IMPROVEMENTS IN BREAKING, SPREADING, AND DRAWING FLAX AND OTHER FIBROUS SUBSTANCES, AND IN MACHINERY TO BE USED IN CARRYING OUT SUCH IMPROVEMENTS
Year: 1868

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Combe.at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
13th April 1868.
I, JOHN COMBE, of 113, Kensington Terrace, Great Victoria Street,
Belfast, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN BREAKING, SPREADING, AND DRAWING FLAX AND OTHER
FIBROUS SUBSTANCES, AND IN MACHINERY TO BE USED IN CARRYING OUT SUCH
IMPROVEMENTS," to be as follows:-
My Invention consists, firstly, in breaking flax or other fibrous
substances in an angular or diagonal direction across the breadth of the
strick instead of square across as it has hitherto been the custom to do,
and may be applied either to the raw or undressed material before it is
heckled, or to the stricks of flax or other material after it has been
heckled; the latter of which I prefer as retaining the stricks undisturbed
in the diagonal-ended form, and allowing long fibred material, such as
hemp or jute to be heckled and broken diagonally, as described, in
successive lengths as required previous to being sent to the spreading
machine; and in breaking flax I sort the top ends separately from the
root ends, so that the top ends may be spun to greater advantage than
is now done when top and root ends are spun and prepared together.

page_text: In carrying out this part of my Invention I use a breaking table on
which the strick or mass of fibrous material is laid diagonally, 'and
firmly nipped between the table, and two padded jaws acted on by
weighted levers and set with a space between them, which coincides with
a groove or slot in the table, along which the breaker formed of a ring
of brass, the periphery of which is stuck full of blunt-ended round steel
pins, is made to traverse to and fro by the alternate swaying of the arms
of a cast-iron frame in which it is suspended. To this breaker a rapid
.rotation is communicated by a band and pullies, and as it is made to
traverse along the slot in the breaking table the rapidly rotating steel
pins will strike on the fibres firmly nipped between the padded jaws and
break them in succession diagonally across the strick or mass of fibrous
material. For this purpose I also use a breaking table in which the
revolving breaker, as described, is fixed in its place, and the stricks or
masses of material are carried along on travelling sheets, between which
two pairs of nipping rollers, one of each of which is provided with a
ring of vulcanized india-rubber covered with leather so as to yield to and
firmly embrace the other roller; such respective pairs of rollers being
so placed that they will nip and firmly hold the fibres of the strick or
mass of material under operation, where they by the motion of the
travelling sheets and nipping rollers are brought in contact with. the
rapidly rotating pins with which the periphery of the breaker is

page_text: cage formed of wire pins fixed in two discs of metal provided with
pivots, by which such cages are suspended horizontally immediately over
the fallers next to the back rollers in such a position that the wire pins
composing such cylindrical cages will dip in between the points of the
gills as they rise, and such cages will be caused to revolve on their
pivots by the forward motion of the gills as the fallers advance, and the
fibre ends of the stricks as they successively advance will be pressed
down among the gill pins by the wires of such cylindrical cages.
My Invention consists, thirdly, in a new arrangement of spreading
and drawing frame, in which the feeding sheet consists of a series of
straps which are carried at one end on stretching rollers mounted
independently and placed side by side so as to leave a space between
each adjacent pair of straps corresponding with a series of spaces or
grooves turned out of a binding roller under which these straps pass at
a distance of about two or three feet from the stretching rollers above
described. The grooves turned in this binding roller correspond with
and admit with a clear space successive rings of gill pins which are
fixed round a horizontal cylinder, the stocks of such rings of gills
forming ridges on the cylinder, between which the series of straps are
received and pass round, and have motion given to them by the rotation
of the gill cylinder described. The extreme ring of gills on one side is
fixed on the edge of the gill cylinder, and the extreme strap on this
side being beyond the cylinder is carried on a roller level with and of the
same diameter as the binding roller, and adjacent to the cylinder. The
stricks are laid in regular succession with their fibres diagonally across the
travelling straps, and with the diagonally broken end laid in a line parallel
with the edge of and partially overlaying the extreme strap carried
by the supplementary roller adjacent to and beyond the gill cylinder;
and as the layer of successive stricks passes on under the binding roller
and between it and the series of straps across which they are diagonally
laid the successive stricks are pressed by the binding roller into the
rings of gills, between the pins of which they are retained and delivered
at the top of the gill cylinder in regular succession in a horizontal
direction, and with their fibre ends diagonally overhanging the edge
of the gill cylinder and retained by the extreme ring of gills which
surrounds its edge, and the other rings of gills on the cylinder into
the interstices of which they had previously been pressed by the
binding roller. At the top of the gill cylinder I place a pair of drawing

page_text: rollers set at an angle corresponding with the diagonal direction of the
fibres, and at such a level that the fibre ends will be successively
delivered into the nip of the drawing rollers by the rotation of the gill
cylinder, the angle of the diagonal ends of the stricks, the angle at
which the drawing rollers are set, and the draft between the drawing
rollers and the slower going gill cylinder being all arranged to cor-
respond one with another. And in order to ensure the fibre ends being
delivered straight and regular into the nip of the drawing rollers I
extend the lower roller, and place a brush at the side of the upper
roller, so that the rotation of the brush will straighten the fibres before
they are seized between the two drawing rollers.