Improvements in Wire Twisting Machines.
Year: 1889

page_text: Date of Application, 8th Nov., 1889-Accepted, 14th Dec., 1889
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION (AMENDED).
Improvements in Wire Twisting Machines.
1, JACOB ATHERTON of 17ª New Quay Liverpool, Ship Broker, 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 :-
The object of my invention is to provide a machine for rapidly twisting a pair of
electrical conductors that have been covered with insulation, in such manner that the
twisting wires will not kink and that there will be practically the same length of
wire in each strand. The ordinary arrangements heretofore employed in which
bobbins carrying the wires to be twisted, are mounted upon a common revolving
frame are necessarily slow and the results are not altogether satisfactory.
In my improved machine one wire is drawn from the bobbin while the other is
applied spirally around it from a revolving flyer of peculiar construction. As the
two wires leave this part of the apparatus one is longer than the other, but owing to
the greater resistance offered to the wire which is applied around the other the former
imparts a twist to the latter and in order to insure a uniform, mutual twist of both
wires so that they shall both be of the same length, I pass the wires over stretching
drums, the operation of which upon the wires is such as to equalize them in length
and twist, the additional length of wire for this purpose being drawn from its bobbin
by the draft of the rolls and the strain of the other wire.

page_text: stretching drums are thus driven from the pulley F which revolves the flyer E. The
two wires a, y, are carried back and forth over the stretching drums S S¹ whose
peripheries are provided with grooves as presently described, and finally the twisted
wires pass
to a storage reel not shown. The wires y having been drawn out
through the hollow shaft e around the stretching drums S S₁ power is applied
to the pulley F, and the stretching drums being now driven, draw the
wires through the machine. The wiro e is drawn through its guide straight from
the bobbin H while the wire y passing as it does through the hollow side e¹ of the
revolving flyer E, is applied or wound spirally around the wire and owing to the
additional strain on the wire y it imparts a twist to the wire a.
The wires thus twisted
pass to the stretching drums the draft of which equalises the twist and draws sufficient
wire from the bobbin H to permit of the equalisation of the twist-and insures that
both strands are of the same length.
As seen in Figure 5, the peripheries of the rolls S S' are provided with circum-
ferential grooves which gradually decrease in depth from one side of the drums to
the other. The twisted wires run first into the deepest groove and then successively
in the shallower grooves, being thereby sufficiently stretched without being subjected
to any sudden strain.
A proper tension may be placed upon the bobbin H by means of a tension screw h
working in one side of the frame G and provided upon its inner end with a felt or
leather washer h¹.
The details of construction are plain from the drawings and have therefore not been
specifically described. The hollow part of the frame E is divided longitudinally as
indicated by the section in Figure 1, and the two halves may be secured together by
bolts passed through the cars. This flyer may be cast of a single piece of metal,
or may be composed of detachable parts and in order to balance it, the solid part
may be made of smaller cross-section than the hollow part, or both sides may be
hollow.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what 1
claim is :-
1. The combination of the bobbin frame G, the flyer revolving around the same
and the stretching rolls.
2. The combination of mechanism for laying or winding one wire spirally
around another and stretching devices for equalising the twist and length of both
strander