IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITH MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR HULLING, CLEANING, AND POLISHING RICE OR OTHER KINDS OF GRAIN OR SEEDS, PART OF WHICH IMPROVEMENTS IS ALSO APPLICABLE TO OTHER PURPOSES."
Year: 1879

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Edward Brasier, of New Cross, in the County of Surrey,
Engineer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITH
MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR HULLING, CLEANING, AND POLISHING RICE
OR OTHER KINDS OF GRAIN OR SEEDS, PART OF WHICH IMPROVEMENTS IS
ALSO APPLICABLE TO OTHER PURPOSES."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Edward Brasier at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 22nd October 1879.
EDWARD BRASIER, of New Cross, in the County of Surrey, Engineer.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITH MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR
HULLING, CLEANING, AND POLISHING RICE OR OTHER KINDS OF GRAIN OR
SEEDS, PART OF WHICH IMPROVEMENTS IS ALSO APPLICABLE TO OTHER PURPOSES."
This Invention relates to mills or machinery for hulling or decorticating and
cleaning or polishing rice or other kinds of grain or seeds, and has for its object
by means of novel and special appliances to ensure more perfect hulling, cleaning,
and polishing of the rice or other grain or seed while passing through such mills
and more complete removal of the husks or coatings and dust therefrom than has
hitherto been found practicable.
The improvements comprise (first) an improved construction or combination of
the parts of such mills or machinery; (second), the application thereto of a new
mode or means and appliances for removing the dust and husks or shive from the
casings in which the various operations are carried on; (third), the use and
application of novel and improved materials to form the rubbing, brushing, and
polishing or cleaning surfaces between which the rice or other grain passes during
the several operations of hulling, cleaning, and polishing, and (fourth) the improved
materials being cemented or united together by a new composition which is also
applicable to other useful purposes.
In one modification of the improved hulling or decorticating and cleaning mills
or machinery, the grain is fed into the mill from a separator fitted with suitable
sieves, and falls between a revolving roller or cylinder and a fixed seginental casing,.
which latter is lined with the rough brush or cleaning surface hereinafter described

page_text: the roller or cylinder being either covered with a similar surface or compositions of
emery and other well known materials heretofore employed for grinding and
polishing surfaces. The rice, or grain, or seed falls from between the revolving and
fixed surfaces on to a revolving brush, by which it is carried round and delivered
on to a second revolving roller or cylinder, between which and a second segmental
fixed surface the rice passes; this roller and fixed surface may be covered with a
coating or surface of finer material than the one above. The rice or other grain or
seed may be caused to pass through or between a series of such rubbing surfaces if
desired, and is finally passed away by a channel or duct below.
The fixed segmental concave case or surface has an outer air casing or chamber
which may be formed of wood or metal, and which also encloses the cylinders or
rollers.
An opening or passage covered with a wire cloth screen is made at the
chambered or open side of the casing opposite to the grinding or rubbing side of
each cylinder of the mill, and these openings or passages lead by suitable channels
or close ducts to an exhausting fan or fans or other air exhausters, the action of
which fan or fans causes a current or currents of air to pass in a cross direction
through the falling rice or grain, and carry away the dust and lighter husks or
shive to the exhausting fan or fans along with the air, and also assists to draw the
rice or grain through between the cylinder and the segmental cleaning cover or
surface.
Instead, of or in addition to exhausting from the side of the casing opposite the
segmental case or cover, the segmental cleaning case or surface may have inter-
mediate sections cut out of it fitted with wire cloth, through which the dust and
coatings may be abstracted or drawn to small covered-in chambers outside and
leading to the fan or fans by suitable ducts. The stream of grain as it falls from
the roller passes through the blast of air from the fans, and is then further freed
from any dust or shive that may have come through with it. The outlet passages
for the dust and shive may be regulated by an adjustable flap, or plate, or
otherwise, or the dust and shive may be dealt with as hereinafter described.
The new or improved material or materials for application to the rubbing
surfaces of the cleaning and polishing mills or machinery is composed of brushes
made of bass or of the fibre of cocoa-nut, or of bamboo cane, rattan cane, or
other strong vegetable fibrous material. The bass so used is cut into suitable strips
or lengths and placed packed closely in a box, frame, or mould corresponding in
form with the brushing, polishing, or cleaning surface required.
An adhesive composition is pressed or otherwise introduced into and amongst
the fibrous material, so as to cement or unite them together from front to back,
the composition forming a solid back to the brush or polishing surface when cold.
The composition which has been found most advantageous for this purpose consists
of about eight parts by weight of the waste dust or particles from the cocoa nut
husks, about six parts by weight of gutta-percha, and two parts by weight of
shell-lac combined and melted together.
Strips of metal, whale-bone, end grained blocks of wood, or other suitable
material may also be employed for the same purpose in place of the strips of fibrous
materials before mentioned for forming the brush or polishing surfaces.
Another improvement consists in dividing the hollow concave or segmental fixed
casing or rubbing surface part into sections by transverse thin bars or feathers of
from one inch to two inches in depth, and in filling up the whole surface or
segmental spaces between these feathers with bamboo cane or rattan cane or other
vegetable fibrous material cut into short uniform lengths, so as to have the inner
rough rubbing surface formed of the elastic end fibre of the material used to the
corresponding hollow contour of the revolving cylinder all tightly wedged between
the feathers, some of which might be formed circumferentially either at right angles
or obliquely to the axis of the rubbing surface.
The new or improved air-exhausters are applied in the following manner to the
ordinary types or construction of rice or other grain cleaning mills:-
In rice cleaning mills of the horizontal type the husks and dust may be abstracted

page_text: by a pipe or close channel leading from the casing formed round the lower revolving
stone, to the suction or induction eyes or ports of the fan or air exhauster, with
this advantage that the rice will be assisted in its passage through the stones and
mill chamber.
Then as applied to the conical form of rice husking mills, the bottom of the
casing may be formed with a chamber communicating by a close duct or channel
with the air exhauster, and the husks, shive, and dust may be abstracted in
passing from the lower part of the husking and grinding surfaces of the cylinder
and outer case, and when applied to these conical mills as decorticating and
cleaning mills or pearling mills, a close air exhausting case may be formed round
the outside of the wire cloth of the acting stationary cleaning case or surface, from
the lower part of which a duct would be led direct to the induction eyes or ports.
of the air exhauster, so as to abstract the dust and lighter coatings or broken rice
along with the air.
In the old type of edge running barley mills when used as rice cleaning mills in
which the cylinder runs and rolls the rice under it within the case, the dust and
air is exhausted from the case at the side opposite to that by which the rice is fed,
above the level of the rice in the case, or when the cleaning case is made of wire
cloth, a wooden or other close chamber may be formed outside from which the air
and dust is exhausted to the fan.
A further improvement consists in fitting to single or double cylinder decorti-
cating mills at the top or feeding-in part, either one or a pair of fluted or roughened
surface rollers right across the whole feeding-in mouth below the supply hopper,
either with or without the ordinary shaking or feeding-in tray or sieve, and the
revolving cylinders of these mills may be driven by spur gearing on their spindles
outside the frame at the same or at different speeds instead of by driving belts as
heretofore.
And a further improvement consists in using a rough hollow perforated or wire
cloth cylinder instead of the brush for transmitting the rice from the upper
cylinder to the rubbing surfaces of the lower cylinder for the purpose of drawing
or sifting off the shive and dust into the interior of this perforated cylinder leading
direct by a hollow centre or journal at one end to the exhaust fan. Instead of
being formed wholly of wire cloth this perforated cylinder might have a set of
brushes fixed on bars across it.
The fan or fans employed may be placed in any convenient position near the
rice cleaning mill, and the light cuttings, husks, and shive may be separated from
the air discharged from the fan into separate hoppers by gravitation as in corn
and other thrashing mills, or the dust and residues may be carried by a duct or
passage to a chamber outside the building in which the rice or grain is cleaned,
and these residues may be afterwards separated and treated as usual for utilizing
the useful products for the feeding of animals.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed by
the said Edward Brasier in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 15th April
1880.
EDWARD BRASIER, of New Cross, in the County of Surrey, Engineer.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITH MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR
HULLING, CLEANING, AND POLISHING RICE OR OTHER KINDS OF GRAIN OR SEEDS,
PART OF WHICH IMPROVEMENTS IS ALSO APPLICABLE TO OTHER PURPOSES."
This Invention relates to mills or machinery for hulling or decorticating and
cleaning or polishing rice or other kinds of grain or seeds, and has for its object by
means of novel and special appliances to ensure more perfect hulling, cleaning, and
polishing of the rice or other grain or seed while passing through such mills, and
more complete removal of the husks or coatings and dust therefrom than bas
hitherto been found practicable.
The improvements comprise (first) an improved construction or combination of
the parts of such mills or machinery; (second), the application thereto of a new
mode or means and appliances for removing the dust and husks or shive from the
casings in which the various operations are carried on; (third), the use and
application of novel and improved materials to form the rubbing, brushing, and
polishing or cleaning surfaces between which the rice or other grain passes during
the several operations of hulling, cleaning, and polishing, and (fourth), the improved
materials being cemented or united together by a new composition, which is also
applicable to other useful purposes.
And in order that my improvements may be clearly understood I will proceed to
describe the same, reference being had to the Drawings hereto annexed.
In one modification of the improved hulling or decorticating and cleaning mills
or machinery, as shown in Figures 1, 2, 3, and 4, Sheets 1 and 2, of the Drawings
hereto annexed, the grain is fed into the mill from a separator A (shown in dotted
lines) fitted with suitable sieves and falls between a revolving roller or cylinder a
and a fixed adjustable segmental casing b of the character described in the Specifi-
cation of Letters Patent granted to me, dated 21st February, 1871, No. 444, which,
according to my present improvements, is lined with the rough brush or cleaning
surface b¹ hereinafter described, the roller or cylinder a being either covered with a
similar surface or compositions of emery and other well known materials heretofore
employed for grinding and polishing surfaces. The rice, or grain, or seed falls from
between the revolving and fixed surfaces a and b¹ on to a revolving brush c, by
which it is carried round and delivered on to a second revolving roller or cylinder d,
between which and a second segmental fixed surface e the rice passes; this roller d
and fixed surface e may be covered with a coating or surface e¹ of finer material
than the one above. The rice or other grain or seed may be caused to pass through
or between a series of such rubbing surfaces if desired, and is finally passed away
by a channel or duct ƒ below.
The rollers a and d and brush c are adjusted by means of set screws as shown.
The fixed segmental concave case or surfaces 6 and e may have an outer air casing
or chamber, as indicated in dotted lines a*, which may be formed of wood or metal,
and which also encloses the cylinders or rollers a and d. An opening or passage y
covered with a wire cloth screen 9' is made at the chambered or open side of the
casing opposite to the grinding or rubbing side of each cylinder of the mill, and
these openings or passages g lead by suitable channels or close ducts g² to an
exhausting fan or fans h or other air exhausters, the action of which fan or fans h
causes a current or currents of air to pass in a cross direction through the falling
rice or grain, and carry away the dust and lighter husks or shive to the exhausting

page_text: fan or fans h along with the air, and also assists to draw the rice or grain through
between the cylinder a and the segmental cleaning cover or surface b.
Instead of, or in addition to, exhausting from the side of the casing opposite the
segmental case or cover the segmental cleaning case or surface may have inter-
mediate sections cut out of it, fitted with wire cloth, through which the dust and
coatings may be abstracted or drawn to small covers in chambers outside and
leading to the fan or fans by suitable ducts. The stream of grain as it falls from
the roller d passes through the blast of air from the fan i and is then further freed
from any dust or shive that may have come through with it. The outlet passages
for the dust and shive may be regulated by an adjustable flap or plate or otherwise,
or the dust and shive may be dealt with as hereinafter described.
The new or improved material or materials for application to the rubbing surfaces
6 and e¹ of the cleaning and polishing mills or machinery is composed of brushes
made of bass or of the fibre of cocoa nut, or of bamboo cane, rattan cane, or other
strong vegetable fibrous material. The bass so used is cut into suitable strips or
lengths and placed or packed closely in a box, frame, or mould, corresponding in
form with the brushing, polishing, or cleaning surface required.
An adhesive composition is pressed or otherwise introduced into and amongst the
fibrous material so as to cement or unite them together from front to back, the
composition forming a solid back to the brush or polishing surface when cold. The
composition which has been found most advantageous for this purpose consists of
about eight parts by weight of the waste dust, or particles from the cocoa nut
husks, about six parts by weight of gutta percha, and two parts by weight of
shell-lac combined and melted together.
Strips of metal, whalebone, end grained blocks of wood, or other suitable material
may also be employed for the same purpose, in place of the strips of fibrous materials
before mentioned for forming the brush or polishing surfaces.
Another improvement consists in dividing the hollow concave or segmental fixed
casing or rubbing surface into parts or sections by transverse thin bars or feathers
of from one inch to two inches in depth, and in filling up the whole surface or
segmental spaces between these feathers with bamboo cane or rattan cane or other
vegetable fibrous material cut into short uniform lengths, so as to have the inner
rough rubbing surface formed of the elastic end fibre of the material used to the
corresponding hollow contour of the revolving cylinder all tightly wedged between
the feathers, some of which might be formed circumferentially either at right angles
or obliquely to the axis of the rubbing surfaces and rollers a and d.
The new or improved air exhausters are applied in the following manner to the
ordinary types or construction of rice or other grain cleaning mills:-
In rice cleaning mills of the horizontal type represented in Figure 5, Sheet 3 of
the Drawings annexed, the husks and dust may be abstracted by a pipe or close
channel a¹ leading from the casing a formed round the lower revolving stone 6 to
the suction or induction eyes or ports of the fan or air exhauster with this advantage,
that the rice will be assisted in its passage through the stones and mill chamber.
Then as applied to the conical form of rice husking mills represented by Figures
6 and 7, Sheet 3 of the Drawings annexed, the bottom of the casing a may be
formed with a chamber a', communicating by a close duct or channel a² with the
air exhauster, and the husks, shive, and dust may be abstracted in passing from the
lower part of the husking and grinding surfaces of the cylinder and outer case, and
when applied to these conical mills as decoricating and cleaning mills or pearling
mills, a close air exhausting case may be formed round the outside of the wire cloth
of the acting stationary cleaning case or surface, from the lower part of which a
duct as would be led direet to the induction eyes or ports of the air exhauster, so
as to abstract the dust and lighter coatings or broken rice along with the air.
In the old type of edge running barley mills, when used as rice cleaning mills, in
which the cylinder a runs, and rolls the rice under it within the case b, as shewn by
Figures 8 and 9, Sheet 4 of the Drawings annexed, the dust and air is exhausted

page_text: from the case b at the side c, opposite to the side d, by which the rice is fed above
the level of the rice in the case b, or when the cleaning case is made of wire cloth,
a wooden, or other close chamber e may be formed outside, from which the air and
dust is exhausted to the fan.
A further improvement consists in filling to single or double cylinder decorticating
mills at the tap, or feeding in past either one or a pair of fluted or roughened surface
rollers j, Figures 1 and 3, Sheet 1 and 2, right across the whole feeding in mouth
below the supply hopper k, either with or without the ordinary shaking or feeding in
tray or sieve A, and the revolving cylinders of these mills may be driven by spur
gearing on their spindles outside the frame, at the same or at different speeds,
instead of by driving belts as heretofore..
And a further improvement consists in using a rough, hollow, perforated or wire
cloth cylinder, instead of the brush c, for transmitting the rice from the upper
cylinder to the rubbing surfaces of the lower cylinder, for the purpose of drawing or
sifting off the shive and dust into the interior of this perforated cylinder, leading
direct by a hollow centre or journal at one end to the exhaust fan. Instead of being
formed wholly of wire cloth, this perforated cylinder might have a set of brushes
fixed on bars across it.
The fan or fans employed may be placed in any convenient position near the rice
cleaning mill, and the light cuttings, husks, and shive may be separated from the
air discharged from the fan into separate hoppers and m by gravitation, as in
corn and other thrashing mills, or the dust and residues may be carried by a duct
or passage to a chamber outside the building, in which the rice or grain is cleaned,
and these residues may be afterwards separated and treated as usual for utilizing
the useful products for the feeding of animals and otherwise.
Having thus described the nature of my Invention, and the manner of performing
or carrying the same into practice, I would remark that I do not claim any of the
mechanical parts separately, which are well known and in common use, neither do
limit myself to the exact details hereinbefore described so long as the novel
features of my Invention are retained, but what I claim is,―
First. The improved arrangement and combination of machinery for hulling,
decorticating, and cleaning rice or other grain which is fed into the machine from
a separator A, or hopper k, and feed roller j, into and between the covered roller a,
and fixed segmental casing 6 covered and lined with polishing materials, enclosed
by air chambers, the grain or seed falling on to a revolving brush c, which conducts
it to a second pair or pairs of revolving and fixed polishing surfaces b and e, the
grain falling into a sieve l, m, the dust and shive being drawn and carried away by
the fans h and i, all arranged to act substantially in the manner herein before
described and represented in Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Drawings annexed.
I also claim the improved method of arranging the exhaust fan h and fan blower i,
in combination with the air passages and ducts a*, g, g², substantially as and for
the purposes hereinbefore described and shown in the Drawings annexed.
Second. Arranging the cleaning surfaces 6¹ and e¹ in segments with intermediate
sections of wire cloth, through which the dust and coatings from the grain are
conducted into external chambers communicating with a fan or fans by suitable
ducts, substantially as and for the purpose herein before described.
Third. The arrangement, construction, and application to the rubbing surfaces of
cleaning and polishing mills, of new or improved materials, consisting of the fibre
of bass, cocoa nut, bamboo cane, rattan cane, or other strong vegetable fibrous
materials, placed in suitable holders, the fibres being united by cement or
composition from front to back, substantially as and for the purposes hereinbefore
described.
I also claim the improved composition for the purpose hereinbefore described, and
for other purposes to which the same may be applicable.
I also claim the method of dividing the concav fixed rubbing surfaces b¹ and e¹
into parts or sections, by means of thin bars or feathers, and filling in the spaces

page_text: with fibrous materials, substantially as and for the purposes herein before
described.
Fourth. I claim the improved arrangement and application to rice, barley, and
other grain cleaning mills, of air and exhaust apparatus, substantially in the manner
and for the purposes hereinbefore described and represented in Figures 5, 6, 7, 8,
and 9 of the Drawings annexed.
In witness whereof, I, the said Edward Brasier, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Ninth day of April, in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and eighty.
E. BRASIER. (LS.)