IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR OPENING AND CLEANING FIBROUS MATERIALS
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Richard Edmund Lazonby at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 22nd
November 1866.-A communication from abroad by Charles G. Sargent,
of Graniteville, Massachusetts, United States of America.
I, RICHARD EDMUND LAZONBY, of the City of Manchester, in the County of
Lancaster, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR OPENING AND CLEANING FIBROUS MATERIALS,"
being a communication to me from abroad by Charles G. Sargent, of Graniteville,
Massachusetts, United States of America, to be as follows:-
An endless apron upon which is placed the material to be cleansed.com-
municates with the machine, and the framework carries two feeding rolls similar
to those of ordinary wool or cotton pickers and a comb beater cylinder provided
with rows of teeth or beaters which serve to comb out the fibre, beat out and
free the dust and light dirt, and also carry the fibre forward to a burring
cylinder. The comb beater cylinder may, however, be varied by making it
with two kinds of beaters, one kind consisting of serrated combs with their
outer points bent forward in a curved line, and the other kind made of bars
with teeth set in their centres, and at an angle of forty-five degrees with a
line passing through the centre of the cylinder; these beaters are set
alternately around the cylinder; the one with long teeth serves to comb out.

page_text: the fibre, the other to beat and free the dust and light dirt, and both serve to
carry the fibre forward. The burring cylinder may. be constructed either by
grooving the roll and winding into it toothed wire, or by putting on to it
plates or rings with teeth or notches out in their outer edges with packing
placed between them, or by imbedding comb plates into, the cylinder, or in
any other
way to produce a tooth and space on a smooth surface to float off
the burrs and at the same time have the teeth hold the fibre; this burring
cylinder revolves at the rate of about four hundred revolutions per minute,
and in connection with it there is a guard cylinder placed nearly under its
centre; this guard cylinder is made in the usual way by inserting blades of
metal in its periphery in form of floats, and has a rapid motion of from twelve
hundred to sixteen hundred turns per minute in an opposite direction of
surface to the burring cylinder. The guard cylinder runs nearly in contact
with the burring cylinder, and by. its rapid motion knocks or beats out all
seeds, burrs, and other foreign substance from the fibre; in front and under
this guard cylinder there is an open space leading to the comb beater cylinder
with a curved adjustable mouth-piece of metal at the bottom of this opening,
and through this opening a suction fan on top of the machine receives its air.
When the guard cylinder knocks off foreign matter the heavier portions strike
under the curved edge of the adjustable mouth-piece, and from thence fall
the floor outside of the machine, while the fibre which is knocked off at
the same time being light is caught and carried upward into the machine by
the current of air passing into it; the force of this current of air is regulated
by admitting more or less air into the machine through a register which may
be opened to the required extent to give the upward current the exact degree
of strength to allow light burrs to fall out of the machine while the wool is
carried up. This register is designed for use more particularly when operating
upon mestizo and Cape wool where the burrs are very thin and light, and have
a gravity but little more than that of the wool with which they are connected.
In other machines the seeds or foreign matter are knocked out into the machine
along with the fibre by the action of the guard cylinder, and although the
burrs, seeds, and foreign matters may be perfectly cleansed of fibre yet they
are passed around by the action of the picking cylinder and mixed with the
fibre in process, and may be again carried to the burring cylinder and again
returned, but ultimately find their way out between the bars of the grating.
This operation on the same burrs may be repeated many times, as there is no
definite time when the burr can pass through the grates, it depending entirely
upon circumstances. In my machine when the burr is once separated it is
upon

page_text: passed out of the machine at once, and the fibre returned into the machine by
the current of air, and again brought round.to the burring cylinder which
carries it forward to a brush cylinder having a motion of fourteen hundred to
sixteen hundred turns per minute, and which takes the fibre from the burring
cylinder in a clean state and blows it out of the machine through a trunk
passage. Below the suction fan on the top of the machine there is a large
air space which has for its bottom a perforated plate; this air space extends.
nearly one-third around the comb'beater cylinder so as to bring a large surface
for the fan to act upon, thereby taking out all dust from the fibre at this point
of action. In the brush case below the brush and just at the back of the.
burring cylinder there is a stationary guard made of a straight strip of metal
provided with slots and screwed on top of the lining of the brush case, so that it
can be adjusted to the burring cylinder to prevent any burrs or impurities from
being sucked up into the brush case cylinder to prevent any burrs or impurities
from being sucked up into the brush case by the upward current of air on the
back side of the burring cylinder, and care should be taken to have this guard
always set within the thickness of a sheet of writing paper to the burring
cylinder, especially when burring mestizo wools. The machine being placed
on the floor it is to be made, air-tight all round its bottom, so that no air is
admitted except a small quantity under the feed rolls and at the opening under
the guard cylinder; the quantity admitted under the guard being regulated
by the adjustable mouth-piece at the bottom of this opening. The machine
being put in motion, the material is fed on the feed apron and carried forward
to the feeding rolls which pass it onwards to the comb beater cylinder; the
comb beater here seizes the ends passed in, while the feed rolls hold on to the
other ends, thus they are combed out and straightened by the comb beaters
and the dust and light dirt freed from the material is taken off through the
perforated lining on top of the cylinder and blown off by the fan; the holes
in this lining being so small that no fibre can pass out with the dust, and at
the same time this lining comes so near the points of the teeth of the beater that
no fibre can accumulate on it, the heavier portion falling out through a grate
into the bottom of the 'machine; the fibres thus freed from the feed rollers are
carried forward to the burring cylinder and lashed or combed into the teeth on
its surface together with 'all foreign substance which may be entangled with it;
this cylinder carries the fibre up to its junction with the guard cylinder, the
floats or beating edges of which knock off all locks not thoroughly opened,
and all seeds, burrs, and other foreign substances: The seeds and foreign
matter clear of fibre by momentum given them by the action of the beater are

page_text: driven through or across the current of air passing into the machine, and
strike under the curved edge of the adjustable mouth-piece, and fall upon the
floor, while the strong current of air passing into the machine over the top of
this adjustable mouth-piece arrests the rolls and knots of fibre together with'
such seeds or other foreign matter as have fibre attached, and carries-
them back into the machine to be operated upon again until the fibre is entirely
liberated.
'
The second part of my Invention consists in certain improvements in the
burring cylinder used in machines for cleansing fibrous materials, which I will
now proceed to describe. The burring cylinders which have heretofore been
devised, and which are now in general use have been mostly composed of saw
or toothed circular plates set at proper intervals apart on a cylinder or shaft,
or of teeth formed in metallic strips and staked in spirally on a metallic
cylinder, and having intervening spiral grooves between the rows of teeth;
but in all these cases the teeth have to be made more or less blunt at the
points, otherwise they are very liable to get broken by being struck by some
coarse and hard substance in the cotton or wool. I have found in practice
that the teeth if they could be made more pointed or sharper than is now the
custom they would more readily and unerringly catch the fibres of the cotton
or wool, and hold them while the guard knocks off the burrs and other foreign
matters; but these teeth can only be made more pointed, as suggested by
arranging guards or protecting rings on each side of each row of teeth, which
will save the teeth from being broken, and this is what I have effected.
My improved cylinder consists of a metallic drum or shaft in which two sets
of straight or spiral grooves are cut from end to end. In one of these grooves are
staked teeth formed of iron wire and shaped so as to brought to perfect sharp
points, or in lieu of being staked in the said grooves the toothed wire may be
soldered on the surface of the drum in any desired position either straight or spiral.
The other groove is formed at a proper distance from that in which the toothed
wire is staked, and has a thin metallic plate set and secured therein, the edge
of which plate is at the same distance from the axis of the cylinder as are the
points of the teeth, but there is space enough between the sides of the toothed
wire to admit the fibres of the cotton or wool, and allow the points of the
teeth to take hold of the same, while at the same time the spiral edges of
this metallic plate serve as guards to the teeth, and prevent any coarse
substances from breaking their points as above suggested. It will be obvious
that instead of toothed wire, as above explained, pointed teeth of other
descriptions may be used, and that in lieu of placing the alternate rows of

page_text: teeth and metallic edges spirally on the drum they may be arranged in rings
on the same, and either staked or soldered thereon. Teeth of a more obtuse
shape will be found especially adapted to mestizo and Cape wool, as they form
a stronger and more extended surface for floating off the burr to be acted upon
by the guard, but the surface of the burring cylinder will be substantially
the same.