AN IMPROVEMENT IN SEWING MACHINES
Year: 1863

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Clark, of 53, Chancery Lane, in the
County of Middlesex, Engineer and Patent Agent, for the Invention
of "AN IMPROVEMENT IN SEWING MACHINES."- A communication from
abroad by Jerome Burce Socor and William Honey Butler both of
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Clark at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 7th
November 1868.
I, WILLIAM CLARK, of 53, Chancery Lane, in the County of Middlesex,
Engineer and Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "AN IMPROVEMENT IN SEWING MACHINES," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to what is commonly known as the rotating hook or
Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine. In this machine, what is known as a
loop check, consisting of a pad or crush, is used to temporarily arrest the loop
of the needle thread in its passage round the rotating hook, which carries the
under or locking thread for the purpose of preventing the latter from getting

page_text: more than one loop upon it at a time, and this loop check has been a source
of many difficulties to persons operating the machine, more especially when
the machine has had to be used for sewing materials of different thicknesses
and with thread of different sizes. These difficulties are so well known to
persons experienced in the use of this machine as to need no explanation
here. Several devices have been invented with a view to remedy this evil, but
all which are known to me have been more or less objectionable, most of them
requiring essential alterations of the rotating hook, or being otherwise difficult
of application to machines already made.
The object of this Invention is to obtain a loop check which will work
equally well for all kinds of work, and which can be applied, at small expense,
to machines now in use; and to this end it consists in providing a recess in
the lower part of the inner face of the bobbin ring, and furnishing the said
ring with a hook or tooth projecting over a portion of the said recess in such
manner as to stop the outer portion of the loop in its passage over the said
bobbin. This check may be used with a bobbin of the usual form, or a
groove may be provided in the outer face of the bobbin concentric with the
axis thereof for the reception of the point of the hook or tooth, and by this
means the failure of the hook or tooth to check the loop is rendered
impossible.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said William Clark in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
830th April 1864.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
CLARK, of 53, Chancery Lane, in the County of Middlesex, Engineer and
Patent Agent, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Seventh day of November, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, in the twenty-seventh year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said William Clark, Her special licence that I, the said William Clark, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said William
Clark, 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

page_text: vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "AN IMPROVEMENT IN SEWING
MACHINES," a communication to me from abroad by Jerome Burge Secor and
William Henry Butler, both of Chicago, Cook County, State of Illinois, in the
United States of America, upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said
William Clark, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing
under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, 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 I, the said William Clark, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement, reference being had to the Sheet of Drawings hereunto annexed,
and to the letters and figures marked thereon (that is to say): -
This Invention relates to what is commonly known as the rotating hook or
Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine. In this machine, what is known as the
loop check, consisting of a pad or brush, is used to temporarily arrest the loop
of the needle thread in its passage round the rotating hook, which carries the
under or locking thread for the purpose of preventing the latter from getting
more than one loop upon it at a time, and this loop check has been a source
of many difficulties to persons operating the machine, more especially when
one machine has had to be used for sewing materials of different thicknesses
and with thread of different sizes. These difficulties are so well known to
persons experienced in the use of this machine as to need no explanation.
Several devices have been invented with a view to remedy this evil, but all
which are known to me have been more or less objectionable, most of them!
requiring essential alterations of the rotating book, or being otherwise difficu!t
of application to machines already made.
The object of this Invention is to obtain a loop check which will work
equally well for all kinds of work, and which can be applied at small expense
to machines now in use; and to this end it consists in providing a recess in
the lower part of the inner face of the bobbin ring, and furnishing the said
ring with a book or tooth projecting over a portion of the said recess in such
manner as to stop the outer portion of the loop in its passage over the sai
bobbin. This check may be used with a bobbin of the usual form, or a
groove may be provided in the outer face of the bobbin concentric with the

page_text: axis thereof for the reception of the point of the hook or tooth, and by this
means the failure of the hook or tooth to check the loop is rendered
impossible.
Fig. 1 in the Drawing is an inner face view of the bobbin ring with this
improved loop check attached; Fig. 2 is a horizontal sectional view of the
same; Fig. 3 is a central vertical section of the bobbin ring, the bobbin, and
the rotating hook; Figs. 4, 5, and 6 are face views of the rotating hook and
bobbin, showing also the loop check, and illustrating the different stages of the
operation of the check. Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding
parts in the several Figures.
The bobbin ring A is made in the usual form, except that the lower part
of its inner face is provided with a recess a, from one end of which recess there
projects a thin pointed tooth b, which constitutes the loop check. The object
of the recess a is to allow the outer portion of the thread loop to pass between
it and the loop check b. The said loop check b may be formed of a piece of
sheet steel, which is secured at its upper part to the ring A, and its lower part
to the base C to which said ring is attached, or the said loop check b may be
made in one piece with the ring A. The said loop check b projects hori-
zontally along the face of the ring A, and partially covers the recess a, as
shown in the Drawing, Fig. 2, one end of said recess terminating behind said
loop check. The point of said loop check 6 occupies a position very slightly
in front of a vertical line drawn through the centre of ring A and base C.
When the bobbin E has a plane exterior face, like those in common use, the
point of the check b should be flush with the inner face of the bobbin ring,
but when the bobbin is made with a groove e in its outer surface, as shown in
Figs. 3, 4, 5, and 6, the point of the check is set inward beyond the face of
the bobbin ring, as shown in Figs. 2 and 3, to enter the said groove without
touching the bobbin.
The operation of this loop check is as follows:-When in the rotation of
the hook D, the portion of the loop which first passes over the outer face
of the bobbin E has been cast off the rotating hook in the usual manner, it
almost immediately passes in a loose condition on to the check in the manner
illustrated by Fig. 4, and as the rotation of the hook continues the loop is
drawn tight and up to the base of the check, as shown in Fig. 5, and there
held until the inner side of the loop slips off the hook and the loop is left
upon the check, after which the hook, having entered a new loop and com-
menced drawing up, the preceding one draws the latter off the point of the
check, and draws it directly upward across the face of the bobbin, as

page_text: illustrated in Fig. 6, where the loop is represented as having just escaped
from the point of the check. In this operation, instead of the loop passing
onward beyond the check and escaping therefrom in a forward direction, as it
does with the other checks, it slips off the check in a backward direction the
reverse of that in which it came on.
I will now mention some of the advantages of this check. First, it is a
fixture never requiring re-adjustment, and allows the use of the coarsest and
finest threads without such variations of adjustment of the bobbin ring as are
necessary with the brush check, and without any failure in its operation.
Secondly, as it is not subject to any considerable friction by the loops it
neither wears itself or injures the thread or silk by chafing, untwisting, or
otherwise. Thirdly, its position on the bobbin ring protects it from accidental
injury, and prevents it from offering any obstacle to the cleaning of the
machine, and enables the operation of the rotating hook to be more distinctly
seen. Fourthly, it obviates the necessity for the thread guard under the work
plate, and thereby not only saves the expense of such guard, but obviates
annoyance to the operator by the threads becoming entangled in such guard.
Fiftbly, it is more cheaply constructed and applied than any other check.
Sixthly, it requires no oil on its surface for any kind of work. Seventhly, it
allows variation in the set of the needle without serious injury to the beauty
and strength of the seam. Eighthly, it causes the loop to be drawn up to the
fabric as nearly as practicable in a line with the needle's motion from a point
directly or very nearly opposite the needle hole in the work plate (as will be
understood by reference to Fig. 5), thereby causing less strain and friction
upon the thread than if the loop were drawn in or from any other direction.
Ninthly, it permits the bobbin to run very loosely, thereby not only causing
less strain on the upper thread in passing over the bobbin, but less strain upon
the under thread, as with a loose bobbin the under thread is more easily
unwound, and consequently there is less liability of breaking either thread in
running at a high speed.
Ilaving described the nature of this Invention, and the manner of per-
forming the same, I declare that what I claim as the Invention to be protected
by the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent, is,―
First, providing the lower part of the inner face of the bobbin ring A
with a recess a and a loop check 6 projecting over a portion of such recess,
the whole constructed, arranged, and operating together, substantially in the
manner herein shown and described.

page_text: Secondly, the groove e in the bobbin in combination with the loop check b,
substantially as and for the purpose herein specified.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Clark, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Thirtieth day of April, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-four.
Witness,
JAMES DAISH,
53, Chancery Lane,
London.
W. CLARK. (L.S.)