IMPROVEMENTS IN JOINTS OR APPARATUS FOR SUSPENDING OR SUPPORTING SWING LOOKING GLASSES, FAN LIGHTS, OR VENTILATORS, AND OTHER ARTICLES
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Skerrett at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 26th September 1881.
HENRY SKERRETT, of the Great Western Buildings, Birmingham, in the County
of Warwick, Mechanical Engineer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN JOINTS OR APPARATUS
FOR SUSPENDING OR SUPPORTING SWING LOOKING GLASSES, FAN LIGHTS, OR
VENTILATORS, AND OTHER ARTICLES."
My Invention consists of the improvements hereinafter described in joints or
apparatus for suspending or supporting swing looking glasses, fan lights, or
ventilators, and other articles, such for example as banner screen arms.
By my improvements the construction of the joints or centres upon which the
articles enuinerated and other like articles turn are much simplified in their
adjustment, and the production of a stiff or tight joint (so that the swing looking
glass or other article is fixed in any position to which it has been brought or adjusted)
is effected in a simple and efficient inanner.
I will describe my Invention as applied to a swing looking glass, and as the
construction of the two joints or apparatus on which the swing looking glass turns
are the same I will only describe one of the said joints.
According to one of my arrangements I make the axis of the joint on which
the swing looking glass turns split or divided longitudinally nearly through its.
whole length, the solid or undivided end being attached to a carrying plate which
is affixed in a central position to the side or edge of the frame of the swing looking
glass.
The split or divided axis described, when slightly opened out, constitutes two
spring arms, which arms when the axis is forced into a cylindrical socket attached
to the pillar of the looking glass is closed or collapsed. By the elasticity of the
said closed arms the axis is made to bind itself very firmly against the internal
surface of the said socket, thereby producing a stiff or tight joint or centre.
In order to regulate the amount of tension of the split or divided axis upon the
internal surface of the socket described a collar may be screwed upon the said split
or divided axis, or a spindle with a terminal knob on one end and screwed near its

page_text: other end, and passing transversely through the split axis may be employed. The
last described modifications may be used either with a divided elastic or a non
elastic axis.
Or the socket may be slit or divided longitudinally, the divided parts pressing
or binding upon a plain axis working inside the socket.
Another arrangement of my Invention consists in producing a stiff or tight joint
in the following manner :-
In this arrangement the base plate attached to the pillar of the looking glass has
a secondary plate which constitutes a pressure plate. I make the said pressure
plate preferably by folding or bending a prolongation of the base plate upon itself
so as to form two parallel plates.
Into the space between the two parallel plates a suspending plate attached to the
frame of the looking glass is passed.
A fixed screw pin or axis is rivetted to the base plate, the said screw pin or
axis extending through the space between the base and pressure plates and also
through an eye or opening in the pressure plate to a short distance beyond the said
pressure plate. The broad face of the suspending plate constitutes a flattened hook
which is engaged with that part of the screw pin or axis passing across the space
between the base plate and pressure plate described.
By the screwing up of a milled wheel or scrow nut upon the protruding end of
the screw pin or axis against the outer face of the pressure plate the hooked
suspending plate is tightly-bound-between the inner faces_of_base plate and
pressure-plate,-thereby-producing a stiff or tight joint.
When the inner faces of the doubled plato described become worn-it-is-only-
necessary to screw home the screwed wheel or nut when the parts are again pressed
forcibly together.
Instead of the hooked suspending plate described a forked supporting or bearing
plate may be used, which plate in this modification is attached to the pillar, the
combined base and pressure plates being attached to the looking glass frame.
Instead of making the pressure or binding plate in one piece with the base plate
the said pressure plate may be made of a separate piece in the form of a washer,
with a square eye taking upon a fixed square pin or axis.
The said washer is split or divided at the corners or angles of its square oyo, the
divided parts being turned slightly outwards so that the square hole is capable of
sliding upon the square screw pin or axis described. On the screwing up of the
wheel or nut the split parts of the washer are flattened between the face of the
wheel and the face of the forked bearing or bracket. The raised slit edges of the
square hole in the washer are tightly pressed upon the sides or faces of the square
pin or axis, thereby producing a very tight fit upon the said pin or axis and no
liability to rock thereon.
Or the washer may be split from the eye to the circumference and slightly
opened out on being threaded on the square spindle; the washer is gathered in
around the spindle by a conical scat formed in the boss of the screw wheel closing
the slit or gap in the said washer.
Where the washer is not split the hole in it is made slightly taper or wedge
shaped.
When the split or partially divided washer described is made of thick metal the
edges are bevelled or inclined, constituting a conical split ring, which takes its
bearing in a conical seat or recess formed in the base plate, or a split conical plug
is pressed by the screw wheel into a hollow socket formed on the base plate
described.
I modify the second part of my Invention by affixing one end of the screwed pin
or axis to a base plate which is secured to the looking glass frame, the other end
of the screw pin or axis being rivetted to the outer limb of a folded strip of metal
having the figure of an inverted U. The other limb of the folded strip of metal
is looso, and has an eye or hole in it through which the screw pin or axis passes.
When the inverted U shaped strip of metal is dropped over the forked bracket

page_text: attached to the pillar of the glass the said bracket fills up the space between the
folded strip of metal, and on the screwing up of the wheel the parts are tightly
bound or pressed together.
The pressure plates described may be actuated by a knob or "turn" at the end
of an axis extending through the pillar or actuated from the back of the glass or
pillar.
My Invention consists further in forming the sides of the bearings in which the
axis of looking glasses work taper, that is to say, the top of the bearing is wider
than the bottom, so that the weight of the looking glass forces or wedges the axis
into the taper bearings described, and thereby produces a stiff or tight joint.
The self tightening or binding of the axis in their bearings may be produced by
a conical edged disc working in a conical seat or depression formed in the bearing
plate.
Or the looking glass axis may be pressed into or against the conical or plain
bearings by a thumb screw with a conical acting end, or by a fly nut on the end of a
taper wedge pin worked from the back or side of the looking glass.