IMPROVEMENTS IN TYPE COMPOSING MACHINES
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edward Alfred Cowper at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 6th June 1877.
EDWARD ALFRED COWPER, of 6, Great George Street, in the City of Westmin-
ster, Civil Engineer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN TYPE COMPOSING MACHINES."
My Invention relates to improvements in type composing machines having keys,
buttons, or studs, to be acted upon by the operator for the purpose of discharging
single type from receptacles, each holding a number of type of the same letter,
whether such discharged type are collected or carried to their destination by means
of tapes kept in motion, or whether they are received by channels or grooves down
which they fall, or slide to their destination to be collected into a line.
It has been found in practice with several known composing machines, that they
perform very differently when acted upon by different operators, as some persons
strike the keys, buttons, or studs very heavily, thus discharging the type with
unnecessary force, whilst others move them with so little force as not to insure the
due action of the machine, so that in either case the machine performs inefficiently.
Now, according to my Invention, I arrange charged springs to operate to discharge
the type, when they are allowed to do so by stronger springs which hold them in
check, being released or moved by the operator as he acts upon the finger keys,
buttons, or studs. In this way the force or power exerted upon the type is always
the same, and of the proper definite amount.
Another way by which I prevent undue violence being exerted upon the
discharging instrument is as follows:-The finger key forms one end of a lever, or
is connected to one end of a lever, to the other end of which is attached a wire
which communicates with the discharging instrument, a spring being interposed
between the said lever and the discharging instrument, so that when the one end
of the lever is depressed by the pressure upon the finger key, the other end of the
lever pulls the wire to the discharging instrument, but the force communicated by
the said wire is limited by the strength of the spring, or the spring is attached
direct on to the centre of the lever, and the connections are made to its ends,
whilst it is kept charged by being formed so as to press against the ends of the
ever.

page_text: Another arrangement consists in applying two springs to the discharging instru-
ment, one to discharge type, and the other to keep it in check, and then the wire
connected to the finger key is arranged to pull off the check spring.
The communication of the motion from the spring key to the discharging instru-
iment I form by means of very small hard-drawn steel wires, or other wires, and
where motion has to be carried round a corner, or at right angles, a wire bridle or
link is used, placed in a diagonal direction in place of a bell crank, so that a very small
weight of material has to be put in motion and yet a large margin of strength
is provided to do the work.
The general form of the machine to which I prefer to apply my Invention
(though it may be with good effect applied to others) is that described in the Speci-
fications of Patents granted to W. H. Mitchel, in the year 1853, No. 1287, and
to J. Hooker, in the year 1874, No, 477, in which there is one horizontal
collecting tape to receive all the type, and a series of horizontal tapes all moved
by machinery (to deliver the type on to the collecting tape), there being one under
the bottom end of each receptacle holding type, and there being small lovers and
rock shafts to strike off or discharge each type as required; then in place of
working such lovers direct from keys, I attach a wire to each, and carry it down
through the table, turning it at right angles, or nearly so, by a wire bridle in order
that it may pass in a nearly horizontal direction to the spring key, which is
depressed by the operator.
The spring keys I arrange on a board somewhat smaller, but as nearly as
convenient, in the same order as is usual with a compositor's ""lower case" (the
size of the keys being proportionate to the divisions in the "case "), so that a
compositor has nothing to learn on coming to the machine even for the first time,
but can at once-proceed to compose by discharging type by simply striking gently
on the keys on the keyboard placed before him, either with his finger or with a
small instrument for the purpose.