IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR DISTRIBUTING TYPE
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Lloyd Wise at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 23rd February 1883. A communication
from Frederic Christopher Wyvill, a person resident at Bielefeld, Westphalia,
in the Empire of Germany,
WILLIAM LLOYD WISE of 40 Lincolns Inn Fields, in the County of Middlesex
"IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR DISTRIBUTING TYPE" a communication from
Frederic Christopher Wyvill, a person resident at Bielefeld, Westphalia, in the
Empire of Germany,
This invention has for object improvements in apparatus for distributing
type of the kind described in the specification of Letters Patent, N° -4229, dated
September 30, 1881 and granted to Herbert John Haddan (a communication from
Carl Gustav Fischer of Schloss Holte, and Alfred von Langen of Dusseldort). In
such a machine the distribution is effected by means of nicks or wards milled or cut
into the letters, so that each nick serves to set certain mechanism in motion, which
releases the letter and delivers it into its proper tube. The composition is put into
a long tube and falls from this tube into the distributing box. In the distributing
box the letters lie in such a position that the nicks by which the sorting is effected
are at the back of the box. On the same side of the box are moveable feelers.
The points of these feelers project as far into the distributing box as the nicks in
the letters are deep. The column of letters rests on the two arms of a fork, and
the lowest letter presses the points of the feelers down to a depth equal to the
thickness of the thinnest letter, with the exception of that feeler whose point finds
a nick to enter. The other end of this feeler, upon the underside of which there is
a tooth, falls to a lower position than the other feelers, and by so doing is able to
actuate an extractor on a receiving tube which corresponds with the feeler. Pins
on an extractor bolt correspond with the position of the teeth; these pins pass
exactly under the teeth of the feelers. As soon as one of the teeth falls, which
happens as often as the point of a feeler coincides with a nick, a pin pushes against
it; this causes a pusher or extractor bolt to turn about an angle of 45° in its
bearings and by so doing allows the extractor to come into position and push the
bottom type of the composition into its appropriate tube.
Now according to this invention instead of there being only one distinguishing
or characteristic nick in each type, and only one feeler of each group of feelers that

page_text: can be thrown into action each time a letter of a composition passes over the points
of a group of feelers there is formed in each type two or more distinguishing or
characteristic nicks, the arrangement of the said nicks being different for each
letter or character of type. When a type having (say) three nicks in it disposed
in a certain combination passes over a group of feelers in connection with a
receiving tube designed to receive that particular type, three feelers will enter the
nicks simultaneously, one into each, and the extracting mechanism will be put in
operation to withdraw that type from the composition. But if the tube be not the
one designed to receive that type, either one or more of the feelers corresponding
to that combination of nicks, or one or more of the pins or other devices that
operate the extracting mechanism will be absent or will be so arranged that they
do not come into operation and the type will not be withdrawn from the composition
until the appropriate tube arrives under it.
Although I have spoken of two or more nicks it is evident that sometimes these
might merge into one or more nicks of greater width, each of which would be the
equivalent of two or more nicks of the usual size.
By this arrangement fewer feelers are required to distribute a given number of
characters and hence they can be made of greater thickness, and all the parts of
the distributing box pins on the extractor bolts and extractors can be strengthened.
According to one method of carrying out this invention two or more axes, or
extractor bolts, each provided with a pin or pins to engage with the teeth of the
feelers, are arranged one behind the other in connection with each receiving tube
upon a revolving frame. The bolts are geared together by any convenient means,
such as toothed wheels or arms and connecting rods or sliders. For the sake of
clearness I will assume that only two bolts are used and I will denominate the
leading axis or extractor bolt No 1, and the second or following one N° 2. As
soon as a pin of bolt No 1 comes in contact with the tooth of a feeler which has
entered a nick in a type of the composition, the bolt will be partly rotated. The
motion of bolt N° 1 will be communicated to bolt N° 2, and will bring its pin or
pins from the lowest position, in which they normally stand, into a raised position
such that as they are carried forward by the revolving frame they will come into
contact with the tooth of a second feeler that has entered a second nick of the type.
By this contact bolt N° 2 will again be rotated, giving motion during its rotation
to the extractor mechanism which takes the type from the composition and delivers
it to the receiving tube.