IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR STEERING SHIPS
Year: 1872

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Fair, of Liverpool, in the County of
Lancaster, Engineer, and William Bow, of Paisley, in the County
of Renfrew, Engineer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN
MACHINERY FOR STEERING SHIPS."
Sealed the 21st March 1878, and dated the 24th September 1872.
"
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Fair and
William Bow at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with
their Petition, on the 24th September 1872.
We, WILLIAM FAIR, of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster,
Engineer, and WILLIAM-BOW, of Paisley, in the County of Renfrew,
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for “Im-
PROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR STEERING SHIPS," to be as follows, that is
to say:-
1
1
This Invention has for its object to simplify steering machinery of
the kind in which steam, compressed air, or water is employed for
moving the rudder, and consists in setting the engines in motion by
means of a handing shaft having on it a hand wheel to be turned by

page_text: o
the steersman, and a worm which gears with a worm wheel on a slowly
moving shaft, transmitting the force of the engines to the rudder
⚫ through screw, chain, or other usual gearing. The handing shaft acts
by collars on a lever fixed on a rocking shaft which acts on the valve
motion links or valve details, and when this shaft is turned by hand
the worm works through the teeth of the worm wheel, so as to move
the shaft on end, and thus through the lever and rocking shaft act on
the engine valves in a manner to make the engines turn in the required
direction. This turning of the engines, by giving motion to the shaft
having the worm wheel on it, makes that worm wheel act on the worm:
as a pinion does on a rack, and thereby move back the handing shaft to
its neutral position.
If preferred what is herein-before termed the handing shaft may
be actuated from a distance by means of chains, rods, or geared
shafting.
The rocking shaft may act on ordinary link valve motions or other
known equivalents; it is however preferred to actuate the slide valve of
each cylinder by means of a single eccentric, and to obtain the reversal
or stoppage of the engines by interposing between each valve and the
cylinder port face a plate with two sets of passages in it, such plate 5
being movable by a rod connected to a lever on the rocking shaft. In
the middle position of this plate the cylinder ports are closed, and on
moving it in one direction what may be termed its direct passages are
put in communication, whilst if it is moved in the opposite direction its
other passages, which are indirect, are brought into communication and i
cause the reversed action of the steam.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said William Fair and William Bow in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 22nd March 1873.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, WILLIAM 30
FAIR, of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster, Engineer, and WILLIAM
Bow, of Paisley, in the County of Renfrew, Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-fourth day of September, in

page_text: the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-two,
in the thirty-sixth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and
successors, give and grant unto us, the said William Fair and William
Bow, Her special licence that we, the said William Fair and William
5 Bow, our executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as we,
the said William Fair and William Bow, our 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 Ireland, the Channel Islands, and
Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR STEERING
SHIPS," upon the condition (amongst others) that we, the said William
Fair and William Bow, our executors or administrators, by an instru-
ment in writing under our, or their, or one of their hands and seals,
5 should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said In-
vention, and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause
the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that we, the said William Fair and William Bow,
) do hereby declare the nature of our said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement in writing, reference being had to the
accompanying Drawings, that is to say :—
Our said Invention has for its object to simplify steering machinery
5 of the kind in which steam, compressed air, or water is employed for
moving the rudder, and consists principally in setting the engines in
motion by means of a handing shaft having on it a hand wheel to be
turned by the steersman, and a worm which gears with a worm wheel
on a slowly moving shaft transmitting the force of the engines to the
rudder through screw, chain, or other usual gearing. The handing shaft
acts by collars on a lever fixed on a rocking shaft which acts on the
valve motion links or valve details, and when this handing shaft is
turned by hand the worm works through the teeth of the worm wheel
so as to move the shaft on end, and thus through the lever and rocking
shaft act on the engine valves in a manner to make the engines turn in
the required direction. This turning of the engines, by giving motion
to the shaft having the worm wheel on it, makes that worm wheel act
.

page_text: on the worm as a pinion does on a rack, and thereby move back the
handing shaft to its neutral position.
And in order that our said Invention and the manner of performing
the same may be properly understood, we hereunto append a Sheet of
explanatory Drawings to be herrin-after referred to, and representing 5
a modification of steering engines embodying our improvements. In
these Drawings the same reference numerals are used to mark the same
or like parts wherever they are repented.
Figure 1 is a plan of our improved steering engines as connected
to a common form of screw steering gear; Figures 2 and 3 are sectional 1
back and side elevations of the engines; whilst Figures 4 and 5 arc
views of detached parts, and will be herein-after more particularly
referred to.
The engine framing comprises a pair of transverse vertical frames
1, 2, bolted down to a sole plate 3 and connected by tie rods. There 1
are two steam cylinders 4, 5, situated one just outside of each frame
1, 2, on the sole plate 3, and connected in the usual manner with a first
motion or crank shaft 6 carried in bearings in the frames 1, 2. On the
crank shaft 6 there is a pinion 7 which is in gear with a spur wheel 8
fast on the main shaft 9 of the rudder gearing, the forward part of this 2
shaft 9 being also carried in bearings in the frames 1, 2. Each steam
cylinder 4, 5, is provided with a slide valve 10 of the common kind,
which may be actuated by link motion details and a pair of eccentrics,
or by any suitable known equivalent details; it is however shown as
actuated by a single eccentric 11, and the reversal of the steam's action:
is obtained by interposing between the valve 10 and the usual port
face 12 a plate 13 (shown detached in face view in Figure 5), with two
sets of passages in it. This plate 13 is connected by a rod 14 to a
lever 15 on a rocking shaft 16, and this rocking shaft has fast on it
a lever 17, the upper forked ends of which are inserted between collars
on a horizontal shaft 18 corresponding to what has herein-before been
referred to as the engine handing shaft.
The actual handing shaft is, in the example shown in the Drawings,
a horizontal shaft 19 placed for convenience of position at right angles
to the shaft 18 fitted with a band wheel 20 for turning it by and having
fast on it a bevel wheel 21 which is in gear with a bevil wheel 22 made
with an elongated tubular boss and placed upon the shaft 18, being

page_text: connected to that shaft by a key and grove so that the two must turn
together whilst the shaft 18 is free to move on end. The shaft 18 has
on it a worm 23 which is in gear with a worm wheel 24 fast on the
main shaft 9, and when the handing shaft 19 and shaft 18 are turned
the worm 23 works like a screw through the teeth of the worm wheel 24,
and the shaft 18 is thereby moved on end. This endway movement
of the shaft 18 acts through the lever 17 and rocking shaft 16 to shift
the plates 13 and bring the passages in them into the proper positions
for obtaining the desired movement of the engines. A thin fixed
plate 25 is interposed between each movable plate 13 and its slide
valvo 10, and having ports cut through it agreeing with those of the
cylinder port. face prevents the access of steam to the cylinder at
improper times when the plate 13 is not fully shifted. The plate 13
is made with a pair of passages 26 directly through it, and with a
second pair 27 which are deviated laterally between the outer and
inner faces, as indicated by dotted lines in Figure 5 in such a way
that the port of each passage is on either face in the position that the
port of the other passage would be if made directly through. With
this arrangement it follows that the crank shaft will be turned in one
direction or the other accordingly as the plates 13 are moved above or
below their middle position.
In order to prevent the engines being worked beyond predetermined
limits in either direction the shaft 18 has a screw thread formed on it,
and in turning it moves a nut 29 prevented from turning by a fixed
rod 30 towards stops, on reaching which stops the further rotation of
the shaft is prevented. The hand wheel 20 is not rigidly fixed on the
shaft 19 but is connected to it by convex and concave frictions cones 31,
one of which can be tightened up by a screw nut 32, and when a strain
occurs greater than that for which the cones are adjusted the hand wheel
O slips. A grooved wheel 33 is fixed in connection with the hand wheel
20 for the application of a chain or rope, when it is desired to actuate
the shafts 18, 19, from a bridge amidships, or from any point at a distance
from the engines.
In order that the steering apparatus may be worked without the
5 engines in the event of these being at any time out of order, or of
there being no steam, the pinion 7 is arranged so that it can easily
be set loose on the crank shaft 6. The pinion 7 is made, as shown
in the enlarged section, Figuro 4, with a concave conical part 34, and

page_text: Witness,
EDMUND HUNT,
Patent Agent,
Glasgow.
WILLIAM FAIR. (L.S.)
WILLIAM BOW. (L.S.)