CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR CARDING WOOL, FLAX, COTTON, AND OTHER
Year: 1854

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Robert Gibson, of Hunslet, in the Parish of Leeds,
in the County of York, Engineer, for the Inventions of "CERTAIN
IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR CARDING WOOL, FLAX, COTTON, AND OTHER
Sealed the 30th March 1855, and dated the 22nd November 1854.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Robert Gibson at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 22nd
November 1854.
I, ROBERT GIBSON, of Hunslet, in the Parish of Leeds, in the County of
York, Engineer, do hereby,,declare the nature of the said Invention for
CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN, MACHINERY FOR CARDING WOOL, FLAX, COTTON, AND
OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists, 1st, in a new construction of a carding or scribbling
machine, by using a series of smaller cylinders in the place of the large cylinder
or swift for combing or scribbling wool or other fibrous materials, which are
so arranged that the delivery of the wool or other fibrous material operated
upon shall be consecutive from one cylinder to the other until it reaches the
doffing roller: By these means I obtain at least one-third-more work on the
same card surface as the large cylinder of the old machine would perform:
2ud, in the adaptation of carriers placed beneath any system of cylinders

page_text: on the plan above described, so as to facilitate the working of the material
operated upon, by detaching the loose fibre which may have been omitted to
be taken by the cylinder next it, and delivering it or lashing it upon the same
cylinder.
3rd, in the adaptation of workers and strippers to the before described
machinery placed above the cylinders, whereby the material operated upon
may, if requisite, be carried back again to the cylinder it had just left, and
again be operated upon by it; thus, the material will pass over twice as much
card surface as on the old system, and consequently be better finished before
its delivery.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Robert Gibson in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
22nd May 1855.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ROBERT
GIBSON, of Hunslet, in the Parish of Leeds, in the County of York, Engineer,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-second day of November, in the year
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-four,in the eighteenth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Robert Gibson, Her special license that I, the said Robert Gibson, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Robert
Gibson, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree
with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during
the term therein expressed, 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 for "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHI-
NERY FOR CARDING WOOL, FLAX, COTTON, AND OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS," being
a communication from the true Inventor thereof, who resides abroad, upon the
condition (amongst others) that I, the said Robert Gibson, by an instrument
in writing under my hand and seal, 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.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Robert Gibson, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement,
reference being had to the Drawing hereunto annexed, and to the letters
and figures marked thereon (that is to say) :-
This Invention relates, firstly, to the use in carding engines of a series of
small cylinders in the place of the ordinary large cylinder or swift employed
in carding or scribbling wool or other fibrous materials, which small cylinders
are so arranged that the delivery of the wool or other fibrous material operated
upon shall be consecutive from one cylinder to the other until it reaches the
dloffing roller.
Secondly; to the adaptation to this system of cylinders of carriers placed
beneath the cylinders, so as to facilitate the working of the material operated
upon, by detaching the loose fibre which may have been omitted to be taken
up by the cylinder next it, and delivering it or lashing it upon the cylinder
which should have taken it.
Thirdly, to the adaptation of workers and strippers or workers and fancy
rollers, to the before-mentioned system of cylinders, which rollers are placed
above the cylinders, and will, if requisite, carry back the material under
operation to the cylinder it had just left, there to undergo a repetition of the
carding operation.
The accompanying Drawing shews, inlongitudinal elevation, a carding engine
constructed according to the present Invention. a, a, is the main framing of
the engine, upon which is mounted in suitable bearings a series of cylinders
or swifts, marked respectively b, c, c¹, and c²; and d is the doffer cylinder.
The peripheries of all these cylinders are covered with wire cards, the teeth of
which stand in the direction shewn in the Drawing. These cylinders are driven
in the direction indicated by their respective arrows, and their speeds are
graduated so that the speed of the second cylinder c will be greater than that
of the first b, and the speed of the third cylinder e¹ will be greater than
that of the second cylinder, while that of the fourth c² will be greater than the
speed of the third. The cylinder b is provided with workers and strippers,
arranged after the ordinary manner of carding engines. e, e, are ordinary feed
rollers, for taking up the staple from the endless cloth and delivering it to the
cylinder b. Between the cylinders b and c a worker fand a stripper g are
mounted, in such a manner that they will act conjointly, as herein-after shewn;
and between the cylinders c and c¹, and c¹ and c² respectively, workers-and
strippers are similarly placed. These workers and strippers are driven in the
direction-indicated by the arrows, h, h1, h2, are three carriers, one of which

page_text: is placed between each pair of cylinders at their under side. These carriers
are driven in the direction also indicated by the arrows. Rotary motion is
communicated to the machine by a belt 1 from any first mover passing round
a pulley keyed on the shaft of the cylinder c. On the same shaft (but at the
other end thereof) is a second pulley, over which passes a band or strap 2, 2,
for transmitting motion to the cylinders e and c, and the several carriers
h,h,h. This band passes under the driving pulley on the axle of the carrier
, thence upwards over the driving pulley on the axle of the cylinder c', then
down to the pulley on the axle of the carrier ', and up to the pulley of the
cylinder c; finally, it passes to the pulley of the carrier 7, and is then con-
ducted to a guide pulley 3, at the lower part of the framing, and so by a second
guide pulley back to the pulley on the main driving shaft. The axle which
carries the pulley 3, and which receives rotary motion from the band that
passes over it, carries a second pulley, which, by means of a strap 4 passing
round it, and round a driving pulley on the axle of the cylinder b, imparts
rotary motion thereto. In order to the beneficial working of this machine, it
may be explained that the surface speed of the cylinder 6 should be less than
that of c, likewise that of c should be less than the surface speed of c¹, and
the surfacespeed of the last cylinder c² superior to either. The ratios of speed
which have been found to answer are as 5-9, 14 and 20; but other propor-
tions of speed may doubtless with advantage be adopted, provided the surface
speed is gradually increased from the first to the last carding cylinder. The
doffer cylinder is driven at a slow speed by an intermediate pinion 5, which
gears into a spur wheel on the axle of the doffer, and receives its motion from
a band 6, which passes round a driving pulley on the shaft of the cylinder c²
and thence round a pulley on the axle of the pinion 5. Rotary motion is
communicated by means of bevil geari, i, to the axle of the lower feed roller e.
A small spur pinion on the axle of the lower feed roller at the opposite side of
-the-machine gears into a similar pinion, fixed to the axle of the upper feed
roller, and gives motion thereto. To the shaft of the cylinder c² is fitted a
bevil wheel, which-gears into a pinion on the upright shaft7,-and-at-the-top
of this shaft is a second bevil pinion, which gears-into-aud drives a pinion on
the shaft m. Fixed upon this shaft are three worms n, which respectively
gear into the worm wheels o, o, o, on the axles of the workers f, and as these
worms are rotated by the bevil gearing, they will transmit rotary motion by the
wheel 0,0,0, to their respective workers. The strippers g are driven by means
of bands, which pass round pullies on the cylinder shafts, and over pulleys
fixed on the axles of the stripper rollers, and thence to guide pulleys, as shewn
in the Drawing. The fancy roller, which prepares the staple on the cylinder c

page_text: for being stripped off by the doffer cylinder d, is shewn at p. This fancy roller
is driven by a cross band 7 from a pulley on the shaft of the cylinder c². The
doffer comb q may be actuated in any well-known' or convenient manner.
When the wool or other staple is conducted to the feed rollers e, e, by the
usual feed apron, it is carried by the cylinder b to the adjacent cylinder c, but
before reaching the cylinder c it has been operated upon by the ordinary
strippers and workers set round the first cylinder. This part of the arrange-
ment, it will be understood, is old, and is only employed to prepare the wool
for the subsequent part of the carding operation. The wool, while under the
operation of the cylinder b, and the ordinary workers and strippers, is taken
up from and carried back to the same cylinder; whereas in the novel arrange-
ment of carding surfaces, which forms the subject-matter of the present
Invention; and to the action of which it is subsequently subjected, the wool
is taken from one cylinder and transferred to another, as will be presently seen.
When the cylinder e has taken the wool from the cylinder b, and has carried
it in its revolution to where the first worker fcomes into operation, that worker,
having its teeth in the opposite direction to the cylinder c, but driven at a
slower speed than it, takes up a considerable quantity of the wool from the
cylinder and carries it to the stripper g. This stripper points its teeth in the
contrary direction to the worker, and in the same direction as the cylinder b.
It is also driven faster than the worker and slower than the cylinder 6; con-
sequently the stripper g, by its increase of speed over the worker, takes off the
wool, which in its turn is taken from g by the cylinder b, by its greater speed
over the stripper. The wool is then re-transferred from this cylinder to the
cylinder c, as before, along with the other wool, passing with it, and the wool
is taken by the workers and strippers until it has received the required amount
of carding to permit of its passing forward to the next cylinder...
Supposing any portion of wool shall have been omitted to be taken by the
cylinder c at the point where the card surfaces of that cylinder and cylinder b
meet, the straggling wool is detached from the cylinder 6 by the carrier h.
This it is enabled to do by being driven at a greater speed than the last-named
cylinder; and in consequence of the cylinder c being driven faster than this
carrier, the wool is drawn or detached from it, and carried up to and operated
along with the main body of the wool taken up to the worker.
The wool undergoes the like operation from the cylinders c¹ and c², and the
carriers, workers, and strippers connected with them. When operated upon
by the last carding cylinder c2, the wool is raised into a kind of "fluff" by the
fancy roller p, which is common to scribbling machines. This fancy roller has
longer teeth than the card teeth of the cylinders, and it is turned in an oppo-

page_text: site direction, and has a greater surface speed than the last carding cylinder.
The wool, after being raised into this "fluff," is carried down to the doffer
cylinder, which, running in a contrary direction to, and at a much slower speed
than, the last-named cylinder, takes up the carded wool on to its periphery and
presents it to the doffer combg, by which it is doffed in the usual manner.
Instead of using the strippers and workers fand g in conjunction with the
carding cylinders, as explained, a fancy roller may be employed in place of the
stripper, and worked in conjunction with the worker and cylinder, the teeth of
course being turned in a different direction to the teeth of the stripper, and
driven at a speed corresponding to the effect required, which speed will be
determined by the judgment of the operator.
Having now described the nature of the Invention of "improvements in
machinery for carding wool, flax, cotton, and other fibrous materials," as
communicated to me, and explained the manner of carrying the same into
effect, I wish it to be understood that, under the above in part recited Letters
Patent, I claim, arranging the card cylinders c and their rollers as described
with reference to the Drawing, and driving them at different graduated speeds,
in the manner and for the purpose above set forth;
In witness whereof, I, the said Robert Gibson, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Eighteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-five.
Witness,
J*° CLARKE,
166, Chancery Lane, London.
ROBERT GIBSON. (L.S.)