Year: 1897

page_text: being date of first Foreign Application (in 25th Jan., 1897
France),
Date of Application (in United Kingdom), 6th Feb., 1897
Complete Specification Left, 6th Feb., 1897-Accepted, 20th Mar., 1897
I CHARLES LOONEN, Manufacturer of 8 Rue Bourg l'Abbé, Paris, France 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:
My invention relates to improvements connected with brushes generally, but is
more particularly applicable to a finer class of brush, such as tooth-brushes, nail-
brushes and other like brushes for personal use, and the invention has special
reference to improvements introduced in the kind of brush for which Letters Patent.
of Great Britain were granted to my assignor Willy Wallach under date of
April 13 1894 No. 21910.
The improvement has mainly reference to the formation of the brush-head and
to the connection of that head to the handle when it is a question of manufacturing
tooth-brushes and other like fine brushes having a handle.
The object I have in view to accomplish is to lessen the cost of manufacture of
that kind of brush, whilst at the same time producing a perfectly well finished.
article, which is very strong and the head of which, being solid, can be readily
utilised for rapidly and economically attaching the bristles.
In the aforementioned patent is described a brush-handle constituted by a hollow
celluloid shell made of a single piece, into which is arranged a filling composed of
a hard portion, say bone, filling out the head and capable of receiving the
bristles, and of a shank or stem of any suitable metal rigidly connected to
the bone or other hard material filling up the head, by means of a metal sleeve
or otherwise.
.
This method, while perfectly well suited for a proper attachment of the bristles,
calls for a labour which, if not complicated, at least remains more or less expensive,
since it requires the following main operations.
1. Preparation of a celluloid shell and a bone or other hard filling for the
head;
2. Connection of such filling to the shank or metal stem of the handle;
3. Introduction of the filling into the shell;
4. Closing up the shell at the head end through which the introduction takes
place;
5. Sealing or connecting the stem or filling into the handle with a plastic
material previous to the final closing up of the remaining other end of the shell.
The new method of manufacture which I have devised dispenses with a
considerable amount of these operations and of the labour attendant thereupon,
and besides reducing the cost price, it enables me to utilise, with advantage, in the

page_text: formation of the brush-head itself, the waste produced in the manufacture of certain
celluloid articles.
The annexed drawing shows in section a tooth-brush made in accordance with the
present improvement.
The brush is substantially constituted by a head a for the reception and fastening
of the bristles band by a handle c. The handle c is formed of a hollow shell,
moulded from celluloid in the manner referred to in the aforementioned patent or in
any other suitable manner, the said shell being subsequently filled up by a filling d
of any suitable powdered material, compressed or not, whether wet or dry and
capable of giving consistency and resistance to the article, such for instance as a
mixture of plaster of Paris and water. The head a is formed of a piece of
celluloid, bone or other suitable material assuming a suitable shape for the
purpose required, and obtained by moulding or otherwise; the lower end of the
head a surrounds the upper end of a stem fof any suitable metal or rigid
material embedded in the celluloid during the moulding operation or otherwise.
Suitable projections, teeth or like asperities 'such as can be formed in any
suitable manner on the embedded end of the stem f, for the purpose of increasing
the adherence thereof to the celluloid.
At the lower end of the head a surrounding the stem end is formed an offset a
engaging and fitting exactly the upper open end of the shell c. If desired, the
connection between the head offset a¹ and the shell e may be perfected or increased
by the use of cement or any other means.
When the head has been introduced and secured into the end of the shell as shown
in the drawing, the shell is filled up through the bottom hole e with any suitable
filling d as described thereby imparting consistency and stiffness to the handle, and
sealing the stem ffirmly; the bottom hole e can then be plugged by a cemented
disk of celluloid. On the stem may likewise be formed asperities such as f2 for
anchoring the stem to the filling. The bristles 6 can be mounted or secured to the
solid celluloid or other head.a in the manner usually adopted in the art of manu-
facturing brushes.
I wish it to be an understood thing that the head a and stem ƒ need not be separate
parts, as shown, although it is obvious that considerable stiffness can be obtained
from a metal stem such as f, for it is possible to yet secure a fair amount of stiffness
by making the head & stem in one single piece of celluloid or equivalent substance
moulded or shaped, the means of connection to the shell c otherwise remaining the
In such a case, the size of the celluloid stem corresponding to the metal
stem can be proportionately increased, if desired. When constituted as just stated,
a tooth-brush of the kind described merely comprises three main parts-viz. a
celluloid head or stem, a shell and a filling.
same.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what mauner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is:
The hereindescribed improvement upon the system of brush protected by British
Letters Patent dated April 13 1894 No. 21910, consisting in forming the said brush
of a hollow casing c of plastic material to constitute the handle portion, and of a
solid bristle-carrying head a of bone, celluloid or other suitable substance, and in
connecting the said head a to the said casing c, substantially as set forth and
illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
Dated this 6th day of February 1897