A NEW PROCESS OR MANUFACTURE FOR CONVERTING WOVEN SILKEN FABRION OR SILK WASTE INTO A FIBROUS MATERIAL FIT FOR BEING SPUN INTO YARN OR THREAD OR FOR BEING MIXED WITH SILK, WOOLLEN. COTTON OR ANY OTHER MATERIAL TO BE SPUN INTO YARN OR THREAD. AND OF IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY TO BE EMPLOYED IN SUCH PROCESS OR MANUFACTURE
Year: 1857

page_text: ETTERS PATENT to George Bridge, of Bollington, near Macclesfield, in
the County of Chester, Manager, and Job Hamer, of Longsight,
near Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, Mercantile Clerk,
for the Invention of "A NEW PROCESS OR MANUFACTURE FOR CONVERTING
WOVEN SILKEN FABRION OR SILK WASTE INTO A FIBROUS MATERIAL FIT FOR BEING
SPUN INTO YARN OR THREAD OR FOR BEING MIXED WITH SILK, WOOLLEN. COTTON
OR ANY OTHER MATERIAL TO BE SPUN INTO YARN OR THREAD. AND OF IMPROVEMENTS
IN MACHINERY TO BE EMPLOYED IN SUCH PROCESS OR MANUFACTURE."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said George Bridge and Job
Hamer at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their
Petition, on the 22nd December 1857.
We, GEORGE BRIDGE, of Bollington, near Macclesfield, in the County
of Chester, Manager, and Jов HAMER, of Longsight, near Manchester,
in the County of Lancaster, Mercantile Clerk, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention of "A NEW PROCESS OR MANUFACTURE FOR CONVERTING
WOVEN SILKEN FABRICS OR SILK WASTE INTO A FIBROUS MATERIAL FIT FOR BEING SPUN
INTO YARN OR THREAD. OR FOR BEING MIXED WITH SILK, WOOLLEN. COTTON. OR ANY OTHER

page_text: MATERIAL TO BE SPUN INTO YARN OR THREAD, AND OF IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY
TO BE EMPLOYED IN SUCH PROCESS OR MANUFACTURE." to be as follows:-
The object of our Invention is to recover from waste shreds or portions
of woven silk, or from old and worn out silken fabrics, or from silk
waste, a useful fibre fit for being spun or for being mixed with other
fibrous material intended to be spun. Our manner of treating the silken
fabric or waste is to subject it to the action of a machine by which the
silken fabrics or the masses of waste are disintegrated and reduced into
the state of fibre by a process analogous to the breaking up of cotton
waste in a hard-waste devil, accompanied by the exertion of a carding
action at the same time. Our improved machine for this purpose may be
described as a combination of a devil with a carding engine, or as a
devil composed of working cylinders arranged in the same manner as the
working cylinders of a carding engine, and clothed with suitable teeth
or wires. The machine is made narrow on account of the strain on the
feeding roller. The feeding apparatus consists of a bar or straight-
edge applied close to the licker-in, and of a roller pressed closely against
the same, as used in some carding engines; but with this difference,
that the feeding roller in our machine is pressed against the bar in an
oblique direction instead of vertically. In other respects the machine
nearly resembles a carding engine in construction and in the arrange-
ment of its parts, and its action combines the operations of breaking up
and partially carding the material at the same time.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters l'atent, filed
by the said George Bridge and Job Hamer in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 22nd June 1858.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we GEORGE
BRIDGE, of Bollington, near Macclesfield, in the County of Chester,
Manager, and JOB HAMER, of Longsight, near Manchester, in the County
of Lancaster, Mercantile Clerk, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Hxcellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-second day of December, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, in the
twenty-first year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto us, the said George Bridge and Job Hamer, Her
especial licence that we, the said George Bridge and Job Hamer, our

page_text: executors, administrators, and assigns, and such others as we, the said
George Bridge and Job Hamer, our executors, administrators, or
assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to
time and at all times thereafter during the term of years therein expressed
or mentioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention of "A NEW PROCESS OR MANUFACTURE
FOR CONVERTING WOVEN SILKEN FABRICS OR SILK WASTE INTO A FIBROUS MATERIAL
FIT FOR BEING SPUN INTO YARN OR THREAD OR FOR BEING MIXED WITH SILK
WOOLLEN. COTTON, OR ANY OTHER MATERIAL TO BE SPUN INTO YARN OR THREAD
AND OF IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY TO BE EMPLOYED IN SUCH PROCESS OR MANU-
FACTURE," проц the condition (amongst others) that we, the said George
Bridge and Job Hamer, our executors or administrators, by an instru-
ment in writing under our or their hands and seals, or under the hand
and seal of one of us or of one of them, should particularly describe and
ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same
was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal
Patent Office within six calendar months next and immediately after
the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that we, the said George Bridge and Job Hamer, do
hereby declare that the nature of the said Invention, and the manner
in which the same is to be performed and carried into effect, are
particularly described and ascertained in and by this present instrument
in writing, with the aid of the Drawings hereunto annexed (that is to
say):-
Our said Invention consists in an art or process for separating and
detaching the component filaments or fibres of silken fabrics or tissues,
or of the waste of thrown, spun, or manufactured silk, or of silken
threads, or of soft silk waste, so as to convert or reconvert such filaments
or fibres into a material fit for being spun or for admixture with other
materials intended to be spun. The treatment to which we subject the
aforesaid fabrics or waste for this purpose is forcible disintegration by the
tearing and combing action of pointed teeth or pins projecting from the
surface of a revolving cylinder, and operating upon material gradually
presented by a feeding apparatus, which while slowly delivering the
same retains its hold with such tenacity that the portions successively
brought forward are by the action of the teeth separated and combed
out from each other and from the undelivered mass, and eventually re-
delivered in the state of open fibre. The condition of the latter we

page_text: further improve by subjecting it to the operation of carding, which may
cither be conducted as a distinct process by a separate machine (the
opened fibre being taken from the breaking-up machine by any of the
ordinary and well-known methods), or it may be a continuation and
completion of the breaking-up process, and effected along with it in the
same machine, which latter method, as being in all respects preferable,
we shall more specially describe. In this method the machinery
employed consists partly of a system of carding cylinders or rollers, by
which the separated and detached fibres are disentangled, straightened,
and laid parallel, as well as cleared of knots and intractable portions.
Our said Invention also consists in certain improvements in the
machinery employed, whereby the same is adapted for carrying into
effect the process or processes before mentioned.
Fibrous materials of various kinds have before been and now are broken
up by machinery, and processes nearly similar in their general character
to those the special and modified application of which to a new purpose
constitutes our Invention. Our method of proceeding resembles that
whereby cotton or woollen waste or rags are broken up in the well-
known machine called the "devil." But the particular kinds of material
to which our Invention is applicable, that is to say, woven silk, and the
kinds of waste before specified, have not heretofore been successfully
treated by the means in question, namely, by the divellent and combing
action of teeth arranged on revolving cylinders, and combined with
efficient feeding apparatus, although such kinds of material may have
been treated with more or less success in other modes for the recovery
of the fibre contained in them. In fact, none of the devils or other
similar machines, as hitherto used or constructed, have been or can be
efficiently applied to the purpose of breaking up the particular substances
to which our Invention has reference.
Our said Invention, therefore, is to be understood to consist in the
improvements upon or in the old machines and processes, whereby the
same are adapted to operate successfully upon this special class of sub-
stances, and whereby also the operations or processes are shortened and
simplified by the union of the carding with the devilling or breaking-up
action in the same machine. The absence of these or equivalent improve-
ments has hitherto prevented the devilling process from being usefully
applied to the particular materials indicated; and we believe that process
to be now for the first time rendered practicable and useful for this pur-
pose, by virtue of the improvements and modifications introduced by us

page_text: into the machinery and process, and which we are now about to describe
and explain.
The process of reducing silk tissue or waste to useful fibre consists in
the operation performed upon it by the improved machinery. The
description of the machinery and of its mode of action consequently com-
prehends that of the process, and will suffice to render intelligible the
whole nature of the Invention. We shall, therefore, proceed to describe
the machinery in the most improved form known to us, and to explain
the operation thereof, pointing out afterwards the parts of such
machinery and processes as are new and claimed by us as of our Inven-
tion. We have annexed to these Presents two Sheets of Drawings, by
the aid of which the general arrangement and construction of the
machinery will be rendered more easily intelligible than by mere verbal
description. We shall refer to the parts of the Diagrams or Figures by
means of the alphabetical and numerical characters marked thereon,
premising that similar characters indicate the same or similar parts or
things in the several Figures or places in which they recur. The scales
are expressed on the Drawings.
Figure 1, Sheet 1, is a sectional diagram exhibiting the general
arrangement of the parts of an engine or machine of the form which we
most approve and recommend.
Figure 2 is a plan view of the travelling feed apron, the feed apparatus,
and some adjacent parts, the upper feed roller and licker-in being
removed. In Figure 1, A is the swift or main cylinder; B is the doffer;
C, C, C, are rollers, and D, D, D, clearers; E is a dirt roller; F, a
fancy roller, and G a clearer appertaining to it; H is the doffing comb; K
is the lap drum which receives the material detached from the doffer by
the comb, in the usual manner, and L is a pressing roller; M is a travel-
ling apron or endless chain of laths which conveys the material spread
upon it to the feed rollers. All the foregoing parts are old, and con-
structed as in ordinary carding engines, with the exception that the card
wires should be somewhat stronger and more closely set, and that the
width of the engine is to be comparatively small on account of the great
strain exerted upon the parts which compose the feeding apparatus.
The relative speeds of the rollers require to be adapted to the require-
ments of the work to be performed. For an engine of the dimensions
represented we find the following speeds for the principal parts to
answer well. The main cylinder one hundred and fifty revolutions, and
the licker-in three hundred revolutions per minute, the doffer three

page_text: revolutions per minute, the fancy roller to make from six hundred to
seven hundred revolutions per minute, and the lap drum to have, of
course, a surface velocity about equal to that of the doffer. The feed
rollers to make about one revolution in two minutes. The directions
in which all the revolving parts move are indicated by small arrows.
a, a, are the fluted rollers which in conjunction with the shell or
straight edge deliver the material. These rollers are similar to those
of a carding engine, except that annular grooves or recesses are turned
in them at the points. a, a (Figure 2), to permit the passage of the
bolts c, c. bis.a shell fixed to a strong transverse bar d in the framing
and also to the sides of the engine, and rising in front of the feed rollers.
It extends upwards to about the level of the axis of the top roller, and
terminates in that direction in a straight edge, parallel to and in con-
tact or nearly in contact with the front surface of that roller. Besides
the attachment of this shell at the ends and along the lower edge, it is
strengthened and supported to enable it to resist the pressure to which
the rollers are subjected by countersunk stay bolts c, c, which are
admitted between the rollers through the recesses a, a, and tic the
shell to uprights d', d', rising from and forming part of the bar d
This manner of staying the shell by the bolts c, c, forms a material part
of our improvements, inasmuch as it enables us to prevent the shell b
from yielding or springing, which it would otherwise be liable to do
under the great pressure required for holding the material, and securing
steadiness and uniformity of delivery. The upper roller
is pressed
down upon the lower roller a' and also against the shell 6 by loaded
levers, seen in the other views, and hereafter described. The travelling
apron M is divided into three parts by two upright boards M', M'
(Figure 2), similar to the boards M³, M, which enclose it at the sides,
this division being rendered necessary by the interruption in the con-
tinuity of the fluted rollers by the annular grooves through which the
stay bolts pass, and by the obstruction arising from the uprights to
which those bolts are secured. e is a roller which corresponds in position
with the ordinary licker-in of a carding engine, and which, in default of
a better or more characteristic name, we term the "licker-in." It is
to be noted, however, that the licker-in of our engine differs in some
respects from the licker-in of a carding engine, and performs other
functions. The office of the latter is to receive loose and open material
from the feed rollers, and to distribute the same upon the surface of the
swift or main cylinder. The office of the licker-in of our engine is to

page_text: break up, separate, and open the fibres of the material, and afterwards
to convey and distribute them to the main cylinder. Its construction
and use, therefore, both differ from those of the licker-in of a carding
engine. In our machine this part performs the office of a devil in
addition to that of a licker-in; it is armed with strong teeth fixed in any
suitable manner, but most conveniently by insertion in leather, like the
wires of ordinary cards, and which teeth should project about a quarter
of an inch, having their points slanting or inclining towards the direction
in which the licker-in revolves. As to their strength and sett some dis-
cretion must be used, regard being had to the nature of the material
to be worked. For medium qualities the wire of which they are made
may be about 14 guage, and they may be set about 12's prick and 6
crowns to the inch. A full size side view of a small portion is given at
Figure 4, Shect 1. f, f, is an endless chain of flats clothed with cards
and working under the licker-in e, which it strips of lumps, knots, and
other intractable matters, and assists in laying straight the fibres. The
ends of the flats move in guide grooves g, g, in plates attached to the
inner sides of the framing, one of which is shewn detached at Figure 5,
h being the plate, and h, k, steps in which the necks of the rollers 1, 1,
which carry the chain revolve. These flats may be stripped either by
hand or by a stripping comb fixed under them. Instead of the move-
able flats a stationary bed of teeth may be substituted; Figure 3 shews
an elevation view from the end of the engine of the bar d to which the
shell b is attached.
Figure 6, Sheet 2, is an clevation of the pulley or driving side of the
engine; 0, 0, 0, the framing; A2, driving pulleys on the shaft A' of
the main cylinder; M³, side of the feed trough in which the travelling
apron works; m is one of the levers which press down the fluted feed
rollers. Each of these levers is loaded with a considerable adjustable
weight m'. The fulcrum of the lever m is at m², and the point at which
its force is exerted at m³, where the cock heel of the lever impinges upon
the inclined press block (indicated by dotted lines in the Figure), the
pressure not being vertical but oblique, and divided between the feed
rollers and the shell b. a³, a', are wheels whereby the fluted rollers are
geared together, and n is a carrier which transmits motion to the
wheel o fixed on the axis of the inner roller of the feeding apron. The
necks of the barrels round which the moveable flats circulate are seen
at 1, . On is the chain wheel 3, to which a pitch chain ', 1', trans-
mits a slow motion from another chain wheel upon the axis of the

page_text: upper feed roller; F³ is a pulley on the axis of the main cylinder A,
which by means of the strap F' drives the pulley F fastened on the
This
same axis with another pulley, and mounted in the bracket F5.
second pulley drives the fancy roller by means of the crossed strap F
embracing the pulley F. The clearers are driven from the main cylin-
der by the strap D³, which embraces the pulleys D2, D3, D, G, and a
driving pulley on the shaft of the main cylinder; H', H³, are the cord
and pulley which work the crank shaft of the doffing comb, and motion
is communicated to the lap drum K from the doffer B through the
pulleys and cord or strap B, K³, K³.
Figure 7, Sheet 2, is an elevation of the contrary side of the engine;
B³, a toothed wheel on the axis of the doffer, driven by the pinion P,
which receives its motion from a pulley on the main shaft by the pulley
Ps and strap P. The feed rollers receive motion from the doffer by
means of the shaft Q and bevil gear Q', Q, Q, Q. The rollers are
driven from the doffer by means of the chain C³ embracing the pulleys C³,
C, C, and one on the doffer behind the wheel B³. The same chain
embraces also a wheel E which drives the dirt roller through the
toothed wheels E³, E. The licker-in is driven from the shaft of the
main cylinder by the strap e embracing the pulleys A", e².
The operation of the machine commences by the feed rollers receiving
the material from the travelling apron, upon which it has been spread
in the usual manner. The rollers gripe and carry forward the material
so received, and deliver it over the straight edge of the shell, present-
ing it by slow gradations to the action of the licker-in, by the teeth of
which it is torn, beaten, and combed out into fibrous fragments, and
in that form distributed over the surface of the main cylinder, in its
progress towards which it encounters the teeth or wires of the moveable
flats meeting the licker-in, and by these any knots or intractable frag-
ments which may have escaped unbroken are separated and rejected.
The process is completed, so far as the breaking-up machine is concerned,
by the action of the carding cylinders, which operate in the usual
imanner.
The breaking-up machine which we have now described is that in the
improved construction and use of which, for the particular purpose
specified, our Invention consists. It will be seen that it is virtually a
modification of the carding engine, in which the licker-in and feeding
apparatus arc adapted to a new and peculiar purpose by certain
improvements or alterations, the construction of the remaining parts

page_text: being substantially unchanged. In order to the completion and per-
fecting of the process, we find it preferable and in some cases necessary
to pass the opened or broken-up material through a second engine of the
kind commonly termed a finisher, the characteristics of which may be
summed up in a few words. It receives the broken-up material from
the lap drum upon which it has been collected from the first or breaker
engine. The feeding apparatus is similar to that of the breaker, and
the licker-in is clothed with cards of finer wire about 20's guage. It
may have two rollers with clearers, and two without, together with a
fancy roller. The whole of the cylinders or rollers are clothed with
finer cards than the same parts in the first engine, and the material is
delivered through a pair of calendar rollers and a trumpet mouth in
the form of a sliver prepared for the drawing frame. The finisher
engine so constructed is the best which our present knowledge and
experience enable us to recommend, but we do not assert that it is the
only kind applicable. We consider it only as a carding engine, and
make no claim to the use nor construction of it, nor to any of its parts,
save and except those specially claimed as improvements in the first
engine, and which are common to both machines. We have introduced
the mention of this second engine chiefly that we might so fully explain
our process in all its parts as to render it capable of being carried out
in the most advantageous manner.
And having now explained the nature of our Invention, and described
the machinery whereby it is to be carried into effect, we shall conclude
by stating that we do not restrict ourselves to any particular arrange-
ment of carding machinery, nor to any particular construction of licker-
in or breaking cylinder, so long as the same or either of them are or is
used in combination with the improvements described and herein-after
claimed, or with any of them; and that we do not claim as of our Inven-
tion any of the parts or arrangements of the machinery herein-before
described (save as herein-after set forth), nor the application thereof, so
far as the same have reference to purposes of carding only, and are not
combined with nor constructed according to any of our improvements,
whereby their use is extended to the purpose of breaking up and con-
verting into useful fibre the particular substances herein-before specified;
and that we do claim as new, and of our Invention,―
The art or process, herein-before described, of obtaining useful fibre
from silken fabric or tissue, or from soft silk waste, or from the waste
of thrown, spun, or manufactured silk, or of silken threads, by the tear-

page_text: ing, beating, and combing action of teeth or pointed pins arranged upon
a revolving cylinder, and used in combination with the improved
apparatus herein-before described for holding and delivering the material
to be broken up.
The combination in the same machine of a system or series of card-
ing cylinders with the peculiar and improved breaking-up and feeding
apparatus herein-before described, for the double purpose of breaking
up and carding the substances before enumerated.
The manner of staying the shell of the feeding apparatus by means
of tie bolts, attaching the same at one or more points to a cross bar on
the opposite side of the rollers.
The application of an endless chain of flats or of stationary teeth
arranged upon a concave shell or bed under the licker-in.
And the combination of the improved feeding and holding apparatus
herein-before described with a licker-in specially adapted for breaking
up, tearing, beating, and combing out the fibres or filaments of silken
fabric or tissue, or of soft silk waste, or of the waste of thrown, spun,
or manufactured silk, or of silken threads, or with any toothed roller,
cylinder, cone, or barrel, for the uses and purposes herein-before
expressed.
In witness whereof, I, the said Job Hamer, have hereunto set my
hand and scal, this Twenty-first day of June, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight.
Signed and sealed by the within-named
Job Hamer, in the presence of
JNO TAYLER, Patent Agent,
Manchester.
JOB HAMER. (L.S.)