AN IMPROVED STRINGED MUSICAL INSTRUMENT
Year: 1871

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Henry Stead, of Moorgate Street Chambers,
Moorgate Street, in the City of London, Merchant, for the
Invention of "AN IMPROVED STRINGED MUSICAL INSTRUMENT."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Henry Stead at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
11th September 1871.
•
.
I, HENRY STEAD, of Moorgate Street Chambers, Moorgate Street, in
the City of London, Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "AN IMPROVED STRINGED MUSICAL INSTRUMENT," to be as
follows:-
:-
This Invention consists of various improvements upon an Invention for
which Letters Patent were granted to Mr. Baudet, dated. 5th August
1865, No. 2034, and relates to that class of keyed musical instruments in
which musical sounds are produced by setting the strings into vibration

page_text: by means of the friction of rubbing surfaces, instead of by percussion as
in ordinary pianofortes.
The musical sound is produced by causing strings to vibrate by
bringing rubbing surfaces in contact with horizontal locks or tufts of
bristles or hairs attached to each of the vertical strings. The lock
or tuft of bristles is pushed up against the rubbing surface of a rotating
roller by means of a vertical rod or sticker, armed at its upper end with
an elastic piece which keeps the bristles in contact with the rotating
rubber while the key is depressed and the sticker or vertical rod clevated.
The width or extent of the bearing surface of the clastic piece at the end
of the vertical sticker must vary according to the size of the tuft of
bristles and the strength or thickness of the string or wire it is desired
to set in vibration to produce the required tone. One string only is
used for each note throughout the instrument, in place of two or three,
as in pianofortes. The cost of construction is thereby much reduced,
and the liability of the instrument to get out of tune is diminished.
The vertical motion is imparted to the sticker by means of a second
lever mounted on the key lever. This second lever is made adjustable,
to which end it is provided with a spring for keeping it down in place,
except when raised by depressing the key, and its action is controlled by
an adjusting screw, so that the pressure of the sticker on the tuft of
bristles, and consequently the volume of tone may be regulated to a
nicety.
The rubbing roller may either be driven by a band actuated by a
treadle, or by an ordinary clockwork motion driven by springs or
weights, or it may be driven by any extraneous motive power. When
the rubbing roller or rollers are driven by power they will of course
rotate at a constant and unvarying speed. I therefore propose to com-
bine with the driving motion a treadle or lever arrangement to be
worked by the performer, who by this means can at will accelerate the
speed of the rubbing roller or rollers, and thus produce crescendos and
diminuendos and other musical effects. It will be found convenient to
adapt to the clockwork a pedal and lever for temporarily stopping the
rollers when they are not required. This will prevent the clockwork
from running down unnecessarily.
As the volume of tone varies so greatly throughout the instrument,
the rubbing action on the strings may be varied by constructing the
rubbing roller of varying diameters, or dividing it into two or more

page_text: SPECIFICATION filed in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters
Patent, and of an Order of the Lord Chancellor, by the said Henry
Stead in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 22nd March 1872.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, HENRY
STEAD, of Moorgate Street Chambers, Moorgate Street, in the City of
London, Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Eleventh day of September, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, in the
thirty-fifth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Henry Stead, Her special licence that
I, the said Henry Stead, my exccutors, administrators, and assigns, or
such others as I, the said Henry Stead, 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 Ircland, the Channel Islands,
and Isle of Man, an Invention for "AN IMPROVED STRINGED MUSICAL
INSTRUMENT," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Henry
Stead, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing
under my, or their, or one of their hands and scals, 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 Scal Patent Office on or before the Twenty-second
day of March One thousand eight hundred and seventy-two.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Henry Stead, do hereby declare
the nature of my 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 Drawings hereunto
annexed and to the letters and figures marked thereon (that is to
say):-
This Invention relates to that class of musical instruments in which
musical sounds are produced by setting the strings into vibration by

page_text: position, and this position is regulated by an adjusting screw f. The
lever 9 is provided with a tension spring hi, whose office is to regulate
the pressure of the sticker i against the friction rollers e. The upper end
of the sticker i is provided with an elastic finger j made by preference
of hard india-rubber. This clastic finger together with the spring / on
the lever g yield to any undue pressure on the key lever f, and at the
same time admit of the amount of pressure being regulated by the.
performer according to the musical effect he desires to produce. The
tuft d of bristles or hairs is pushed up against the rubbing surface of the
rotating roller e by means of the vertical rod or sticker i. The elastic
piece or finger j at the upper end of the sticker keeps the bristles in
contact with the rotating rubber e, while the key. f is depressed and the
sticker or vertical rod i is clevated. The width or extent of the bearing
surface of the elastic piece or finger j at the end of the vertical sticker i
must vary according to the size of the tuft of bristles, and the strength
or thickness of the string or wire c it is desired to set in vibration to
produce the required tone. As one string only is used for each note
throughout the instrument in place of two or three as in pianofortes,
the cost of construction is much reduced, and the liability of the
instrument to get out of tune is diminished. The lever 9 is made
adjustable, to which end it not only is provided with the spring h for
keeping it down in place except when raised by depressing the key,
but its end is made to rest on a screw stud g' which is capable of being
screwed up or down in the key lever. The action of the lever g is
therefore controlled by the adjusting screw g' and the spring.h so that
the pressure of the sticker on the tuft of bristles, and consequently the
volume of tone produced by the friction of the roller e thereon may be
regulated to a nicety. The friction roller e may either be driven by a
band actuated by a treadle or by clockwork motion driven by springs or
weights as hereafter described, or it may be driven by any extraneous ·
motive power.
In Sheet II. I have shown a clockwork motion adapted to this
purpose. Fig. 2 is a front view of the mechanism and Fig. 3 is a side
1
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page_text: the wheel m¹ gears into and drives a worm on the vertical shaft ọ, on
the upper end of which is a disc flyer o', whereby the motion of the
clockwork movement is kept at an uniform rate, except when modified
by the regulator or otherwise. This regulator consists of a spring arm p,
mounted on the vertical shaft p¹ and provided at its outer end with a
pad which is kept pressed down on the face of the disc flyer o¹; the
vertical shaft p¹ carries at its upper end an arm p², which is acted on
by a horizontal rod p³, so that by drawing out this latter by means
of its knob or handle the shaft p₁is turned partially round and the
rubber or pad at the end of the spring arm p is moved nearer to or
farther from the axis of the disc flyer o¹, and thereby is capable of
modifying its speed. If preferred, the regulator shaft p¹ may be worked
by a pedal, instead of by the lever and knob shown in the Drawing,
so that the performer by depressing the pedal lever more or less may
move the pad of the regulator nearer to or further from the centre of the
dise flyer o¹, and by this means will be enabled to modify the speed of
the mechanism. On the end of the axle m of the wheel m¹ is a
. crank arm q, which, by means of a pin taking into a slot in an arm on
the end of the shaft n communicates motion thereto and drives the two
pullics and mounted thereon. These pullics 1 and 2 are of
different diameters, and by means of bands which pass over pullies on
the inner ends of the two friction rollers e, e, give motion to these latter,
but at different speeds. When the friction rollers e, e, are driven by
power they will cach of them of course rotate at a constant and
unvarying speed so long as the mechanism is not interfered with, but it
will sometimes be found desirable to modify the speed, to which
end I adapt to the driving motion above described a treadle or lever
arrangement to be worked by the performer, who by this means
can at will accelerate the speed of the friction roller or rollers,
and thus produce crescendos and diminuendos and other musical effects.
On a shafts are mounted two levers 81, 82, one of which s¹ is connected
by a rod to a pedal s³, which is to be worked by the foot of the
performer, so that he can impart a rocking motion to the shaft s. The
other levers is connected by a rod or link to a lever t, mounted loosely
on the shaft of the wheel l, and on which is keyed the circular box t',
shewn detached on an enlarged scale at Figures 4 and 5. A coiled spring
u is hooked on to an eye on the lever t, its upper end being fixed to
a part of the framing of the instrument, so that when the levers s¹ and s²
and the other levert are pulled down by depressing the treadle s³ the

page_text: spring u will be stretched, and when the treadle is released the spring 2
will pull back the levers to their former position. It will be seen on
referring to Figures 4 and 5 that the circular box which rotates slowly
with the shaft of the wheel has a projecting flange which (as the box
revolves) passes freely through notches cut in the side of two brass
bars v, v, connected by springs to the lever t. While this lever is
quiescent (that is in the position shewn in the Drawing, which it will be
until it is pulled down by the depression of the treadle) the box t¹ will
rotate quietly with its shaft l, without being affected by the bars v, v,
but upon the levert being depressed it will cause the bars v, v, to rock,
and their notches will then catch hold of and grip the flange of the
box t, so that the latter will be pulled round at an increased speed and
will therefore drive the clockwork, and with it the shaft n and the
friction rollers e, e, above at an accelerated speed. This depression
of the levert is a slow motion and consequently is not laborious.
Immediately the downward pressure on the lever t is removed it will be
drawn up again to its normal position by the spring u. The increased
speed of the friction rollers e, e, may be maintained for any desired
length of time by thus acting on the lever t, and through it on the
train of driving gear.
It will be found convenient to adapt to the clockwork a pedal
and lever or some other equivalent device for temporarily stopping
the friction rollers e, e, and the clockwork when they are not
required. This will prevent the clockwork from running down
unnecessarily. This is effected by means of a stop rod won the
end of the vertical shaft w¹ on the lower end of which is mounted
a blocking piece w². When the shaft w¹ is pushed round by the
stop lever w, the blocking piece w² is brought forward so that
as the disc flyer o¹ rotates the block o² on the under side will come
against it and will stop the clockwork until the block o² is removed.
The rubbing action on the several strings is varied by constructing
the friction roller of varying diameters or dividing it into two or
more parts and driving each part at different speeds, as shewn and
described.
1

page_text: effect, I claim as the Invention secured to me by Letters Patent as
aforesaid,-
First. The combination with the friction roller e of the sticker i armed
with an clastic finger j, or its equivalent, with the adjustable spring
lever g, as and for the purpose herein set forth.
Second. I claim the mode herein set forth of constructing and
driving the friction roller e.
I claim particularly adapting to the driving gear the devices herein
shewn and described or their equivalents, whereby the speed of the
rotating friction roller or rollers may be increased or diminished by the
performer as herein set forth.
In witness whereof, I, the said Henry Stead, have hereunto set
hand and seal, the Twenty-first day of March; in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-two.
my