AN IMPROVED PULPING AND COMPRESSING MACHINE FOR THE TREATMENT OF PEAT, AND THE MANUFACTURE OF THE SAME INTO FUEL
Year: 1873

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert Stenson, and Arthur St.
George Cuff, at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with
their Petition, on the 23rd April 1873.
We, ROBERT STENSON, Engineer, and ARTHUR ST. GEORGE CUFf,
Gentleman, both of Printing House Square, in the City of London, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED
PULPING AND COMPRESSING MACHINE FOR THE TREATMENT OF PEAT, AND THE
MANUFACTURE OF THE SAME INTO FUEL," to be as follows :—
1.
This Invention consists in the construction of a machine for pulping
and compressing peat, and for making the same into blocks with great
facility and rapidity. A rotary wheel of iron of great strength is mounted
in suitable bearings, and in the periphery thereof are formed a number of
boxes with open ends, one end of each box being in the face of the
periphery of the wheel and the other end opening towards the axis
thereof: The boxes are formed of the size of which it is desired to
manufacture the blocks of fuel. The boxes are respectively lined with
finely perforated metallic plates, and each box has a plunger or piston
free to work therein, such plungers or pistons having respectively
perforated tops and friction wheels arranged at the bottoms thereof. In

page_text: the centre of the vertical wheel is fixed a cam, on which cam the
plungers or pistons rise and fall as the wheel revolves. Outside the
wheel and firmly attached to the stand or bed of the machine is a fixed
bracket which covers three parts of the periphery of the wheel. On the
face of the peripery of the wheel each box is provided with a finely
perforated cover which slides in grooves and having friction rollers fixed
on the top thereof, and which press against the bracket. Each cover is
opened or shut by means of a small wheel which is attached to the top
thereof, and which slides in and out of a fixed cam provided for that
purpose as the large or centre wheel revolves. The latter is kept in
position by means of side rollers.
The pulping apparatus consists of an iron cylinder having a number
of knives or cutting blades fixed round the interior thereof, a vertical shaft
capable of rotating being placed in the centre of the cylinder, and having
attached thereto a number of knives or cutting blades arranged in the
form of a screw, so that as the shaft-rotates the peat which is introduced
into the cylinder through a suitable hopper provided for that purpose
is broken up and reduced to a pulp during its passage through the
cylinder to the boxes arranged in the periphery of the wheel, as before
mentioned, and which receive the pulp as they are respectively brought
within the scope of the supply by the revolution of the vertical wheel.
The action of the machine is as follows:-The vertical wheel is caused
to rotate by means of any suitable motive power; when the boxes are
consecutively filled with the peat pulp the plungers rise by the action of
the central cam and gradually compress the peat and force the water
contained therein through the perforated sides and covers of the boxes,
the pressure being complete by the time the wheel has revolved three-
fourths of its circle of revolution, the covers (which have been previously
closed by means of the fixed cam and small wheels) are opened and the
plungers or pistons suddenly rise and eject the blocks, the plungers
then being consecutively lowered the boxes supplied with peat pulp and
process continued.