Improvements in Nailing Machinery.
Year: 1896

page_text: Date of Application, 23rd June, 1896-Accepted, 15th Aug., 1896
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Nailing Machinery.
I ORLANDO ETHELBERT LEWIS, of Winthrop, in the County of Suffolk and
State of Massachusetts, United States of America, Manufacturer, do hereby
declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:-
This invention has for its object to improve and simplify the construction of
nailing machines.
The machine herein to be described makes its own nails from a flat strip of
metal, cutters, to be described, cutting away a portion of one edge of the metal
strip at intervals to form the tapering side of the nail and the underside of the
head, the nail produced resembling a brad with a bead projecting from one side of
the body.
The invention accordingly consists in the use in a nailing machine of a lever
as & having a cutting die provided with a lip, the die and lip having coinciding
grooves, a block having a driver passage with a space above it for the head of a
nail, a guide for the strip which is to form the nail, the strip being fed into the
grooves of the lip and cuting die, and a stationary cutter which is adapted to cut
out a portion of one edge of the strip and leave a head and a tapering edge
below it.
And also in the use, in a nailing machine, of a shaft as A², its cam B³, a lever
having a yoke provided with a shank which is held loosely in said lever, the cutter
lever having an attached cutting block provided with a lip, and a loose block b
fitted on said lever.
Fig. 1 represents a left hand side elevation of a sufficient portion of the
improved machine showing the invention to enable the same to be understood:
Fig. 2 is a front elevation thereof.
.
Fig. 3 is an enlarged section in the line a, Fig. 2.
Fig. 4 an enlarged view shewing the inner or active end of the stationary nail
cutter and its carrier.
Fig. 5 shows the cam detached.
Fig. 6, the nail carrier and movable cutter.
Fig. 7, a detail of the pawl to operate the strip feeding wheel.
Fig. 8 a detail of the forked block.
Fig. 9, shows the devices for adjusting the length of the nail; and
Fig. 10 shows a nail such as will be produced in the machine.
The column A has a suitable foot, not shown, to rest on the floor, and it
supports at its top the head A', which is of suitable shape to sustain the working
parts.
The main shaft A2 has loose on it a driving pulley A³ having preferably a
conical interior which is adapted to fit against the conical face of a pulley A' fast
on said shaft the loose pulley being pressed in driving contact with the fast pulley
by a wedge fork A' working against the beveled end of a loose collar A, the
opposite end of which acts against the hub of the pulley A³, the wedge being
attached to a rod A connected in practice with a suitable treadle, the spring A
acting normally to separate the said pulleys.
The pulley A³ has attached to or forming a part of it a large wheel A³, herein
shown as having a V-shaped groove in its periphery, which groove receives a

page_text: wheel A having a ^-shaped periphery, said wheel being fast on a shaft A10
carrying a grinding wheel A"
The front end of the shaft A2 has attached to it a driver lifting cam B, which
acts on a lug of a collar B¹ fixed on the driver bar B' having a driver B³, said
cam lifting the bar, and a suitable spring Bacting on a lever B³ to depress the
said bar.
The shaft A also has fast on it a disc B, shown separately in Fig. 5, said disc
having at its front side a cam groove B', shown by full lines, and at its rear side a
cam groove B, shown by dotted lines.
The cam groove B' receives a roller or other stud of a lever B, pivotted at B10,
and having at its lower end a segmental toothed rack which engages the teeth of a
pinion B12, fast on a short shaft C* having at its outer end a pawl carrying
arm C, having at its inner side a pawl C' pivoted at C2 and acted upon by a
suitable spring C³, see Fig. 7, said pawl being normally acted upon by said spring
to cause it to engage the teeth of a ratchet wheel C.
This pawl has a constant throw and the pawl would always consequently have a
definite stroke and would move the strip feeding wheel C a definite distance
causing it acting against one edge of the strip a, to feed always for a like distance
and the nails would all be of a certain length, but to enable the machine to make
nails of any desired length this pawl has combined with it a shield C attached, as
shown in Fig. 1, by screws to the end of a length adjusting lever C having its
fulcrum on the shaft C alongside the ratchet wheel C, and by moving this lever
the shield may be interposed between the ratchet wheel and the pawl so that the
effective stroke of the pawl in moving the ratchet wheel may be altered, as desired,
to cause the strip to be fed for a greater or less distance according to the length of
nail desired.
This lever is moved by hand and has a spring actuated locking pin Co which
co-operates with a toothed segment C12 fast on the machine head, the locking pin
holding the lever in adjusted position..
The disc B has ratchet teeth at its periphery which are engaged by a pawl b to
. prevent the shaft a turning backward."
The strip a is taken from a roll a' suitably mounted on the machine and is led
through a suitable guide a² and thence between the toothed feed roll C and a
co-operating roll a³ mounted on a stud carried by a lever a pivoted at a and
having combined with its end a pressure adjusting device shown as a screw a, the
end of which abuts against the framework so that the effective pressure or force
with which the said strip is grasped may be varied, and by using a narrow strip
and feeding it by grasping its edges I find it possible to cause the teeth of the feed
wheel C to so embed themselves into the edge of the strip as to indent the same
leaving a series of scores or teeth, as a', see Fig. 10, at the straight edge of the
tapering bodied nail, said scores or teeth adding very materially to the holding
power of the nail.
After passing below the feed wheels the strip enters a guideway as, shown best
in Fig. 4, the said guideway being made from a steel block suitably grooved for
the passage of the wire, the lower hardened end of said guide terminating
substantially flush with the shoulder a of a projecting portion a° of the frame
work.
The machine has pivotted upon it, at b, a lever b' provided at the inner side near
its outer end, see Fig. 3, with a steel block 2 having a strip receiving groove ba
and a lip provided with a notch in line with said groove 63, the said lip, in
practice, travelling close under the shoulder a and acting with the hardened
end of the guide a to cut the strip transversely into nail lengths.
The lever has upon it a loose block 6 kept in place by a collar b, and the said
loose block is embraced by a forked block 68 having a shank & which is entered
loosely into a hole at the lower end of a lever 10 pivoted at 12 and having a
roller or other stud 613 at its upper end which enters the cam groove Bs before
described.

page_text: The loose fork enables the two levers 60 and 61, one in a vertical and the other
in a horizontal plane, to work freely.
The head of the machine has connected to it by suitable screws e a plate c¹
having a tubular nose e² down through which the nail is driven by the driver into
the work, the said nose resting on the work presented by the hand of the operator,
usually the sole of a shoe.
Above the plate c¹ the head has a passage in which is placed side by side a
stationary cutter and a back or holding plate c, said plate being however,
adjustable longitudinally.
The cutter is held by a suitable screw as , and the screw centers. by its
inner end the plate e', the hole in which the screw stands being somewhat
elongated to enable the said screw to be moved laterally and with it the plate c',
for the inner end of said plate acts as a guide for one edge of the stripper a when
the latter is thrust through into the slots 65 and 63, the lever ' at such time being
so moved as to place the said slots in line vertically with the guiding slot at the
lower end of the guide as, the slots 63, 5, being at such time behind the face of
the cutter c, viewing the machiue from the front side.
The grooves and having received the end of the strip the lever b' is moved
causing the strip to be cut off between the upper side of the lip and the lower
end of the guideway as and at the same time the portion of the strip in said
grooves and 3, especially the portion below the lip , is borne against and
carried past the stationary cutter, causing the latter to clip or cut out from the
edge of the strip a tapering piece leaving a head of the full width of the strip and
of a depth equal to the depth of the lip, and the lever continues its movement
in the direction in which it started until the grooves 6 and 63 arrive opposite the
driving groove e made in the steel block e held in place by a suitable screw e²,
there being a space fabove said block for the passage of the lip and the head
of the nail over the end of the block in coming into line with the groove e.
The block is held in place by a suitable screw e and it constitutes the
movable cutter member which co-operates with the stationary cutter member c³,
and it also by its lip not only cuts off the strip but also determines the shape of the
head of the nail.
The bearing D in which the shaft A turns has a shank D2 which enters a
hole in an ear D³ of the column, the shank being held in adjusted position by a set
screw D.
The bearing has a hole to receive a rod d held in place by a set screw D' and
inclined with relation to the shaft A 10
This rod has mounted on it the hub of a blade holder d having its upper side
inclined from a horizontal plane and adapted to support the cutter blade c³.
The blade holder has a lip d³ provided with a screw d to keep the blade seated,
and screws d', de, act on the outer end of the blade to hold and adjust it.
The grinding wheel is used to grind and keep the cutting edges of the blade
sharp.
It will be noticed, viewing Fig. 4, that the cutter c3 is set at an inclination to a
vertical plane so that it acts with a shearing cut on the strip it meeting the strip
first close to the underside of the lip &, and thereafter acting gradually to shear
the metal to the point.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what manuer the same is to be performed I declare that what I
claim is :-
1. The use in a nailing machine, of a lever as 6' having a cutting die provided
with a
lip, the die and lip having coinciding grooves, a block having a driver
passage with a space above it for the head of a nail, a guide for the strip which is
to form the nail, the strip being fed into the grooves of the lip and cutting
die, and a stationary cutter which is adapted to cut out a portion of one edge

page_text: of the strip and leave a head and a tapering edge below it, substantially as
described.
2. The use in a nailing machine, of a shaft as A2, its cam B8, a lever having a
yoke provided with a shank which is held loosely in said lever, the cutter lever b
having an attached cutting block provided with a lip, and a loose block 6* fitted on
said lever, substantially as described.
Dated the 23rd day of June 1896.
WM. BROOKES & SON,
55 & 56 Chancery Lane, London, Agents for the Applicant.