CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR HECKLING AND DRESSING FLAX, HEMP, AND OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS
Year: 1838

page_text: WORD
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOSHUA.
WORDSWORTH, of Leeds, in the County of York, Machine Maker, send:
greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date.
at Westminster, the Thirty-first day of May, in the first year of Her reign,
and in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Joshua Wordsworth, Her especial license, full power, sole privilege and
authority, that I, the said Joshua Wordsworth, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, and such others as I, the said Joshua Wordsworth, my éxecutors,
administrators, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from
time to time and at all times during the term of years therein. mentioned,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England,
Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "CERTAIN
IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR HECKLING AND DRESSING FLAX, HEMP, AND
OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS;" in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso
obliging me, the said Joshua Wordsworth, by an instrument in writing under
my hand and seal, particularly to describe and ascertain the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, and to cause
the same to be inrolled in Her Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six
calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said in part recited!
Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more
fully and at large appear..

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Joshua Wordsworth, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following description thereof, refe-
rence being had to the Drawing hereunto annexed, and to the letters and
figures marked thereon (that is to say):
My Invention of Improvements in Machinery for Heckling and Dressing
Flax, Hemp, and other Fibrous Materials, consists in a peculiar arrangement
of mechanism in which a consecutive series of stricks of flax are progressively
carried through the machine, and in their passage are continually acted upon
by the points of a double series of endless sheets of revolving or travelling
heckles, the large points or more open heckles commencing the operation,
which are followed by closer and finer points until the heckling operation is
completed and the tow drawn off from the flax in the process of heckling is
transferred from the points of the heckles on to a doffing cylinder covered
with cards or pointed wires, by the agency of a brush roller. This arrange-
ment of apparatus will be more fully understood by reference to the accom-
panying Drawing, and the following description thereof, in which similar
letters indicate corresponding parts in all the Figures.
Figure 1 is a front or longitudinal elevation of the machine; Figure 2, an
end view of the same; and Figure 3, a vertical section taken transversely
through the machine, about the middle of Figure 1.
Stricks of flax a, a, a, are confined in pairs of clamps or holders b, b, b,
screwed together in the ordinary way. These clamps with the stricks are
severally placed upon the inclined plain of the guide rails c, c, down which they
successively slide, and are pushed forward through the machine upon the guide
rails c, c, by the rotary curved arms d, d, d, The heckles e, e, e, &c. are fixed
upon simi-cylindrical rods placed longitudinally through the operating parts of
the machine, and these rods are connected together in a back and front series
by endless bands of leather f.f.f.f. extended over the carrying rollers g, 9, 9, 9.
Semy-cylindrical grooves are formed along these carrying rollers g for the
reception of the rods of the heckle bands; and hence, as the rollers 9 revolve,
the endless bands and the heckles will be made to revolve also, carrying the
points of the heckles downward through the stricks of flax. As the holders with
the stricks of flax slide down the inclined plains of the guide rails c, c, the lower
ends only of the pendant flax will be first operated upon by the heckles; but as
the holders advance, descending down the inclined plain, the heckle points will
be enabled to take into the strick of flax higher up, until the holders, having
arrived at the horizontal part of the guide rails, the strick will have descended
g

page_text: to its lowest position, and the heckles will then pass through the whole length
of the pendant strick, and continue to heckle or combe the fibres of the flax
quite through, until the strick is discharged in a finished state at the left-hand
end of the machine, Figure 1; observing that the heckle points at the right-
hand end of the machine, which commence the operation, should be larger, and
placed farther apart than those points which finish the operation of heckling
the strick. The tow collected upon the points of the heckles as they come
down from the pendant flax is taken off the points by the brushes i, i, i, of
a revolving brush cylinder h, h, at the back of each endless band of heckles;
and as these brush cylinders revolve, the tow is transferred from the brushes i
on to the surfaces of the card cylinder k, k, whence the tow is removed by the
vibrating doffer combs 1, 1, and let fall into boxes m, m, ready to be taken to
a carding engine to be operated upon, as tow usually is preparatory to spinning
it into tow yarn.
Having now described the construction of my improved machine, it only
remains to shew the manner in which the several parts are actuated. At the
left-hand end of the machine, Figure 1, n and o are the fast and loose riggers
or pulleys over which a band is extended from the rotary part of a steam engine
or other first mover. The pulley n is fixed upon the end of the shaft of one of
the lower carrying rollers g, which consequently becomes the first driving shaft in
the machine. Upon this shaft a toothed wheel p is affixed, taking into a corre-
sponding toothed wheel q on the shaft of the other lower carrying roller; hence
the rotation of the one shaft drives the other, and gives the rotary or travelling
motion to the endless sheets of heckles, A toothed wheel r is fixed upon
the axle of cach of the brush rollers, which respectively take into the teeth of
the wheels p or q, and by the rotations of those wheels the rotary motions of
the brush rollers are obtained. Cranks and rods s, s, connected to the shafts
of the lower carrying rollers g, work the doffer combs 7, 1, whilst the rotary
motions of the card cylinders % are obtained by a pinion on the shaft of
each of the brush rollers at the reverse end of the machine, taking into a
train of wheels and pinions connected with the shafts of the card cylinders.
The relative diameters of these wheels and pinions must vary according to
the quality of the flax and the quantity of the tow produced. The rotary
motion of the driving arms d, d, d, which impel the holders with the stricks
of flax through the machine, is obtained by a pinion t on the shaft of one of
the upper carrying rollers g, which pinion takes into a wheel u, turning upon a
stud fixed in a slot plate on the end frame of the machine (see Figure 2);
and upon the side of this wheel a pulley vis affixed, from whence a band
passes to a pulley wheel w, turning upon a stud a attached to the upper part

page_text: of the same end frame. Upon the socket of the pulley wheel w there is a
pinion y, which takes into a wheels on the axle of the rotary driving arms
d, d, d, as shewn in Figures 1 and 2, the diameter of which pinion and wheel.
may vary according to the quantity of dressing required by the flax under
operation. It will now be perceived by what means the rotary motion of the
upper carrying roller g produces the rotation of the driving arms d, which
causes the holders with the stricks of flax to be impelled forward through the
machine. It is only to be added, that as fast as the stricks are supplied upon
the guide rails by the persons attending, who fill the holders, they are pushed
forward by the rotation of the bent arms, and each strick, having passed to
the opposite end of the guide rails, is there delivered, and may then be
reversed in the holder, and again introduced into the machine as before, for
the purpose of dressing the reverse ends of the flax.
In witness whereof, I, the said Joshua Wordsworth, have hereunto set
hand and seal, this Seventeenth day of November, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight.
my
JOSHUA (L.s.) WORDSWORTH.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Seventeenth day of November,
in the second year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, the said
Joshua Wordsworth came before our said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery,
and acknowledged the Instrument aforesaid, and all and every thing therein
contained and specified, in form above written. And also the Instrument
aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute made in the
fifty-fifth year of the reign of His late Majesty King George the Third.
Inrolled the Thirtieth day of November, One thousand eight hundred
and thirty-eight.