IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINES FOR ELEVATING STRAW, HAY, AND CORN."
Year: 1872

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Robert Maynard, of Whittlesford, in the County
of Cambridge, Engineer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN
MACHINES FOR ELEVATING STRAW, HAY, AND CORN."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Robert Maynard at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
⚫ the 5th December 1872.
"
I, ROBERT MAYNARD, of Whittlesford, in the County of Cambridge,
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN MACHINES FOR ELEVATING STRAW, HAY, AND CORN," to be as
follows:-
·
These improvements are applicable to that kind of elevator by which
the straw or other article to be elevated is carried upwards by means of
two endless chains or bands which working around two pairs of
cylinders or polygons are connected together and kept parallel with
each other by means of bars fixed between them at intervals. From

page_text: these bars project tines, so forming rakes, which take hold of the straw,
and as they ascend carry it up with them and deliver it at the higher
extremity of the chains. Elevators constructed on the principle described
are made to work in one or other of two ways. In one of them the
polygons are made to revolve so as to cause the lower rakes to become
the ascending ones, and these take the straw and sweep it up a boarded
inclined platform which is fixed immediately beneath them; these are
termed undercast machines. In the other way the motion of the
polygons is so as to cause the upper rakes to ascend, and the platform
being fixed between the upper and lower rakes, the upper ones receive
the straw, hay, or corn, and carry it up the platform; these are called
overcast machines.
The object sought by this Invention is to combine in one machine
facilities for using the rakes in both the ways described. In order to
accomplish this I provide means for raising or depressing the polygons
so that when they are raised both the ascending and descending rakes
are above the platform, and the lower rakes being caused to ascend the
machine is an undercast one, and when they are depressed only the
upper rakes are above the platform, and these being made the ascending
ones the machine acts as an overcast one. Or instead of altering the
position of the polygons I use two boarded platforms, one of them being
placed underneath both the ascending and descending rakes, and the
polygons being caused to revolve so that the lower rakes are the
ascending ones; the machine may be used as an undercast elevator; or
another platform being inserted under the upper rakes only, and the 1
motion of the polygons being reversed, the machine acts as an overcast
elevator.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Robert Maynard in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 4th June 1873.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ROBERT
MAYNARD, of Whittlesford, in the County of Cambridge, Engineer, send
greeting.

page_text: One thousand eight hundred and seventy-two, in the thirty-sixth year
of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant
unto me, the said Robert Maynard, Her special licence that I, the said
Robert Maynard, my executors, administrators, and assigns or such
others as I, the said Robert Maynard, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to
time and at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and
Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINES FOR ELEVATING
STRAW, HAY, AND CORN," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the
said Robert Maynard, my executors or administrators, by an instrument
in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should
particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and
in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to
be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next
and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Robert Maynard, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement:-
These improvements are applicable to that kind of elevator by which
the straw or other articles to be elevated is carried upwards by means of
two endless chains or bands, which working around two pairs of
cylinders or polygons are connected together and kept parallel with
each other by means of bars fixed between them at intervals. From
these bars project tines, so forming rakes which take hold of the straw,
and as they ascend carry it up with them and deliver it at the higher
extremity of the chains. Elevators constructed on the principle
described are made to work in one or other of two ways. In one of
them the polygons are made to revolve so as to cause the lower rakes to
become the ascending ones, and these take the straw and sweep it up a
boarded inclined platform which is fixed immediately beneath them;
these are termed undercast machines. In the other way the motion of
the polygons is so as to cause the upper rakes to ascend, and the platform
being fixed between the upper and lower rakes the upper ones receive
the article to be elevated and carry it up the platform; these are called
overcast machines.

page_text: rakes to ascend, as shewn by the arrows, the tines take hold of the straw
and cause it to slide up the boarded platform and fall over its upper end
at E. In Fig. 2, the action of the polygons is the reverse to that which
has been described, and the upper rakes are the ascending ones. The
straw being thrown into the hopper and on the rakes is taken by the
latter and carried over the top pair of polygons instead of being swept
under them as in Fig. 1. This kind of elevator is more convenient than
the undercast one when the article elevated is hay or corn as thrown
irregularly into the hopper, because not being confined as it is in Fig. 1
between the rakes and the platform, the irregularity of the supply does
not impede the action of the rakes.
But the undercast machine is preferable where it can be used (as in
receiving the straw from a thrashing machine) because the descending
rakes are out of the way of the stack which is being reared, and do not
tear it down as those of the overcast machine is apt to do. In Fig. 3,
the polygons and rakes as shewn in shaded lines are depressed, and when
used in that position and the rakes work in the direction of the arrow A
the machine acts as an overcast elevator, but when the spindles which
carry the polygons are raised, which is done by sliding the bushes in
which the lower ones work up the slots s from X to x, and turning over
the arms which carry the upper ones from F to f, the rakes and chains
take the position as shewn by the dotted lines, and being caused to work
in the direction shewn by the dotted arrow (a), then the machine
becomes an undercast elevator.
In witness whereof, I, the said Robert Maynard, have hereunto set
my hand and coal this Fourth day of Tune in the
f