IMPROVEMENTS IN COMMUNICATING OR TRANSMITTING MOTIVE POWER
Year: 1856

page_text: by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Patrick Scott Rankin at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with bis Petition, on the 26th March
1856.
I, PATRICK SCOTT RANKIN, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North
Britain, Cabinet Maker, do hereby declare the nature of tlie said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN COMMUNICATING OR TRANSMITTING MOTIVE POWER," to be
as follows; that is to say:-
This Invention relates to the communication or transmission of motive
power, as for example, that which is derived from the muscular exertion of the
human body, by the agency of a continuously acting lever arrangement, in
such manner as to employ such power' most advantageously for various uses:
In applying this Invention for locomotive purposes, the cart, carriage, omnibus;
waggon, or other vehicle has fixed upon or within it a geared lever arrange-
ment, of which one modification is contrived in this way: at any convenient
part of the vehicle there is fixed up a winch handle shaft, carrying a spur
pinion in gear with a duplex rack, similar to that frequently employed in
printing machinery and in mangles, for giving reversing reciprocating actions
from the continuous rotatory action of a driving wheel. In the present arrange-
ment this duplex rack consists of an open frame, toothed on its two opposite
inner sides, the distance between these two lines of teeth being somewhat more

page_text: than the diameter of the actuating pinion contained in the opening of the
frame. The two ends of the rack frame are plain untoothed curves, each
having a stud pin fast therein, to catch the teeth of the driving pinion as the
end of the frame approaches to it, and turn it over to gear with the opposite
rack. One side of the frame has a double groove down it from end to end, a
fixed pin in the framing of the apparatus being contrived to gear in such
groove first on one side and then on the other, to suit the sido with which the
pinion is in gear; this steadies the frame in its two positions, and as the pinion
continuously rotates, it gives the long double rack frame a continuous recipro-
catory traverse vertically. The upper end of the rack frame is fast to the end
of the longer arm of an unequally divided lever, which is set to oscillate on a
fixed centre in the stationary framing, the opposite shorter arm of this lever
having its extreme end jointed or attached to the upper end of a second duplex
rack frame.
This second rack frame encircles a larger spur pinion fast on the shaft to be
driven, and as the frame traverses up and down continuously its action com-
municates a continuous rotatory motion to the pinion, and thence to the
wheels of the vehicle to be propelled either directly or through the intervention
of gearing. This second rack frame is also formed with a double longitudinal
groove on one side, a stationary spring guide piece being employed for bringing
the two opposite sides of the rack frame into gear with the pinion alternately.
This spring stop is a stationary stud, so contrived upon a free centre that a
slight spring may be set to give it an inclination either one way or the other;
hence, when the apparatus is in action this stud travels up one groove of the frame
and down the other alternately, its set causing it to bear over and pass in the
proper direction through the two end spaces which join the two grooves. In
this way, a man turning the winch handle can give a continuous rotatory action
to the pinion of the second rack frame in either direction at pleasure without
reversing his turning, merely by setting the stud of the rack frame. Instead
of working the apparatus by pinion and rack on the long arm of the lever, the
movement may be given directly to the lever by hand, or in other ways. Such
machinery is well suited for effecting the locomotion of vehicles of various
kinds, whilst it also answers for driving stationary machinery.