NEW INVENTED MACHINE FOR COMBING WOOL, HEMP, FLAX, WASTE SILK, COTTON, HAIR, OR ANY OTHER SUBSTANCE OR MATERIAL CAPABLE OF BEING REDUCED TO A SLIVER BY THE OPERATION OF COMBING
Year: 1814

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES
COLLIER, late of Upper Thernhaugh Street, in the County of Middlesex, but
now of Grosvenor Street West, in the said County of Middlesex, Engineer,
send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Third.
did, by His Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United King-
dom of Great Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Fourth
day of August, in the fifty-fourth year of His reign, give and grant unto
me, the said James Collier, my executors, administrators, and assigns, His
especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said
James Collier, my executors, administrators, and assigns, during the term of
years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend my "NEW INVENTED MACHINE FOR COMBING WOOL, HEMP, FLAX, WASTE
SILK, COTTON, HAIR, OR ANY OTHER SUBSTANCE OR MATERIAL CAPABLE OF BEING
REDUCED TO A SLIVER BY THE OPERATION OF COMBING," within England, Wales, and
the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, in such manner as to me, the said James
Collier, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should in our discretion
seem meet; in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that if I,
the said James Collier, should not particularly describe and ascertain the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to
be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within two calendar

page_text: months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent, that
then the said Letters Patent, and all liberties and advantages whatsoever
thereby granted, should utterly cease, determine, and become void, as in and
by the said recited Letters Patent, relation being thereunto had, may more
fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
James Collier, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
in what manner the same is to be performed, are particularly described and
ascertained in the Drawings hereunto annexed, and the following description
thereof and references thereto (that is to say):-
Not having discovered, from any information I have been able to procure,
that the combing of wool, &c. has been effected by the method and theory
hereafter described, or that loss or waste has been prevented by any machine
or machines hitherto made use of, and considering that it would be of the
utmost national importance to prevent loss and unnecessary labor upon a
substance which has always been considered the staple produce of this country,
and that the great waste at present sustained upon the raw material is only
occasioned by the imperfect manner in which the first stages of its manufacture
are performed, it may not be improper to give a short developement of the
present usual method of combing wool, so as to explain the difference between
such method and my new theory. In the common method of combing wool
the workman makes use of an instrument of steel and wood, called a comb,
wherein long steel points are solidly fixed in a wooden handle. The steel
points, having been warmed in what is called a combing pot, are filled with
wool. The workman then passes the combs alternately through the wool, so
as to bring the fibres into a vertical direction, after which he fixes the comb on
a bar of wood, and gradually picks out the wool with his fingers, when all that
part of the wool which is broken off or intangled round the steel points of the
comb is looked upon as waste, and called noiles. Now my new theory consists
in separating each fibre of wool, &c. so as to make them follow a direction
parallel to each other, and by not holding or retaining them longer than is
necessary to straighten the fibres, they slip through a number of points or
teeth, so as to separate them from each other without breaking or otherwise
injuring them. And this can be done by the machine hereafter described.
Some sorts of wool require heat to retain the fibres in a parallel direction, and
other sorts require both oil and heat, the first to soften, the latter to retain
them; but, instead of employing coal, coke, or charcoal, I employ a small
steam boiler to introduce steam into the inside of the taking-up roller E (which
should be constructed of metal, and made hollow, for the purpose of receiving

page_text: the steam), by which means the effect is obtained. That part of the machine
which I call the combing roller H, and which constitutes a part of the theory
of this machine, may be made or composed of any substance that will take a
cylindrical form, and which, being turned perfectly round, smooth, and straight,
can be covered with points or teeth previously fixed in leather or any other
elastic substance capable of holding them, and that can be drawn upon the
roller in the manner of a glove, by which means the points or teeth will cover
all its surface. These points or teeth are similar to those of a common card
used in carding wool. This roller may be made to produce a rotative or
alternative motion, or be regulated by means of wheelwork, so as to receive
and give the wool, &c. without breaking the fibres, by retaining it a greater
length of time than is necessary to straighten those fibres.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MACHINE.
The Drawings annexed represent a plan or bird's-eye view (Fig. 1), an
elevation of the side (Fig. 2) and of the two ends (Fig. 3 and Fig. 4) of our
system of the combing engine. Fig. 5 is the combing roller. The wool or
substance intended to be combed having been previously beaten and cleaned,
is spread as even as possible upon the plank J, Fig. 1, or else upon an endless
cloth placed upon this plank. It is then brought forward between the iron
fluted rollers C, and conveyed over the combing roller H. Now, as by means
of the wheelwork the velocity of the three rollers U, E, Q, which I denominate
the clearing rollers, is greater than that of the rollers C and H, the wool, &c.
is dragged through the teeth or points of the roller H, and perfectly separated.
The use of the rollers D is to receive the wool, &c. between them, and convey it
from the clearing rollers U, E, Q, into a box, or on a bobbin, or round a drum,
or to any other kind of receptacle as occasion may require. But, in order to
clear the wool, &c. from the roller H, it is requisite that the teeth or points with
which it is covered should press against the iron fluted roller U, so that the
spring of the teeth or points may force the wool, &c. from this roller, in case
it should catch. These several rollers are all weighted, as at S, for the purpose
of keeping them in their places, and making them hold to each other, and are
placed in sliding supports B; their distances are regulated according to the
wool, &c. intended to be combed. The movement may be given to these rollers
by means of a pulley L, a handle, or any other method of giving motion to
machinery, and the communication from the pulley O to the pulley P is by a
small cord or strap. The wheelwork F may be made to take off and put on,
so as, by changing the wheels, to vary the speed of the respective rollers
according to the substance intended to be combed. A is the framework of