Improvements in Safety Devices for Use in connection with Cotton Beaters and similar Machines,
Year: 1899

page_text: Date of Application, 4th July, 1899-Accepted, 5th Aug., 1899
CONTU PRATICATION
Improvements in Safety Devices for Use in connection with Cotton
Beaters and similar Machines,
We, JOSEPH TIBBETTS WARD, residing at Wildes Hotel, and JOHN BLAISDELL,
CURTIS, residing at No. 78, Main Street, both in Chicopee Falls, in the County of
Hampden and State of Massachusetts, United States of America, Mechanical
Engineers, do hereby declare the nature of this invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained, in and
by the following statement:-
This invention relates to cotton beaters and similar machines, the object being
to provide improved safety devices therefor which so oporate that a workman,
or other person, can not carelessly open the cap or cover of the machine, while
the same is running, and expose himself to sorious injury thereby; and whereby
the machine once stopped and the cover thereof opened, it can not be thought-
lessly re-started until the cover shall be again shut and locked in such position
by said safety devices:
And the invention consists in providing devices serving both for locking the
beater-cover in a closed position while the machine is running, and for so lock-
ing the beater-shaft in a stopped-position, while the cover is open, that tho
machine will not run until said cover shall be closed:
And the invention consists further in providing improved stop-dovices and
mechanism whereby the above described results are attained, all as hereinafter
fully set forth and more particularly pointed out in the claims.
In the drawing accompanying this specification,-
Figure 1 is a perspective view illustrating one end of the box and cap or
cover of a cotton-beater, a portion of the beater-shaft having thereon a beater-
bar arm and one of the bearing-boxes for said shaft, certain of said parts having
applied thereto safety stop-devices embodying our improvements.
Figure 2 illustrates, in perspective view, certain of said safety devices on a
larger scale than shown in Figure 1, apart from said parts of the beater.
Figure 3 is a perspective view of one end of the beater-shaft having thereon a
stop-disk or similar element of modified construction, as compared with that
olement shown in Figure 1.
Referring to the drawing, A indicates the box-part of the beater below the
shaft G thereof, and B is the cap or cover of the machine and is there shown in
open position. The said shaft runs in bearings on the. frame of the machine
outside of the box A, as usual, (one of which is shown in Figure 1), and near said
bearings and within said box is shown one of the beater-arms Don said shaft,
and one of the beater-bars. E on the end of said beater-arm.
It is well known that the said beater-bars of the machine run under great
speed, say about 1500 revolution per minute, and that when the cover B of the
machine is opened by a workman, as is frequently the case, while the machine
is running at full speed, very serious accidents occur, causing a hand or arm
of said workman to be drawn into the machine, and oftentimes the person is
thereby fatally injured; and the main purpose of the within described improve-
ments is to render such accidents impossible by the application of the below
described devices to the machine.

page_text: The cover B of the machine (shown in Figure 1 with a part of one edge broken
away) has a bolt-hole in one end thereof, and a bolt or pin c fixed or on in
said end which projects beyond the outer face of said cover-end.
The shaft G of the beater has a disk 2, or other similar element, having spaces
or openings into which the end of a bolt may be entered, fixed on its outer end
in which, in this case, is a series of bolt-holes, as shown in Figure 1.
A bolt-holding block 3 is bolted rigidly onto the cap C of the shaft-bearing
liox, adjacent to the side of said disk 2, or in other convenient place, and on
said block is a sliding bolt 4, which serves to lock the beater-shaft so that it can
not rotate...
Across one ond of said block 3 is a spring 6 which serves to hold said bolt in
the forward position shown in Figure 1.
The section of the pin c, shown in Figure 2, over the end of said spring, is a
part of that one which is fixed in the ond of said cap or cover B, and illustrates
the position of said pin in the operation of the stop-devices, as below described.
A retracting spring 5 is carried on said bolt 4, between a handle 7 thereon, and
the end of said block 3.
The operation of the above described devices for preventing a person_from
carelessly starting up the beater before the cover thereof shall be closed and
from opening said cover before the machine shall be stopped is as follows:
Figure 1 shows the cap B of the beater opened, and the shaft-locking bolt 4
having its outer end entering a hole or opening in the side of said element 2,
which is fixed on the end of the beater-shaft G, as aforesaid. Said bolt is
moved to said position by grasping the handle 7 thereon, after the machine
shall have been stopped, after which the cap B is free to be opened, The retract-
ing spring 5 on said bolt 4 becomes compressed upon moving said bolt, as afore-
said, and following said bolt-movement, the spring 6 on the rear end of said
block 3 mores upward behind said bolt and retains it in engagement with said
disk-element 2 so that, though the bolt that runs the beater bo "shipped on,"
the latter can not be started. Upon closing said cover, the projecting end of
said pin ethercon strikes the end of said spring 6, as shown in Figure 2, and
carries it below the rear end of said bolt 4, thus letting the rear end of the latter,
driven by the spring 5, on said bolt, enter the bolt-hole d, in the end of said cap
or cover B, which thus becomes locked in a closed position and the machine
may now be started.
But the cover can not be again opened until the machine
shall be stopped so that the bolt can be disengaged from the coror by sliding it
out and entering it into one of the said holes in said disk-element.
When this is done, the cover may be safely opened, but before the machine
can be again started, the bolt must be again brought to the position shown in
Figure 2, and again engaged with the cover B.
Thus said cover is effectually locked in a closed position when the beater may
be running, and the beater-shaft is effectually locked against rotation while the
cover of the machine may be open.
Figure 3 illustrates a modified construction of said disk 2 which has the bolt-
holes therein, which modification consists in substituting a disk having a series
of projections 8 thercon with which said sliding-bolt 4 may engage, but said
modification would not provide for holding said disk against a certain degree of
rotary movement equal to the extent of space between said projections; whereas,
it is preferable, as an element of safety, that the shaft of the machine shall be
absolutely locked against any rotary movement while the bolt engages said
disk.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said
invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, we declare that what
we claim is:
-
1. The combination with the main-shaft of a cotton-beater or analogous

page_text: rotating element, of a locking device common to both said shaft and said cap
or cover, and means whereby the locking of said cap effects the unlocking of
said shaft, and the locking of the lattor the unlocking of the cap, substantially
as described.
2. In a cotton-beater or analogous machine, the combination with the main-
shaft and the cap of the machine, of mechanism holding said shaft non-rotatably
when said cap shall be opened, and which is actuated by the movement of said
cap in closing the same to simultaneously release said sliaft and to lock said
cap in a closed position, substantially as described.
3. In a cotton-beater or analogous machine, the combination with the driving
mechanism of the machine, of a rotatable element thereon with which a stop-
bolt may engage, of a bolt engaging said element and holding the same non-
rotatably, mechanism retaining said bolt so engaged, a retracting spring acting
on said bolt, and a device carried on the cap of the machine acting to release said
bolt from said engagement upon closing said cap, substantially as described.
4. In a cotton-beater or analogous machine, the combination with the cap and
the main-shaft thereof, of an element rotating with said shaft having openings
in the side thereof into which a stop-bolt may enter, of a bolt entering said
opening, a bolt-retaining spring, and a retracting spring on said bolt, and a
device on said cap acting to free said retaining spring from said bolt upon swing-
ing said cap to close the same, substantially as described.
Dated this Twelfth day of June 1899.
JOSEPH TIBBETTS. WARD.
JOHN BLAISDELL CURTIS,
Haseltine, Lake & Co.,
45, Southampton Buildings, London, W.C.,
Agents for the Applicants.