IMPROVEMENTS ON A MACHINE NOW IN USE FOR THE DRESSING AND GIGGING OF WOOLLEN CLOTHS, CALLED A GIG
Year: 1818

page_text: COLLIE
SPECIFIC TON.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES
COLLIER, of Worcester, in the County of Gloucester, Civil Engineer, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by
His Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing
date at Westminster, the Nineteenth day of February, in the fifty-eighth year
of His reign, did give and grant me, the said James Collier, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole privilege
and authority, that I, the said James Collier, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, during the term of years therein expressed, should and law-
fully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, various "IMPROVEMENTS ON A MACHINE NOW
IN USE FOR THE DRESSING AND GIGGING OF WOOLLEN CLOTHS, CALLED A GIG;" in
which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that if I, the said James
Collier, should not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instru-
ment in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to be inrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within two calendar months next
and immediately after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, that then
the said Letters Patent, and all liberties and advantages whatsoever thereby
granted, should utterly cease, determine, and become void, as in and by
the same, relation being thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
James Collier, do hereby declare that the nature of the said improvements

page_text: are herein-after fully set forth and described by this Instrument, and the two
Figures in the Drawing hereunto annexed, in which Fig. 1 is an end or side
view or elevation of my improved gig, and Fig. 2 a front view of the same.
Both these Figures are drawn to a scale of one inch and a quarter to a foot,
and similar letters refer to similar parts in both the views. A, A, is the
framework of the machine, which may be made of wood or metal. B is the
top cloth roller, the length of which must be equal to the widest cloth to be
gigged, and upon which the cloth is to be first placed. C, the cloth guide
roller. D, the receiving roller which takes the cloth as it is unwound from
the top roller B. B and D are both provided with hooks and hair cloth for
attaching the ends of the cloth to them in the usual way, and when fixed it
may be wound upon either roller alternately by means to be hereafter described,
always, however, passing round the guide roller c in the direction of the
line a, a, a, a. The great and essential part of my improvement, however,
consists in causing the teazle boards to carry the teazles (which are of the
usual kind) to move more directly in the direction of the teazle hooks or
points, so as to be less subject to wear, and in diminishing the strain which is
imposed upon them when used on the ordinary cylinder, and this effect I
bring about by causing them to move in a semi-cliptic manner, as follows:-
E and F are two rollers, carrying two, three, or more endless straps or chains,
one at each end for instance, and one in the middle, as seen at S, S, Fig. 1;
upon these the teazle boards p, p, are placed, of the same size, distance, and
equipped with teazles in the same way as the teazle boards of the common
cylinder. These straps or chains are pushed out of their right lined direction
by the rollers G, G, G, also extending the full width of the cloth, and which
may be used in any number, but I find three or four sufficient, as indicated in
the Drawing. The rollers E and F are stationary, their brasses or bearings
being fixed upon the framework, but G, G, G, are moveable in an horizontal
direction for pressing the chain of teazle boards more or less forward;
this purpose their bearings are supported by the cast-iron or other brackets
T, T, T, which move and are kept in their places by their chased mortices and
screws. u is another sliding roller at the back of the machine, for the pur-
pose of stretching the chain of teazle boards, and keeping it tight after the
rollers G, G, G, have been set in their proper situations. The top and bottom
cloth B and C have similar brackets, and adjusting screws to move theni
backwards and forwards, so that the cloth in winding and unwinding from
them may be made to press in any required degree. When the machine
is in action the front part of the chain of teazles moves downwards, while the
cloth moves upwards, as indicated by the arrows placed respectively against
and for

page_text: them. I communicate motion to this machine by the power of water, steam
or other prime mover, as follows:-R is the first wheel connected with the
moving power, and is kept at all times in motion by it. It moves without
connection on the shaft of the upper chain roller E, which may at any time
be made to move by the coupling box X, which slides upon a square part of
the same shaft, and is thrown into and out of geer by its handle V. W is
other spur wheels, fixed upon the shaft of D, and working into the spur wheel
or driver. The wheel N revolves freely upon the lengthened axle or shaft of the
upper cloth roller B, and the wheel W is similarly situated upon the axis of
the lower cloth roller D; these rollers may at any time be made to move by
striking in the coupling boxes L, M, moving on squares as before, which is
done by the handle or lever g, g, but as this moves on a pivot or centre, it is
evident that withdrawing one coupling box must drive in the other, and
vice versa, and thus either roller may be moved, and the cloth wound upon
either, at the pleasure of the workman. Y is a projecting piece of wood or
iron with notches to hold the shifting handles in any required position. Z, Z,
are the brake or friction wheels fixed upon the axles of the cloth rollers B, D,
to act alternately with the wheel, or which may be out of geer, to prevent the
cloth roller pulled upon being free, and thus the cloth is always maintained
with a due degree of tension; these brake wheels are operated upon by the
lever g, g, and stop E, and are so constructed that when one of them is bound
by the brake the other is at liberty. In communicating motion to this
machine it is evident that other means may be adopted besides the one I have
described, all that is requisite being that the cloth should move in one direction
while the teazle boards move in an opposite one, and they should move about
three times as fast as the cloth, say, three feet in a second while the cloth
moves one foot. I do not therefore conceive this wheelwork to constitute any
part of my Invention, which I confine more particularly to the manner in
which the cloth and teazle chain can be adjusted to each other so as to produce
any requisite degree of pressure. While the machine is in action, a long cylin-
drical brush of teazles, disposed in the form of two opposite screws working
from the centre, may be applied to the face of the cloth to reverse the pile, as
indicated at J, J, in both the Figures, and this cylinder may be supported and
moved as most convenient, or the operation of this brush may be performed by
the workmen by hand as usual, at the option of the manufacturer.
In witness whereof, I the said James Collier, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, the Seventeenth day of April, One thousand eight hundred
and sightoon.
JAMES (L.S.) COLLIER.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Seventeenth day of April, in
the fifty-eighth year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Third, the
said James Collier came before our said Lord the King in His 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 His said Majesty's reign.
Inrolled the Seventeenth day of April, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and eighteen.