IMPROVED TREADLE MECHANISM FOR OPERATING SEWING AND OTHER MACHINES
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Alexander Melville Clark at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 28th January 1879. A communication
from abroad by William Foster Lane, of Elgin, in the County of Kane, State
of Illinois, United States of America.
ALEXANDER MELVILLE CLARK, of Chancery Lane, in the County of Middlesex,
Patent Agent.
"IMPROVED TREADLE MECHANISM FOR OPERATING SEWING AND
OTHER MACHINES." [A communication from abroad by William Foster Lane, of
Elgin, in the County of Kane, State of Illinois, United States of America.]
The object of this Invention is to provide an improved treadle movement, whereby
the power may be applied continuously and evenly in one direction without springs
and the loss of motion and power necessary to pass dead centres, and by which the
operator can control the machine by his feet alone, thus having his hands free to
hold or adjust the work.
According to this Invention the main shaft of the sewing or other machine to
which motion is to be imparted is provided with a pair of ratchet wheels whose
teeth are formed upon a collar, which is secured firmly upon the shaft by a set
screw or other device, so that the shaft will be revolved simultaneously with the
said ratchet wheels. The ratchet wheels are each worked by a pawl or pawls
pivoted to a carrier plate, which is arranged to turn loosely upon the shaft and
flush with the side of the ratchet. The pawl is in the shape of an elbow lever, the
toothed end of which is prevented from rising higher than just clear of the ratchet
teeth by a projection or shoulder upon the carrier. The other end of the elbow
lever or pawl is held between shoulders or projections formed upon a disc or plate,
which is formed on or attached to the side of a band pulley turning loosely upon
the shaft, and bears with a small collar against the outer side of the pawl carrier
plate. The shoulders upon the disc or plate form a clutch for operating the arm of
the pawl in such a manner that when the clutch plate is turning with the ratchet
teeth, the pawl is raised and rides freely over the teeth, but when the clutch plate
is turning in the direction against the teeth of the ratchet wheel, the pawl is thrown
into the teeth of said wheel, and thus pushes the same and the shaft around
with it.
A guide pulley is pivoted somewhere below the shaft of the machine and the
parts turning thereon, the axis of which pulley is at right angles to the shaft. The
motion from the alternately oscillated treadles is transmitted to the pulleys on the
shaft by means of a band or cord, both ends of which are fastened by hooks to some
stationary point, and which runs from one of the hooks down behind, under, and

page_text: around a guide pulley pivoted between lugs in an opening in the rear and moving
end of one treadle, thence up behind, over, and around one of the pulleys vertically
above, thence down and-around-the-guide-pulley, thence up-in front-of, over, and
around the other pulley on the shaft, and thence down in front of, under, and around
a pulley in the other treadle, and lastly, up behind the latter pulley to the second
fixed hook. Thus the depression-of-either-treadle will-cause the machine shaft to-
-turn in the direction away from the operator. It will also raise the other treadle,
and cause the corresponding pawl of the latter to recede and take a new hold on
"the teeth of the ratchet wheel, thus applying the power evenly and continuously
and in one direction only, and without loss by dead centres.