AN IMPROVED CUTTING, SLICING, GRINDING, AND RASPING MACHINE
Year: 1845

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CHARLES
WILLIAM FIRCHILD, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Gentleman,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Twenty-ninth day of May, in the eighth year of Her reign, did,
for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said Charles
William Firchild, Her especial licence, that I, the said Charles William
Firchild, my exors, admors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Charles
William Firchild, my exors, adiñors, or assigns, should at any time agree with,
and no others, from time to time and at all times during the term of years
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention
of "AN IMPROVED CUTTING, SLICING, GRINDING, AND RASPING MACHINE;" in which
said Letters Patent is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said Charles
William Firchild, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal,
particularly to describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, and to cause the same to be enrolled
in Her said Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next
and immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in
and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large
appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Charles William Firchild, do hereby declare the nature of my said Invention
to consist in a machine arranged with a cutting or sliding blade situated abovo
two rubbing plates or surfaces, which plates receive the cut substances between
them as the said substances leave the blades and grind or rasp them for use.
And in further compliance with the said proviso, I, the said Charles William
Firchild, do hereby describe the manner in which my said Invention is to bo
performed by the following statement thereof, referenco being had to the
Drawing annexed, and to the figures and letters marked thereon, that is to

page_text: or furze, although it affords an exceellent food for cattle, has been hitherto but
little used for the purpose, in consequence of the prickles in which it abounds;
but it may by this means be reduced to as soft a mass as hay; but in cutting
gorso care must be taken to adjust the cutter to such a guage that it shall be
cut into small pieces, say, from an eighth to half an inch, or thereabouts, in
length. When the material is of such a nature as not to require any further:
comminution than it receives from the cutter, the plates K, K, may be thrown
out of work by unkeying the connecting rods N, N. And in like manner,
when the material is desired to be ground and rasped, only the cutting part of
the machine may be detached from the rest by unkeying the connecting rod I.:
Figures 7, 8, 9, and 10 represent two improved grinding plates made wedge-
shaped, and fitted with a parallel piece X, X, at the bottom of each, so that
the movement of the two surfaces in different planes causes the toothed and
wedge-formed surface of each plate to recede from and approach towards the
other alternately during the progress of the stroke, assuming the positions
shewn at Figures 9 and 10 at different parts of the stroke, and thus opening,
as it were, or separating to receive a charge of material from the cutter or
hopper at one moment and closing upon it at another to grind or crush it. A
plan of a pair of these plates as applied to the machine is given in Fig. 11.
And having now described the nature of my said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I claim as of my
Invention is the machine herein-before described, by the peculiar construction
whereof the material subjected to its operation may, after being cut and sliced,
be also (when necessary) ground and rasped, and whether such machine is
used for cutting and slicing only, or for grinding and rasping only, or both, or
any or either of these processes. And such my Invention being to the best of
my knowledge and belief entirely new, and never before used within that part
of Her said Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called
England, Her said Dominion of Wales, or Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, I
do hereby declare this to be my Specification of the same, and that I do verily
believe this my said Specification doth comply in all respects fully and without
reserve or disguise with the proviso in the said herein-before in part recited
Letters Patent contained; wherefore I hereby claim to maintain exclusive
right and privilege to my said Invention.
In witness whereof, I, the said Charles William Firchild, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twenty-ninth day of November, in the
year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and forty-five.
C. W. (L.s.) FIRCHILD.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-ninth day of November,
in the year of our Lord 1845, 'the aforesaid Charles William Firchild came
before our said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the
Specification aforesaid, and all and every 'thing therein contained and specified,
in form above written. And also the Spécification aforesaid was stamped
according to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Enrolled the Twenty-ninth day of November, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and forty-five.