IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR MIXING AND KNEADING."
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edmund Edwards at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 16th April 1879.
EDMUND EDWARDS, of 40, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, in the County
of Middlesex, Engineer. IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR
MIXING AND KNEADING."
"
My Invention relates to machinery or apparatus used for the purpose of mixing
or kneading dough, or other fluid. or semi-fluid material, or other materials which
are required to be thoroughly mixed and incorporated together.
I take a mixing vessel or pan, of any convenient size, and of any suitable
material, but preferably earthenware, preferably cylindrical, placed vertically, and
having an outer rim round its upper edge.
Upon this upper edge I fit an easily removeable frame, having two or more
radial arms which are formed at their outer ends so as to grip the upper edge of
the mixing vessel when desired, the other ends meeting and forming a central
bearing for the apparatus arranged as hereinafter described. I take a bar of metal
or other suitable material helically formed, and large enough to be placed in and to
revolve when desired in the mixing vessel described without touching the side of
the latter, and I connect the upper and lower ends of this bar to radial arms, upon
the lower one of which is formed a pin or stud fitting and revolving in a central
hole or recess in the bottom of the vessel above described, whilst the upper arm
has formed upon or attached to it a central axis or pin, which passes through and
revolves in the central frame which is fitted upon the top of the mixing vessel as
already described, so that when a handle is attached to its upper end the helically
formed bar can be made to revolve, as desired, in the mixing vessel described.
I form and arrange the helical bar in the following way:-Looking at it in plan
from above, I make its helical part describe an arc of about one fourth part of a
complete turn, and of such diameter that it revolves at a small distance from the
side of the vessel. Its tendency is, when turned in one direction, to thoroughly
mix and incorporate the dough or other materials operated upon, and at the same
time to force them gradually downward against the bottom of the vessel, whence
they pass toward the centre of the vessel and rise up the central part of the latter
where the helical bar is inoperative. They then fall over toward the outer
circumference of the vessel where they again come under the action of the helical
bar, and are again mixed and forced downward in the way first described, and so
on continuously until the kneading or mixing process is sufficiently completed.

page_text: '
The upper-frame, together with the helical bar and handle, are then disengaged
from the vessel and removed, and the dough or other material can be removed as
desired.
The helical bar above described may be of either right or left handed pitch, so
that the action on the material as above described can be reversed, in which case the
dough or other material instead of being forced downward and rising up the centre
of the vessel, rises up the side and falls down the centre of the latter. Or two or
more of these helical bars may be used, one operating upon the materials in one
direction, and the other in the opposite direction.
The bar or bars as above described may be made to revolve by means of a
handle at the top of the mixing vessel, or may be connected by means of suitably
arranged toothed wheels to a handle at the side.
By the action of my improved arrangements described the apparatus is made
simpler, cheaper, and more effective, and is more easily cleaned, and less liable to
leave portions of the dough or other materials operated upon unmixed or only
partly mixed, than in apparatus for similar purposes as heretofore constructed.
The different forms of apparatus as described may be put in operation by hand,
steam, or other convenient power.
By my improved arrangements of apparatus the dough or other materials to be
mixed or kneaded are mixed in one part of the vertical vessel, and at the same
time are forced down or up so that they rise or fall through the other part of the
vessel, and the operation thus becomes continuous.
Instead of a helical bar arranged as above described, I sometimes use a vertical
spindle made to revolve in the vessel by the means already described, and I fit or
fix upon this spindle radial mixing bars, the extremities of which nearly touch the
side of the vessel. I make these bars of flat plates, and I arrange the parts
nearest the spindle in an inclined position so that they are helical in form, and at
or near the middle of their length I twist them, so that their outer ends are helical
in form, but in an opposite direction to that of their inner ends. By this method
of arrangement the inner parts of the bars force the material up or down, whilst
their outer parts force it in the opposite direction.
Instead of being fixed to a central spindle, the radial bars may be fixed at their
outer ends to the helical mixing bar first described, or to a cranked bar similar in
position, but not helical in shape.