to promote economy of power,
durability of apparatus, and superiority of results in the operations of
decorticating, crushing, and grinding grain or seeds; and it consists in

page_text: effecting these operations. by means of rollers of iron, steel, stone, wood,
or other sufficiently hard material, such rollers having longitudinal
reciprocating motions as well as the ordinary rotation. The longitudinal
reciprocating motion may be imparted to one or both of each pair of
rollers by means of cams, eccentrics, or cranks. The surfaces of the
rollers may be smooth, or grooved, or more or less roughened; and the
rollers may be placed in more or less close proximity, according to the
degree of crushing or grinding desired. Thus for merely decorticating
grain or seeds the rollers must be placed sufficiently far apart to act only.
on the outer coat or shell, whilst for grinding grain into flour the rollers
will require to be set very close together; and intermediate positions.
will be required for different degrees of crushing action.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Robert Girdwood in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 25th March 1872.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ROBERT
GIRDWOOD, of Edinburgh, in the County of Mid Lothian, North Britain,
send greeting.
.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-sixth day of September, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, in the
thirty-fifth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Robert Girdwood, Her special licence
that I, the said Robert Girdwood, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as I, the said Robert Girdwood, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the
Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
APPARATUS FOR DECORTICATING, CRUSHING, AND GRINDING GRAIN OR SEEDS,"
upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Robert Girdwood,
my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under my,
or their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly describe

page_text: and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner
the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the
Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Robert Girdwood, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement in writing, reference being had to the accompanying
Drawings, that is to say :-
My said Invention has for its object to promote economy of power,
durability of apparatus, and superiority of results in the operations of
decorticating, crushing, and grinding grain or seeds; and it consists in
effecting these operations by means of rollers of iron, steel, stone, wood,
or other sufficiently hard material, such rollers having a longitudinal
reciprocating motion as well as the ordinary rotation. The longitudinal
reciprocating motion may be imparted to one or both of each pair of
rollers by means of cams, eccentrics, or cranks. The surfaces of the
rollers may be smooth, or grooved, or more or less roughened; and the
rollers may be placed in more or less close proximity, according to the
degree of crushing or grinding desired. Thus for merely decorticating
grain or seeds the rollers must be placed sufficiently far apart to act only
on the outer coat or shell, whilst for grinding grain into flour the rollers
will require to be set very close together; and intermediate positions
will be required for different degrees of crushing action.
And in order that my said Invention, and the manner of performing
the same, may be properly understood, I hereunto append a Sheet of
explanatory Drawings to be herein-after referred to, and representing a
modification of my improved apparatus as arranged for crushing or
grinding wheat. In these Drawings the same reference numerals are
used to mark the same or like parts wherever they are repeated.
Figure 1 is an end elevation and Figure 2 is a front elevation partly
in section, whilst Figure 3 is a sectional end elevation showing some
parts not well seen in Figure 1.
The framing of the machine consists principally of two massive
standards 1 fitted with bearings for the shafts 2, 3, of the two rollers 4, 5.
The shaft. 2 of one 4 of the rollers which does not reciprocate longitu-

page_text: dinally is elongated and carried in an additional bearing on a standard 6,
and it has fixed on it a pulley 7 to receive a driving belt. The same
shaft 2 has fast on it a pinion 8, which gears with a slightly larger
pinion 9 on the shaft 3 of the other roller 5, and as the rollers are both
of the same diameter the roller 5 is in consequence driven at a slightly
slower surface speed, and is continually changing its points of contact
relatively to the other roller. The shaft 3 of the longitudinally recipro-.
cating roller 5 has one end formed with collars 10, and held between the
two halves of a block 11 arranged to slide horizontally on a plate 12
fixed on a standard 13, and this block 11 is formed with a vertical
groove 14, in which there can slide vertically a small block 15 made in
two halves and embracing a crank 16 on a transverse horizontal shaft 17
carried by brackets 18 bolted to one of the main standards 1. The
crank shaft 17 is driven from the shaft 2 of the non-reciprocating roller 4
by bevil wheels 19, 20, which can be changed if it is desired to alter the
speed of the crank shaft relatively to that of the rollers. The distance
between the rollers 4, 5, is made adjustable by arranging the bearing
blocks 21 of the reciprocating roller 5 to slide on beds formed for them
on the frame standards 1, and the adjustment is effected by means of
wedges 22 shifted by screws (not seen in Figure 3), whilst the requisite
pressure is applied by springs 23, which are adjusted by screws 24. The
feeding details are carried by framing 25, 26, fixed upon the main
standards 1, and comprise a hopper 27, seen in section in Figure 3, and
leading the wheat directly in between the rollers 4, 5. This hopper
receives the wheat from a vibrating dish 28, formed with a grating 29 at
its lower end for the grain to pass through. It is hung on pins 30, and
is made to vibrate by a cam 31 on a revolving shaft 32 driven by means
of pulleys 33, 34, and a belt from the shaft 2 of the non-reciprocating
roller. A spring 35 is applied above the part of the dish 28 acted on by
The dish 28 receives
the cam 31 to keep it in contact with the cam.
the grain from a hopper 36 supplied by a spout from an upper floor or
otherwise, and the feed is regulated by a slide 37, which can be shifted
by a lever 38 so as to uncover more or less of the outlet from the
hopper 36. The space beneath the rollers is enclosed by boards, which
are not shown in the Drawings, and a spout through the flooring leads
the decorticated, crushed, or ground grain down to a lower floor..

page_text: *
the precise details herein described or delineated, but that what I believe
to be novel and original, and claim as the Invention secured to me by
the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent is, 1. The decorticating,
crushing, or grinding of grain or seeds by means of a pair of rollers, to
one or both of which a longitudinal reciprocating motion is imparted,
substantially as herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Robert Girdwood, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twenty-first day of March, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-two..
Witness,
EDMUND HUNT,
Patent Agent,
Glasgow.
ROBERT GIRDWOOD. (L.S.)