IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITII MACHINERY FOR SAWING WOOD AND OTHER SUBSTANCES, PART OF WHICH IMPROVEMENTS ARE ALSO APPLICABLE ΤΟ OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES."
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Palmer at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 30th October 1882.
WILLIAM PALMER, of Bath, in the County of Somerset,
IMPROVEMENTS IN
AND CONNECTED WITII MACHINERY FOR SAWING WOOD AND OTHER SUBSTANCES,
PART OF WHICH IMPROVEMENTS ARE ALSO APPLICABLE ΤΟ OTHER USEFUL
PURPOSES."
This Invention, which relates to certain improvements in and connected with
machinery for sawing wood and other substances, and part of which improvements
are also applicable to other useful purposes, has especial reference to an improved
arrangement of manu-motive apparatus for actuating the same, and which apparatus
or modifications thereof are also equally applicable to the manual propelling or
driving of bicycles, tricycles, and various other wheeled vehicles on the road or on
rails, and to the manual propulsion of boats, and to the driving or manual actuation
of various descriptions of machinery, and to such like other uses; the Invention
also has reference to the improved connection of the saw frame with the means of
actuating it.
My present improvements are especially applicable to the class of sawing
machinery described in the Specifications and illustrated in the drawings of certain
Letters Patent N° 3136 granted to me and bearing date the 8th day of August
A.D. 1878.
According to the present improvements, the driving pulley or fly wheel (by
means of or from which the saw frame is actuated and the substance being sawn is
properly fed) is actuated by an arrangement of means which are much more
compact and advantageous than the arrangement of toothed segments described in
the Specifications of my said former Letters Patents; as by the use of such
improved means a considerably shorter purchase in regard to the parts in gear is
attained, as well as a proportionally increased leverage of the hand lever, and thus
there is a double gain, as more power than hitherto obtained results from less
exertion than hitherto used, and less space is required.
According to one modification two parallel working levers are connected on the
near side of their independent fulcrums by a rack which gears with a pinion
centred between the said levers and between their fulcrums and the said rack.
According to this arrangement the parts in gear are on the near side of the
21

page_text: fulcums of the levers, whereas in the former arrangement they were in gear on the
reverse side thereof and required a considerably longer purchase with a corre-
spondingly diminished leverage and an inconvenient length of traverse of the handle
end of the lever, and occupied unnecessary space; and hence such arrangement was
very disadvantageous in use; and a further advantage is that by the use of two
independent connected levers I obtain a means of operating the frame with
increased power, namely with both hands.
The connecting rod from the fly wheel, and by which it is directly actuated, is
connected to and receives its motion from a reciprocating rack which is directly
acted upon by the said pinion and is in this modification arranged between the
fulcrums of the said levers acting as guides and the said pinion,thus the whole
arrangement is self contained, and can be applied to other manu-notive purposes as
herein before indicated.
According to one modification of my present improvements for connecting the
saw frame with the means directly actuating it, in lieu of having a rigid connection
of the parts as described in the Specification of my said former Letters Patent and
which was disadvantageous in that it at times caused the teeth of the saw to catch
in the wood in the upward movement of the saw frame and when it was not
intended to do any work, and thus endangered the mechanism, I now use a
connection which is rigid in the descent of the saw frame when cutting the wood,
but which automatically allows the saw frame to incline inwards in the rising of
the frame away from and so as to prevent the teeth catching in the wood. To the
end of the arms to which the lower end of the saw frame was formerly directly
connected I now connect a catch link, to the outer end of which the lower end of
the saw frame is connected :—the link is so formed with projecting parts or catches
as to cause a rigid connection of the parts in the downward cutting movement of
the saw frame, and as to allow of a limited movement of the link and saw frame
away from the substance-being.sawn in the upward movement of the frame, so that
the teeth of the saws rise clear of the sawn edge of the timber being 'sawn, and
avoid the disadvantage previously existent.