IMPROVED MACHINERY FOR OPENING AND DRAWING FIBROUS SUBSTANCES."
Year: 1859

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Robert Parish Busk, of Lille, in the Empire of
France, Engineer, and Thomas Greenwood, of Leeds, in the County of
York, Machinist, for the Invention of "IMPROVED MACHINERY FOR
OPENING AND DRAWING FIBROUS SUBSTANCES."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Robert Parish Busk and
Thomas Greenwood at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with their Petition,, on the 17th December 1859.
We, ROBERT PARISH BUSK, of Lille, in the Empire of France, Engineer,
and THOMAS GREENWOOD, of Leeds, in the County of York, Machinist, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVED MACHINERY FOR
OPENING AND DRAWING FIBROUS SUBSTANCES," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to novel means for opening and drawing fibrous
materials while passing to the nip of the drawing rollers, whereby the fibrous
material is more effectually opened, straightened, or combed, and slivered than
in the present machines. This opening we effect, first, by the use of one or
more gills of a novel construction, which are made capable of expansion and
contraction while in operation, and which we call "the expanding and con-
tracting gill;" and secondly, by the use of a gill-drawing roller of novel
construction, which consists of gill bars working in the drawing roller itself,
and having a movement of propulsion and retraction within the periphery of
such roller, and which we call "the retracting gill-drawing roller." These two
appliances may be used conjointly or in combination with each other, or the
expanding and contracting gills may be used in combination with ordinary
drawing rollers, and the retracting gill drawing roller may be used in com-
bination with ordinary screw, circular, or rotary gills, either attached to cards
or in other preparing machines for spinning.

page_text: This novel arrangement for the opening and drawing of fibrous material may
be thus further described:-Between the feed and drawing rollers we mount two
gills (one in advance of the other) constructed so as to be capable of receiving
a lateral contraction and expansion, and in one of the drawing rollers we fit a
set of gill bars, which are made to slide in radial slots by means of cam
grooves, in a manner well known for the purpose of advancing the gills into
the fibrous material as it passes from the expanding and contracting or other
gills towards the nip of the retracting gill-drawing roller and its pressing
roller, and give it a partial combing, and then to retire and leave it to the nip
of the periphery of the retracting gill-drawing roller and of its weighted
drawing or pressing roller. The expanding and contracting gills we form of
metal discs, the peripheries of which are set round with pins. These discs we
mount loosely on a shaft, and we separate them by springs or by means of
some elastic material, such as vulcanized india-rubber, or by means of wedge-
shaped washers, or flat rings of some rigid or metallic substance, and not
capable of turning round on the gill shaft, and the set of discs thus arranged
we enclose between wedge-shaped collars fixed to the gill shaft. We drive the
discs by means of rods passed through them and connected at their opposite
ends to driving gear, which is mounted loosely on the gill shaft. When
two of these expanding and contracting gills are used in the same machine, we
cause one of them to take the sliver of fibrous material from the feed rollers
at the narrow or contracted side of the gills, and to deliver it in an expanded
form to the expanded side of the second gill, which will deliver it to the drawing
rollers from the narrow or contracted side. By using only one of the expanding
and contracting gills, and feeding the sliver of fibrous material to the expanded
side of the gill, the width of the sliver will be contracted during its passage
to the drawing rollers, and thus the thick edges usual in slivers contracted by
the ordinary conductors will be avoided. To prevent the fibres from being
drawn below the base of the gill pins, cross wires are inserted in the metal
dises at given distances apart which act as a fence or grating.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Robert Parish Busk and Thomas Greenwood in the Great
Seal Patent Office on the 16th June 1860.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, ROBERT
PARISH BUSK, of Lille, in the Empire of France, Engineer, and THOMAS 3
GREENWOOD, of Leeds, in the County of York, Machinist, send greeting.

page_text: WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Seventeenth day of December, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine, in the twenty-third year
of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant
unto us, the said Robert Parish Busk and Thomas Greenwood, Her special
license that we, the said Robert Parish Busk and Thomas Greenwood, our
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as we, the said Robert
Parish Busk and Thomas Greenwood, our 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 "IMPROVED MACHINERY FOR OPENING AND DRAWING FIBROUS
SUBSTANCES," upon the condition (amongst others) that we, the said Robert
Parish Busk and Thomas Greenwood, by an instrument in writing under our
hands and seals, or under the hand and seal of one of us, should particularly
describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, aud 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 Thomas Greenwood, on behalf of
myself and of the said Robert Parish Busk, do hereby declare the nature of
our 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 to novel means for opening and drawing fibrous
material while passing to the nip of the drawing rollers, whereby the fibrous
material is more effectually opened, straightened, or combed, and slivered than
in the present machines. This opening we effect first by the use of one or
more gills of a novel construction, which are made capable of expansion and
contraction laterally while in operation, and which we call "the expanding
and contracting gill;" and, secondly, by the use of a gill drawing roller of
novel construction, which consists of gill bars mounted in radial slots in a
drawing roller, and having a movement of propulsion and retraction within
the periphery of such roller, which we call "the retracting gill drawing roller."
These two appliances we propose to use in combination, or the expanding and
contracting gill may be used in combination with ordinary drawing rollers,
and the retracting gill drawing roller may be used in combination with ordinary

page_text: screw circular or rotary gills, either attached to cards or other preparing
machines for spinning.
In the accompanying Drawing Fig. 1 is a side elevation; Fig. 2, a partial
plan view; and Fig. 3, a longitudinal sectional elevation of an opening and
drawing machine constructed according to this Invention.
In these Figures it will be seen that the main framing supports in suitable
bearings a pair of holding or feed rollers A, A', to which the fibres to be
operated upon by the machine are supplied in any convenient manner. In
the rear of these rollers are two gills B set side by side on the same axle,
which gills are capable of receiving as they rotate a lateral expansion and
contraction. These gills B, which we term auxiliary gills, take up the fibres
from the feed rollers A, A¹, and deliver them on to gills C of like construction
to the gills B, and so arranged that the adjacent parts of their peripheries
shall correspond in breadth. The gills C take the fibres from the auxiliary
gills B, and carry them to the gill drawing roller D, where they pass under
the nip of the pressing roller E and of the auxiliary drawing roller F. It may
be here remarked that when the fibrous substances only require to be con-
solidated or drawn (the same having been previously opened by a combing or
carding machine), the rollers A, A¹, may be placed so as to feed the fibres
directly to the gills C.
The operation of this combination of mechanism is to comb and draw out
the fibrous materials by reason of the superior surface speed of the auxiliary
gills B to that of the feed rollers, and also to open the fibres by spreading the
fibres laterally, then again by the second gill C (which rotates at an inferior
speed) to contract the width of the band of fibres, and deliver them in this
state to the gill drawing roller, which combs the foremost ends by reason of its
rapid rotation as compared with the gills C, and completes the combing by its
pins holding the fibres while being drawn off by the rollers E, F. The
roller E presses equally upon the rollers D and F, so that the fibres are with
greater certainty freed from the gills as they are withdrawn within the
roller D.
Sometimes in order the better to open the fibres in the lateral direction of
their course in the machine, the gill B is arranged so as to open as at Fig. 1,
and lay the fibres of less thickness upon the gill C, which may still further
open them instead of consolidating them as at Fig. 1.
The manner of
effecting this will be readily understood when the construction of these gills is
explained. As the fibres combed at their forward ends by the superior speed
of the gills in the roller D have their ends laid straight before being presented
to the drawing rollers, and by reason of the drawing action of these rollers,

page_text: their other extremities are combed upon the points of the gills, as above
stated, a more perfect sliver is produced than has heretofore been obtained at a
single drawing operation, the body and edges of the sliver being regular, and
thereby insuring an equal thickness in the sliver. The laterally expanding
gills (of which any required number may be used side by side, according to the
capacity required for the machine,) are constructed in the following manner :-
a, ax, are the gill shafts mounted in the framing; upon each shaft and for
each gill a pair of stationary wedge-shaped guide plates b, b, is affixed. Between
these guide plates, discs, or circular plates c, c, are mounted loosely on the
shaft a, their diameter being equal to that of the circle of rotation of the points
of the gill. These discs c, c, form the sides of the gill, and between them
rings or circular plates d, d, d, of a smaller diameter are placed. These rings
d, d, d, each carry at their periphery a ring of gill pins, which pins are set at
an incline, as shewn in the Drawing. e, e, are cross rods which pass loosely
through the plates c, c, and d, d, and serve to carry them. The ends of these
rods are respectively inserted in the toothed wheels employed for driving the
gills, which wheels are mounted loosely on their respective gill shafts, which
are stationary. By the revolution therefore of their wheels, the gills will be
moved round between the fixed plates b, [b, carrying with them the plates c
and d. The plates c and d are all maintained apart from each other by springs
or some elastic material, such as caoutchouc, (as shewn at f, Fig. 3,) or by
thin taper plates which do not turn, but are supported upon the fixed shaft a.
To form a bottom of the gill cylinder, and thus prevent the fibres from being
carried to the bottom of the plates, iron wires g, g, are made to extend from
one side plate to the other, and pass through corresponding holes made through
the side plates or discs, in order to allow the plates to slide laterally over
them when the gill is in action. The gill will thus be free to contract under the
pressure of the fixed guide plates b, and to expand under the counter-pressure
of the springs f, which diverse pressures will give the gill the form in edge
view shewn at B and C, Fig. 2, each portion of its periphery in turn being caused
during the rotation of the gill, to assume the compressed and expanded
form.
The construction of the gill-drawing roller may be thus explained :-In the
drawing roller D, are radial grooves in which the comb gills h, are caused to
slide backwards and forwards alternately during the rotary motion of the roller
by means of a cam groove in a pair of fixed plates i, i, in which the inner ends
of the gill bars work. The arrangement for driving the various operating
parts is as follows:-a, b, are the driving pullies, mounted upon a stud in
the framing. One of these pullies carries upon its boss a spur pinion, which

page_text: takes into a spur wheel c', keyed on the axle of the drawing roller F. The
gill drawing roller D is driven by means of a train of three spur pinions f
ff, the first of which is on the boss of the spur wheel c¹; g', 9', are two
spur pinions, one mounted on the end of the drawing roller F, and the other
on the end of a short shaft which is fitted into a socket h¹, carried by the
main framing, (see dotted lines in Fig. 1). The other end of this short shaft
carries another spur pinion i, which takes into a spur wheel j, mounted upon
the end of the gill shaft a. This wheel takes into a smaller spur wheel
mounted upon the first gill shaft a, and this wheel in turn takes into another
spur wheel keyed on the axle of the upper feed roller A, the lower feed
roller A is driven by means of a pair of spur pinions keyed respectively on the
ends of these rollers. The fibres pass into the machine by the usual conduc-
tors and plates o', o¹, and when opened and drawn pass out of the machine
through the angular sliver plate p', and between the delivery rollers q, qg, which
are driven in the usual manner; is the weighted lever for giving pressure to
the top drawing roller E..
Fig. 4 shews an arrangement in which the fibres on their passage from the
feed rollers to the drawing rollers are subjected to the action of but one expan-
ding and contracting gill. The band of fibres is fed to the expanded side of
the gill, and during its passage to the drawing rollers it is gradually contracted
in width, and thus the thick edges usual in slivers contracted by the ordinary
conductors will be avoided.
Having now set forth the nature of our Invention of improved machinery
for opening and drawing fibrous substances, and explained the manner of
carrying the same into effect, we wish it to be understood that under the above
in part recited Letters Patent we claim the application to opening and draw-
ing machines of gills and gill rollers constructed and operating in the manner
above described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Greenwood, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, the Fifteenth day of June, in the year of our
Lord. One thousand eight hundred and sixty.
THOMAS GREENWOOD. (L.S.)
Witness,
JOHN WAINWRIGHT.