IMPROVE- MENTS IN MACHINES FOR CUTTING AND PRESSING SUGAR INTO CUBES
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Jasper & Stephen Boushey
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 29th October 1877.
WILLIAM JASPER & STEPHEN BOUSHEY, of the City and County of San Francisco,
State of California, one of the United States of America, Machinists. "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN MACHINES FOR CUTTING AND PRESSING SUGAR INTO CUBES."
Our said Invention relates to machinery for cutting and pressing sugar into cubes,
and comprises an arrangement of knives or cutters in a rectangular form with a
series of pressers within each rectangular space.
When the cutters are pressed down into a mass of sugar in the mould the sugar
will be divided and pressed into a number of solid compact cubes by the combined
action of the reciprocating cutters and the operation of the pressers.
The object of the said Invention is to divide and press a mass of sugar into cubes
or blocks of proper size, ready for the drying process or machinery at one operation.
For carrying this Invention into practice a set or gang of cutters is arranged
upon a plate or frame, to which a proper movement is given by means of a lever,
connected with a reciprocating plate by a link. These cutters are formed of thin
metal blades or plates intersecting and crossing each other at right angles, so as to
include and form a series of rectangular spaces of the size required for the cubes to
be made. Within each space is placed a rectangular block or presser, which has no
movement, but is held in a fixed position with its lower face in the same plane as
the bottom of the bed plate of the machine, so that when a mould is introduced
beneath the aforesaid cutters the face of the pressers will rest upon or be in contact
with the mass of sugar in the mould. Each of these pressers is held by means of a rod
and nut, and by means of this arrangement the said pressers can be adjusted with
reference to the bottom of the bed plate by loosening or tightening the nuts, and
thus lowering or raising the presser rods. The cutter plate is connected with the
reciprocating plate by the said rods made adjustable in a vertical direction by nuts,
and the cutters have a reciprocating motion out from the machine and back again
between the stationary pressers for a distance equal to the depth of the mould.
One movement of the aforesaid lever down and up therefore forces the cutters into

page_text: the mould and withdraws them again, leaving the sugar divided and pressed into a
number of cubes.
The moulds used to hold the sugar in the machine and present it in a proper
manner to the action of the cutters are composed of a tray, a metal rim, and a
removable frame, which is made of the same height as the size required for the cubes,.
and is held in place between the rims. This frame confines the sugar in place in the
mould while receiving the pressure of the cutters, and is removed from the mould
when it is drawn out from the machine, in order to allow the tray with the cubes
of sugar upon it to be brought into contact with the atmosphere of the drying
room or chamber, and the moisture of the cubes to be thus more rapidly evaporated.