Improvements in and connected with Beating Apparatus employed in Opening and Cleaning Cotton and other Fibres.
Year: 1894

page_text: Date of Application, 26th June, 1894-Accepted, 25th Aug., 1894
[Communicated from abroad by AUGUST KIRSCHNER, of 19, Rue Cambon, Paris,
in the French Republic, Engineer.]
Improvements in and connected with Beating Apparatus employed
in Opening and Cleaning Cotton and other Fibres.
I, WILLIAM EDWIN HEYS of 70 Market Street, Manchester, in the County
of Lancaster, Patent Agent, 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 relates to the type of beaters described in the Specification to my
former Letters Patent No. 18498 dated the 17th day of November 1890.
It will be seen on referring to the accompanying drawings that the beater
consists of three or other suitable number of arms G cast or otherwise formed in
one with a suitable nave or hub and mounted upon the axle E. Upon the ends of
the arms are mounted brackets or bars S preferably angular in form and adapted to
carry the cards or equivalent devices. They are also formed to induce a current
of air and act as fans to facilitate the passage of the lap to the cage and to
prevent any detached cotton clinging to the brackets segments or cards. Their
angular form also prevents the cotton being rolled as frequently occurs with round
or oval bars, and the resulting lap is thus free from irregularities.
The arms of the beater are secured to the axle in any couvenient manner and the
card segments are secured thereto by a sheet iron cover or plate the dimensions of
which are determined by the angles a bed and the sides hgf and F.
The chief characteristic of the cards or combs of the improved carding beater
is their excentricity owing to which the points of the first range of dents are
nearer to the centre of the benter, generally three or four millimeters, than the
points of the Inst range. This excentricity may be obtained in several ways, e.g.
1. By the excentricity of the surface of the segments or bars upon which the
cards are mounted.
2 By the interposition of an excentric packing between the bars and the cards.
3. By the excentricity of the card itself, that is to say, by the application to the
concentric bars of a stave or foundation thicker at one side than at the other and
furnished with needles all of the same length. This last arrangement is that shewn
in the drawings and is preferably adopted as being very simple and pacticable.
The staves or foundations in or upon which the needles are mounted may be of
metal or any other suitable material but hard wood is used by preference. Several
forms of the card used are shewn in Figures 1 to 1 inclusive, the needles
differing in their number gauge and length according to the work for which they
are destined.
The ventilation and air propulsion is caused by the beater itself owing to the
shape given to the segments carrying the cards. Air enters through the grid and
through regulatable openings formed in the cover and is expelled through the
usual passage to the cage carrying with it any detached flocks of cotton and thus
ensuring a very regular and homogeneous lap. The grid also performs better
work, as, owing to the regulatable opening in the cover of the apparatus the amount
of air passing through the grid may be controlled at will.
During each revolution the cotton receives three blows from the beater and
owing to the combined beating and combing or carding effect the division of the
fibres is easily accomplished and the seeds and dirt are more completely eliminated
than with the ordinary apparatus now in use.

page_text: To secure perfect opening of the cotton it is necessary with this beater to
facilitate the entry of the dents into the cotton in an energetic manner without
rupturing or breaking the fibre. This is secured by the excentricity of the cards
owing to which the following rows of dents penetrate deeper into the cotton than
do the preceding ones.
The improved carding beater inny be applied if desired to all kinds of beating
machines, either opening spreading intermediate or finishing. For each of these
machines cards especially appropriate for the work are used. For instance the
dents in the cards of an intermediate benter are more numerous finer and shorter
than those of the spreader and are farther apart larger and longer than those of
the finisher.
In Figure 1 of the accompanying drawings the improved beater is represented
with (1) a vertical section of the arm 1, (2) an end view of the segment 2, and (3)
a vertical section of the following oue, 3.
The form and disposition of the grid of the beating machine exercises a great
influence upon the quality of the work performed. A grid having regulatable or
moveable bars is the most generally useful but the one usually adopted in which
the triangular bars terminate at each end in a trunnion fixed by a small cramp
presents serious difficulties of regulation. The chief faults of this grid are the
torsion and flexion set up at the moment of fixing. These faults are caused by
the burrs or marks produced on the trunnions by the securing cramps or devices
and by any slight want of parallelism between the faces of the frame in which
the bars are fixed or to a slight difference in height. A grid constructed
according to my improvements permits of a perfect regulation being obtained.
The improved construction of grid is illustrated by Figures 2 and 3 of the
accompanying drawings.
and the
Upon each side of the cover at M is fixed a cast or other frame N having one
of its edges or faces concentric with the beater and formed with a groove V,
Figure 2. Upon each of them are fixed small bearings or supports for the
trunnions of the bars of the grid. The supports O carried by one side of the frame
are secured in place by nuts and screws e; the supports or bearings Pat the
other side are fixed by screws b. Between the ends of the screws
trunnions of the bars are placed cylindrical plugs or contact pieces S. The bars
are held in place by the screws e and injury of the trunnions is prevented by the
interposed pieces S. The operation of fixing has thus no tendency to turn or
injure the bars as is the case when the screws come directly into contact with the
trunnions. The last bar of the grid carries a sheet iron or other suitable shutter h.
This bar is moveable in the plane of the grid so that the air admission opening
between it and the rotatable bars may be varied at will.
The regulating apparatus, illustrated by Figures 3, 4, and 5 is intended for use
in indicating and determining the relative positions of the feeding device, the grid,
and the knife or scraper T, see Figure 3. This regulating apparatus consists
(1) of the subsidiary shaft A, Figure 5; (2) of two collars thereon, &', cach
having an external diameter equal to that of the beater shaft, and one of which,
b, is provided at V with a fixing screw not shewn in the Figure; (3) of a pointer
or needle C; (4) of the socket W in which one end of the pointer C is placed.
This socket is fixed upon the projecting ferrule d of the bracket K by means of
the screw V, Figure 4. It also consists:-(5) of the bracket K mounted upon the
shaft. A and secured thereon by the screw Vand furnished at its upper part with
spirit level N or an equivalent device; (6) of a goniometer or similar device B;
and of the gauge J.
11
In using the regulating apparatus, the bracket is fixed horizontally as
indicated by the spirit level N, and the mark shewn at 1 on the socket Wis
brought into line with the similar mark 1 on the edge of the ferrule d, Figure 4.
There are on the edge of the ferrule other marks, 2 and 3, arranged in such
positions that when the mark 1 on the socket is brought into line with them
respectively, the needle will point respectively to the angle of the first bar of the

page_text: grid and to the edge of the knife T. The mark on the ferrule is horizontal in
the plane of the axis of the beater, so that when the mark on the socket is brought
into line with it, the point of the needle e will point out the exact position of the
feed.
The goniometer is employed for determining the inclination or angle of each of
the bars, and the gauge J is inserted between them to ascertain and determine their
accurate spacing.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is
1. In a machine for opening and cleaning cotton and other fibres, a regulatable
grid constructed arranged and operated substantially as hereinbefore described and
as illustrated by the accompanying drawings.
2. A regulating or indicating device for use with a machine for opening and
cleaning cotton and other fibres constructed arranged and operated substantially as
hereinbefore described and as illustrated by the accompanying drawings.
Dated this 25th day of June A.D. 1894.
WILLIAM E. HEYS.