IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR CUTTING THE PILE OF COTTON VELVETS, AND OTHER SIMILAR PILED FABRICS
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Taylor at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 5th August
1870.
I, JOHN TAYLOR, of Oldham, in the County of Lancaster, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY
OR APPARATUS FOR CUTTING THE PILE OF COTTON VELVETS, AND OTHER SIMILAR
PILED FABRICS," to be as follows:-
This Invention is designed chiefly for the purpose of facilitating the
cutting of the pile of cotton velvets and other similar piled fabrics by
steam or other power.
.
The improved machinery to be used in this process consists
principally of a frame somewhat similar to the present hand cutting
frame, containing two strong iron (or other metal or wood) rollers
placed horizontally with their axes parallel to each other. Upon the axis
or shaft of one of these rollers are mounted two driving pulleys one fast
and the other loose, and upon the said axis or shaft either at the same
or at the other end of the roller is keyed or otherwise fixed a ratchet
wheel having a catch so connected with the stop rod which acts on the
driving strap that when the latter is moved from the fast to the loose

page_text: pulley the catch falls on to the teeth of the ratchet wheel and stops the
machine at once.
"The knives employed are similar to the ordinary cutting knives, and
are to be placed side by side as near together as the width and size
thereof will permit, that is, if in a twenty-two and a half inches common
cotton velvet there be thirty-eight dents to an inch, then thirty-eight
knives are to be placed in the inch if this can be done with ease, but if
their size will not admit of this then either nineteen knives to the inch or
nine and a half (that is nineteen to two inches) must be used, in which
case either every alternate dent or every fourth, dent, will be cut as the
case may be. The knife bar with its knives is then moved laterally by
means of a screw or otherwise against a graduated scale to bring them
opposite to a fresh set of dents, so that in twice or four times, according to
the size of the knives, the pile of the whole piece of the cloth will be cut.
The knives are fixed by screws into a bar of iron running across from
one side of the frame to the other above the fabric, the said knives when
set being quite stationary and the cloth moved against them so as to cut
the pile by turning the rollers by steam or other power, or by hand.
To prevent the cloth from being cut through by the knives owing to
defects in the weaving, the knives are so arranged that upon cutting
through the warp they come into contact with a spring fixed beneath
the cloth, the said spring being connected to the stop rod, so as on the
knife coming into contact therewith it will move the strap on to the
loose pulley and so stop the machine. The work being so fine a series of
lenses magnifying five or six times must be mounted together in a wire
or other frame just above the point where the knives enter the cloth to
enable the workman to inspect the progress of the work with greater
facility.