CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ART OF BOOKBINDING, AND ALSO IN THE MACHINERY OR APPARATUS TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN
Year: 1842

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAS
RICHARDS, of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster, Bookbinder, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Fifteenth day of April, One thousand eight hundred and forty-
two, in the sixth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Thomas Richards, Her especial licence, full
power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Thomas Richards, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, and such others as I, the said Thomas
Richards, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree
with, and no other, from time to time and at all times during the term of years
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
Inven-
within England and Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my
tion of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ART OF BOOKBINDING, AND ALSO IN THE
MACHINERY OR APPARATUS TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN;" in which Letters Patent
is contained a proviso that I, the said Thomas Richards, shall cause a par-
ticular description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be enrolled in Her Majesty's High Court of
Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of
the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being
thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Thomas Richards, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and

page_text: the manner in which the same is to be performed, is particularly described
and ascertained in and by the Drawings hereto annexed, and the following
explanation thereof, that is to say:
My improvements in the art of bookbinding, and also in the machinery or
apparatus to be employed therein, consist, firstly, in the adaptation or employment
of mechanism for the purpose of sewing, weaving, or binding a number of sheets
of paper together in a novel and peculiar manner to form a book, instead of
stitching them by hand as commonly practised in bookbinding; and secondly,
in the novel combination and arrangement of machinery or apparatus which I
have designed for the above purpose, composed of a table capable of sliding to
and fro in order to feed or supply each sheet of paper separately into the
machine; also, needle bars or holders to present needles with the requisito
threads for stitching such sheets as they are successively supplied; a series of
holding fingers or pincers suitably provided with motions to enable them to
advance and clasp the needles, draw them through the sheets of paper, and
return them into their respective holders after threading or stitching the sheet;
and lastly, arms or levers for, delivering each sheet regularly upon the top of
the preceding sheets, in order to form a collection or book of such sheets
ready for boarding and finishing.
In order that my Invention may be more perfectly understood, and the
details of the mechanism explained, I have attached to theso Presents,n Sheet
of Drawings, containing such views of my improved machinery as will fully
illustrate the object of my Invention and the manner of carrying the same into
practical effect. The apparatus herein represented is drawn upon a scale of
about one-third the size of the working machine, and is shewn, for the sake of
convenience, as broken off or detached from its standard framing, as that may
be of any. form and elevated to a convenient height from. the ground: !..
.
Fig. 1 represents a plan or horizontal view of the machine as it would
appear if seen from above; Fig. 2, a front elevation; Fig. 3; a transverso
section, taken vertically through the machine or at about the line A; B, in
Fig. 2; and Fig. 4 is an elevation-of the driving end of the machine; similar
letters of reference are placed-upon corresponding parts of the mechanism in
all the Figures:
Having now described the objects of my Invention, I will proceed by
detailing the construction of the apparatus, and also the operation of the
saine. Two end frames a, a, are bolted to the standards or uprights b; b, (óf
any convenient height from the ground), and 'support'in bearings the respective
shafts c, c, d, d; and e, e; c, c, is the driving shaft, upon one end of which is
band pulley, driven by a band or strap proceeding from a treadle. shaft

page_text: below; exactly in a similar way to a common-foot lathe, or in any convenient
manner; upon this shaft c, c, are keyed 2 excentrics or cranks 9, 9, for the
purpose of raising and lowering the frame or. carriage h, h, sliding in the vertical
V grooves i, i, formed in the end frames a, a; to this frame or carriage his
attached the longitudinal bar k, k, upon which are screwed the spring or clip
pieces 1, 1, 1, 1, forming together a series of fingers or holders, by means of the
spring pieces 1. being pressed inwards against the back or bar k, which closing
of the whole series of clips is effected-by: a cam'm upon the shaft d, d,
slightly turning a portion of a revolution the half round or D-shaped rail or
bar n, n, by means of the connecting lovers o, o, this bar being supported in
the carriage h, and kept in close contact with the spring clips by the clamps
or bearers p, p; upon the cam shaft c, e, there are three sets of cams, those
marked q, q, and r, r, being for the purpose of imoving the needle bars or
holders s, s, to and fro alternately as required, by working against the bars or
tail pieces t, t, attached respectively to the needle bars sliding in the hori-
zontal V grooves u, u, formed in the end frame a, a; and those marked v, v,
being for the purpose of raising and lowering the pressing rail'w, w, which is
notched to allow the needles to pass, and presses the sheet upon the points of
the needles and afterwards conducts it below by means of the combination of
levers a, Acrank pin y, fixed into the large spur. wheel, turning on a stud
in the end frame a, works the table 1,-1, (upon which the sheet to be stitched is
placed) to and fro upon the rails 2, 2, by the assistance of the parallel motion
or levers 3, 8, 8. It will be observed that these several motions are all
suitably geared with the driving pulley by means of the spur pinions 4, 4, 4,
and the bevil pinions 5, 5, with the diagonal shaft 6. Each separate sheet to
be stitched to form a book must be previously prepared by being folded singly
(and not a number together, one within another, as in common bookbinding),
and having a thread gummed and placed longitudinally close in the fold;
the ends of which longitudinal thread are to be brought through the back of
the fold within. a short distance of the top and bottom, as represented by the
red line 7, 7, in the detached view, Figure 5, where a sheet of paper so pre-
pared, and also in Figure 1, is shewn as laid upon the table 1, 1, with the
folded edge just beyond the edge of the table, ready to be submitted to the
cross stitching to be performed by the machine; the operation of which is as
follows:-Supposing the driving band to be turning the pulley f in the direc-
tion of the arrow, seo Fig. 4, as the driving pulley f revolves, the outer
pinion 4 on the shaft c, being in gear with the spur wheel z, causes the crank y
to draw in the table 1 with the folded sheet (containing the longitudinal thread
between its leaves), until it meets with a stop which allows the table to place

page_text: the folded edge of the paper just sufficiently over the series of needles in one
of the bars or holders s (the other bar or series of needles being behind out of
the way), so that in passing through the sheet they shall confine the longitu
dinal thread between the folded edge of the sheet and the vertical or cross
thread put in by the needles. The bars v, v, as they revolve will have depressed
the upright levers x, x, placed in contact with them, and thus by means of the
levers,, have raised tho guide or presser rail w, w, just above the folded
sheet (shewn in Figure 3), and will now cause that bar or rail w, w, to descend
slightly, and thereby press the sheet upon the points of the needles, and hold
it fast upon the needle bar s, so that the needles will protrudo through the sheet
of paper. At the same time the excontrics or cranks 9, 9, upon the shaft c,
cause the frame or carriage h, h, to descend until the open clips or fingers t, t,
receive the needles. The cam m, by means of the levers o, o, partially turns
the half round shaft or bar n, n, and thus pressing the spring clips closes them
upon the needles, holding the series of needles between the clips and the back
rail . The continuous action of the excentrics 9, 9 will now raiso the carriago
h, h, with its clips holding fast the needles, and draw them and the threads
upwards through the folded sheet, whilst the springs 8, 8, acting upon the
bars, t, pull the needle bar s, s, slightly backwards, or out of the way of the
presser rail w. This rail now descends, by the levers x, x, escaping the largest
diameter of the cams v, v, and thus presses or takes down the threaded sheet
and places it upon the pile at 9 below. The table 9, upon which the threaded
sheets are thus placed one above another, is so contrived that it can be readily
adjusted to accomodate the length of the thread as the sheets accumulate.
The outer diameter of the cams r, r, now causes the needle bar s, s, to return,
when the excentrics 9, 9, will lower the carriage h, h, again, and replace or
deposit the needles in the bar s, s. The lever o escaping from the cam m now
turns tho flat side of the shaft n, n, towards the spring clips 1, 1, allows them
to open and release the needles as the carriage p ascends.
.
It will be seen that there are two needle bars or holders s, s', with a separato
series of needles for each, and so contrived that the needle holders shall inter-
sect each other. This arrangement of the needles is in order that only each
alternato sheet shall be stitched or threaded in the same place, and every other
sheet shall be threaded or stitched at the intervening spaces, and consequently
the one series of vertical or machine threads pass inside the longitudinal thread 8
in the folded sheet, and the other series of threads pass outside or at the back
of the same sheet, and vice versa, alternately throughout.
This being the principal feature of novelty in the mode of sewing or weaving
the sheets together, and, being effected entirely by the alternate action of the

page_text: necdle bars S and S, will be readily understood by referring to the Diagram,
Fig. 6; in which a, a, represents the folded sheets of paper, in the fold of
which the black dot represents the longitudinal thread (as it were, in cross
section) previously laid in, and the red line shews the course of one thread put
in by the one set of needless, and the blue line the course of the other thread
put in by the other set of needles s³, thus forming a complete cloth or woven
back, with each sheet separately secured; as the table 1 now advances with
another folded sheet to be stitched, the cams q, q, and levers t¹, t, push the
other set of needle holders s' forwards, when exactly a similar operation is
performed upon this sheet also, excepting only that the series of threads have
been stitched or placed through the folded sheet at the intervening spaces left
between the threads in the former sheet, in consequence of the changing of
the double set of needle bars, as previously described.
After a similar operation of the machine has been performed upon a number
of folded sheets, and they have accumulated below in a sufficient quantity to
form the thickness of the book required, they are ready to be submitted to the
subsequent operations of boarding and finishing, the threads being left long
enough to form a substitute for the end papers commonly employed to secure
the boards to the back of the book.
I would remark, in conclusion, that I do not intend to confine myself to the
precise arrangement of the machinery as exhibited in the Drawings, as I am
aware that the various motions may be readily performed by other mechanical
contrivances, without departing from the object of my Invention.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Richards, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fourteenth day of October, One thousand eight
hundred and forty-two.
THOS (L.B.) RICHARDS.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Fourteenth day of October.