IMPROVEMENTS IN ARRANGEMENTS AND MECHANISM OR APPARATUS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF BRICKS, TILES, PIPES, AND OTHER ARTICLES MADE OF PLASTIC EARTHS
Year: 1858

page_text: application for Letters Patent was not given within the time prescribed
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Carter Stafford Percy at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with bis Petition, on the
31st July 1858.
I, WILLIAM CARTER STAFFORD PERCY, of the City of Manchester, in the
County of Lancaster, Machinist, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN ARRANGEMENTS AND MECHANISM OR APPARATUS
FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF BRICKS, TILES, PIPES, AND OTHER ARTICLES MADE OF
PLASTIC EARTHS," to be as follows:-
My Invention consists, firstly, in arranging the cylinder of a mill combining
the operation of pugging and screening or separating stones, roots, and other
matters from clay or plastic carths to prepare it for manufacturing purposes, in
an horizontal instead of a vertical position, as hitherto used.
Secondly, in employing an endless belt or apron arrangement to carry
pugged and screened clay or other plastic earth, as delivered from a pugging
and screening mill,,to a machine by which it is moulded into the shape of the
required articles.
Thirdly, in partly drying clay or other plastic earth as it is delivered from a
pugging and screening mill by subjecting it to a current of air produced.by
mechanical means.
. Fourthly, in the combination of a pugging and screening mill with a pair of
rollers, so that the plastic material delivered by the pugging and screening

page_text: mill will be conveyed to the rollers, and by them be expressed through
moulding orifices.
Fifthly, in a combination of three rollers, so arranged that the axis of the
first and second are in a vertical plane, and the axis of the third in an hori-
zontal plane, passing through the axis of the lowest of the two first-mentioned
rollers, by which arrangement when required the first and second rollers may
be used to force or express clay or other plastic material through moulding
orifices, and the second and third may be employed to force such materials
into a chamber leading to moulding boxes, these moulding boxes being placed
on a table, and are brought under the chamber to be filled by, giving to the
table a reciprocating, oscillating, or rotating motion.
Sixthly, in a doctor or doctors or damper used in connection with a series
of two rollers, or of a combination of three rollers, or a pugging mill when
these are employed for expressing clay through moulding orifices, by which
doctor, doctors, or dampers, the supply of plastic material to the rollers or the
moulding orifice or orifices may be regulated or entirely cut off.
Seventhly, in combining a cutting-off doctor or cutting-off doctors or
dampers in machines moulding articles by expressing plastic materials through
moulding orifices with the mechanism or apparatus for cutting or separating
the moulded material into the required lengths, so that the same movement
applied to a handle or obtained from the machine self-acting will cut off the
supply of material to the moulding orifice or orifices, and divide the moulded
material into the required lengths; then move back the dividing apparatus
and the doctor or doctors to their first positions.
Eighthly, in making the clay cylinders or boxes of piston machines for
forming articles of plastic material by expressing it through moulding orifices
of an oval form, or one approaching that form, which gives the cylinders or
boxes more strength to resist the internal pressure with less material than
when constructed in the rectangular form, as hitherto.
Ninthly, in arrangements for lubricating plugs employed for making inden-
tations or hollows in articles formed of plastic materials, by causing them to
pass through fibrous material saturated with lubricating matter.
Tenthly, in making such plugs as those referred to under the ninth head
hollow, and in fitting such hollows with pistons, which prevent the plastic
material from getting into the hollow of the plug; by this means the moment
the moulded articles begin to leave the plugs (or vice versa), the loose pistons
in the hollow plugs will move a little, and will permit the air to pass from the
interior of the plugs to fill the vacuum, and thus the suction or atmospheric
effects are avoided.

page_text: Eleventbly, in a system or method by which two or more different plastic
materials may be combined together in moulding articles, so that such articles
will, when moulded, have sides of different materials.. This is accomplished
by placing those plastic materials to be combined so as to be acted upon each
by a separate apparatus, which will force the materials to be combined in the
article to be formed towards the same moulding orifice or orifices, so as to
come together just before passing through the moulding orifice or orifices.
Twelfthly, in an instrument or tool for plastic earth workers, by which
hollows may be made in articles formed of plastic materials; this tool consists
of a thin tube having a wire stretched across its end in the direction of its
diameter. This instrument can be readily forced into plastic material, and
then turned round, which turning causes the wire to divide or separate the
clay, so that when the instrument is withdrawn the plastic material in its
interior will be at the same time removed, and may be allowed to drop from it.
Thirteenthly, in a system or method of employing detachable and portable
moulds and cores to form articles made of plastic materials, such moulds or
mould boxes and cores being brought to a machine to be filled with plastic
material by pressure produced by mechanical means.
Fourteenthly, in the combination of the improvements herein-before referred
to under the first, second, fifth, and sixth heads, as one complete machine
fixed on the same frame, all having motion from a steam engine (which may
be also placed on the frame) or other motive power, which complete combined
machine may be used with or without those improvements berein-before
referred to under the third and seventh heads. Also a combination similar to
that above described, substituting an horizontal pugging cylinder to perform
the office of the three rollers herein-before referred to under the fifth head.