AN IMPROVED CINDER AND ASH RECEPTACLE FOR DOMESTIC AND OTHER FIRE-PLACES
Year: 1873

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Isaac Merritt Singer at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
31st March 1878.
I, ISAAC MERRITT SINGER, of Paignton, in the County of Devon, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED
CINDER AND ASH RECEPTACLE FOR DOMESTIC AND OTHER FIRE-PLACES," to be as
follows:-
This Invention relates to an improved and useful apparatus of simple
and inexpensive construction which will be arranged or fitted to be used
under an ordinary fire-grate or stove, or in any suitable part of a fire-
place as a receptacle for cinders or ashes, by the employment of which
greater cleanliness in and about fire-places will be attained, and the
cinders or ashes will be prevented from being scattered or blown about
by draughts or otherwise as hitherto so often the case.
The Invention consist principally in so constructing and placing a
grating or "register" in a fire-place that the cinders and ashes escaping
or falling from the grate or stove above shall fall on to the grating or
$$ register."

page_text: The grating or a series of gratings will be made of metal or other
suitable material, and so arranged as to be capable of being opened
or closed at will, and is intended to serve as a cinder or ash sifter.
The grating or register will be made with openings fine enough to
serve for a screen in order to allow the ashes to fall or pass through into ♬
a metal box or receptacle below, while the cinders will remain on the
top of the grating. Or the openings or perforations if required may be
made large enough to let the cinders fall through also. This box or
receptacle is placed or fitted directly underneath an opening made in
the hearthstone or other part of the fire-place, it will be made of any 1
convenient size, and at the bottom of it will be fitted a second grating
or register, which can be arranged to be shut when the first grating is
opened, and be open when the first grating is closed. This will be
effected by so constructing and combining the two gratings or registers
together by means of a connecting bar and joints or other suitable 1
connection that the upper or first grating in the action of opening will
close or shut the lower grating, and will open it while shutting. Or the
lower grating may be made to open and shut the upper one by similar
means.
The object to be attained in making the two gratings or registers
work in the manner described is to prevent the ashes being blown
upwards. The ashes will fall down through the box or receptacle into
the smoke or sweeping flue (when there is one) or into a long flue or
channel made for the purpose; the ashes may be withdrawn therefrom
underneath (for example) in the basement portion of the house, thus the a
carrying away of the ashes through the rooms (as at present) will be
entirely dispensed with, and at the same time there will be no waste of
cinders as every time that the fire is attended to all will be made clean
by simply opening the grating or gratings and sweeping or brushing
the cinders and ashes backwards and forwards over the openings or a
perforations.