IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF BATS FOR FELTING AND OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1869

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Louis Brunot Fortin, of Paris, in the Empire
of France, Felt Manufacturer, and James Ferrabee, of Brimscombe,
near Stroud, in the County of Gloucester, Engineer, for the
Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF
BATS FOR FELTING AND OTHER PURPOSES."
Sealed the 18th February 1870, and dated the 20th August 1869.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Louis Brunot Fortin
and James Ferrabee at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with their Petition, on the 20th August 1869.
We, LOUIS BRUNOT FORTIN, of Paris, in the Empire of France, Felt.
Manufacturer, and JAMES FERRABEE, of Brimscombe, near Stroud, in
the County of Gloucester, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR THE MANUFACTURE
OF BATS FOR FELTING AND OTHER PURPOSES," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to improvements upon the Invention for which
the said James Ferrabee obtained Provisional Protection dated 6th June
1859, and consists of an improved arrangement of endless apron for
receiving a sliver of wool or other material as it is stripped from the
doffer of a carding or other preparing machine, and delivering it on to
a table or an apron moving slowly in a forward direction with it of

page_text: transversely to it so as to form a "bat” composed of layers of slivers of
any required size and thickness, which bat may be fed continuously
to a succeeding carding or preparing machine, or to a hardening machine
for felting purposes, or may be wound on bobbins or otherwise disposed of.
Instead of mounting the endless apron in a vibrating frame as heretofore
we employ an endless reciprocating apron which has a continuous surface
motion in one direction only, its object being to carry the sliver over a fixed
table or travelling apron and deposit it thereon, then to retire and again
to advance, and so to form a bat of any required thickness upon the fixed
travelling receptacle placed below it. To carry this apron we employ
two reciprocating carriages provided each with a tension roll for sup-
porting the endless apron, and also four or more rolls mounted in fixed
bearings in the main framing. One or more of these rolls may be driven
to cause the upper surface of the apron to travel always in the same
direction, and an additional tension roll when necessary may be used to
keep the apron properly extended. The carriages run on rails or guides,
one set of which is above the fixed table or receiving apron on which the
bat is formed, and one set below it, and as the one carriage advances
to carry the apron forward and enable it to deliver the sliver on to the
table or apron below, the other carriage recedes to provide the necessary
slack in the delivery apron for the roll of the advancing carriage to take
up. In like manner when the upper carriage recedes the lower one
advances to a corresponding extent, and thus the delivery apron is kept
at tension while a reciprocating traverse motion is imparted to it. For
convenience the rails or guides on which the carriages run are parallel
with each other and with the fixed table or receiving apron. Motion is
given to the driving rolls of the delivery apron and to the carriages by
means of a peculiarly formed wheel having two sets of teeth or indents
on the exterior portion of its ring or circumference, and one set on the
interior portion of the same. By means of pinions and a chain and
chain wheels this wheel causes the travelling carriages to move to and fro
at any required speed and to any required extent, and at the same time
give this requisite speed and motion to the endless delivery apron. The
to-and-fro motion may, however, be given to the travelling carriages by
means of endless straps, screws, or any of the well known reciprocating
motions employed for such purposes. To lay the sliver on the table or
apron placed between the reciprocating endless apron which receives
the sliver from the carding: engine a pair of adjusting rolls mounted in
a suitable carriage are used, and which are carried to and fro by the

page_text: travelling carriages above referred to; these rolls may press wholly on
the sliver as it is formed into a bat or one end of each roll may rest on
a rail extending rather more than the length of the traverse, so as to
cause them to rotate by contact with the rail, thereby preventing the
"sluffing" or "reeving" up of the sliver as it is laid. By this arrange-
ment we are enabled to form bats of great width composed of sliver
laid crosswise, as well as to form bats of convenient length composed of
sliver laid lengthwise, and by a suitable arrangement of the preparing
machines with the improved machinery attached to compose "bats" of
large dimensions made up of layers of cross and lengthwise formed bats,
so as to produce felted fabrics of equal strength lengthwise and
crosswise.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Louis Brunot Fortin and James Ferrabee in
the Great Seal Patent Office on the 19th February 1870.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, LOUIS
BRUNOT FORTIN, of Paris, in the Empire of France, Felt Manufacturer,
and JAMES FERRABEE, of Brimscombe, near Stroud, in the County of
Gloucester, Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twentieth day of August, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine, in the thirty-third
year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and
grant unto us, the said Louis Brunot Fortin and James Ferrabee,
Her special licence that we, the said Louis Brunot Fortin and James
Ferrabee, our executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as we
the said Louis Brunot Fortin and James Ferrabee, 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 THE
MANUFACTURE OF BATS FOR FELTING AND OTHER PURPOSES," upon the condition
(amongst others) that we, the said Louis Brunot Fortin and James
Ferrabee, our executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing
under our, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly

page_text: describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, 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 I, the said James Ferrabee, on behalf of myself
and of the said Louis Brunot Fortin, 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,
reference being had to the Drawing hereunto annexed, and to the letters
and figures marked thereon (that is to say) :-
This Invention relates to improvements upon the Invention for which
a Patent was granted to the said James Ferrabee, dated June Sixth, One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine, and it consists in an improved
arrangement of apparatus intended to be adapted to the carding engines
in order to receive their product and convert the same into an endless
bat. The product is delivered on to and spread by means of a moveable
endless cloth upon a table or upon a second endless cloth which is also
moveable, and moves in a direction at right angles to the first. This
apparatus may be applied with the same success to the preparation for
spinning of carded wool, and to the manufacture of felts of all kinds,
waddings, and other analogous substances. It possesses this great
advantage that by its use the sliver from a narrow carder may be con-
verted into a wide bat, the fibres of which are laid crosswise. Moreover
the fibres when the bat is lapped round a bobbin and presented to a
finishing card of corresponding width will be distributed and mixed in a
much more complete manner than when they enter a succeeding carding
engine in a longitudinal direction as usual. The upper endless cloth
which receives directly the products from the carding engine and
delivers them to the second cloth or table, has two distinct motions
imparted to it obtained by mechanical combinations which will be here-
after described. The second cloth has a simple continuous movement
imparted to it.
The nature of the Invention, and the manner of carrying the same
into effect, will be readily understood on reference to the accompanying
Drawing, in which Fig. 1 is an exterior elevation of the apparatus;
Fig. 2 is a plan or bird's-eye view of the same; Fig. 3 is an end view,
and Fig. 4 is a longitudinal section shewing the connection of the
apparatus with the carding engine. Figures 5 and 6 shew in detail and

page_text: on an enlarged scale the principal parts for actuating the endless
cloths..
The apparatus is composed of two cast-iron frames or standards A
and A' connected by cross pieces so as to form a perfectly rigid framing;
these frames are each provided with two rails a, a', upon which run
two carriages C, C', carrying respectively the upper and the lower
rollers R, R; these rollers hold the endless cloth B at tension, and at
the same time allow of its receiving a traverse motion. The endless
cloth B passes also over the rollers b, c, d, e. The carriages C, C', are
connected to a pair of endless chains D, D', which pass over chain
wheels g, and are actuated sometimes by the wheel fand sometimes by
the wheelf (Fig. 1) mounted respectively on the axle of an upper and a
lower chain wheel; these wheels f,f", receive motion alternately from
the large toothed wheel E. Another endless cloth F, situated at right.
angles to the first one, has a continuous forward motion imparted to it,
and receives the product of the carding engine from the cloth B.
Motion is transmitted to this cloth F by a bevil pinion h mounted on
the shaft of the wheel E, and taking into another bevil pinion h¹
mounted on an intermediate shaft i which carries at its other extremity
a pinion gearing into the wheelj (mounted on a stud), this latter takes
into a wheel k mounted upon the shaft of one of the rollers / which
carry the endless cloth F. The large wheel E is provided with three
different sets of teeth. On its outer periphery it has a first set of teeth
which occupy the full width of the wheel and extend round half of its
circumference. The other half of its circumference is toothed upon
only half of its width. On the inner periphery are teeth occupying
also the half of the circumference, the toothed portion of which
corresponds to the plain outside part and vice versa. The apparatus is
set in action by the pinion m (Figures 1 and 2) which is driven by the
carding engine, or by the motive power, and gearing with the external
teeth of the wheel E imparts to it a continuous rotary motion. The
pinions n and o gear alternately with the two exterior and interior half
rings of teeth on the large wheel E, and transmit to the chains D and
D' a backward and forward motion. These chains being made fast to
the carriages C and C', which carry the rollers R and R', it follows that
the endless cloth B has an alternating reciprocating traverse motion
imparted to it transversely to the cloth F, the one roller receding as the
other advances in order to provide the necessary slack in or take up of
the cloth (as the case may be) needed for the traverse motion.

page_text: Independently of this movement the cloth B has a continuous forward
motion given to it by the roller b, which is furnished with teeth or points
to prevent the slipping of the endless cloth; this roller is driven from
the carding engine, to which the apparatus is applied as indicated by the
pitch lines in Fig. 4. The effect of the combination of these two
movements of the cloth B is to spread the wool deposited at x by the
carding engine (see Fig. 4) uniformly upon the whole breadth of the
cloth F which receives a faster or slower motion according to the thick-
ness of the fleece desired to be laid upon it, and the length of this fleece
may be indefinite as will be readily understood. In certain cases the
cloth F may be done away with and the wool may be deposited direct
upon the table T. From the above description it will be understood
that the two movements of the cloth B are perfectly independent of each
other, the reciprocating movement being given by the wheel E while
the continuous movement is derived from the roller b. The speed of
this roller 6 being taken from and regulated according to the speed of
the doffer roller P of the carding engine the fleece x will necessarily be
carried off at the speed at which it is delivered from the carder, but the
other movement will vary according to the conditions in which the
fleece is to be deposited upon the table T or the cloth F.
The advantages to be obtained from the application of this apparatus
in the preparation of wool for spinning and weaving may now be
secured by arranging the same in such manner that the endless cloth F
shall deliver the fleece direct to the finishing carding engine. The fleece
will then enter the carding engine with the fibres crosswise and the
result is a more complete mixture of the material and the. obtaining of
a better product.
The improved apparatus it will be understood is applicable to the
manufacture of felts of all kinds, to waddings, and other like fabrics.
The Invention it will be seen is characterized by the arrangement and
combination of an auxiliary apparatus capable of receiving the products
from a carding engine and arranging them in a regular fleece and of
suitable thickness upon a table or endless cloth.
Having now set forth the nature of our Invention of improvements in
machinery for the manufacture of bats for felting and other purposes,
and explained the manner of carrying the same into effect, we wish it
to be well understood that under the above in part recited Letters Patent.
we claim

page_text: First. Lapping apparatus constructed and operating as above described
for the preparation of wool for spinning and weaving as well as for the
manufacture of felts, waddings, and other like fabrics.
And, secondly. The mechanical arrangements above described for
giving the continuous and reciprocating motion to the endless cloth or
apron D.
In witness whereof, I, the said James Ferrabee, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, the 16th day of February, in in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy.
JAMES FERRABEE. (L.S.)