IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT
Year: 1871

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to George Henry Andrews, Civil Engineer, and
William Gibbs, Gentleman, both of New Brentford, in the County
of Middlesex. for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT
Scaled the 30th January 1872, and dated the 25th September 1871.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said George Henry Andrews.
and William Gibbs at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with their Petition, on the 25th September 1871. :
We, GEORGE HENRY ANDREWS, Civil Engineer, and WILLIAM GIBBS,
Gentleman, both of New Brentford, in the County of Middlesex, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
THE TREATMENT OF FIBRE-BEARING PLANTS, AND IN THE MACHINERY OR APPARATUS
EMPLOYED THEREIN," to be as follows:-
:—
This Invention has for its object the treatment of the stems, stalks, and
leaves of fibre-bearing plants in a fresh or green state, or as soon after
they are cut as possible, with a view to the more effective and rapid
removal or separation of the gummy, pulpy, and ligneous matters from
the fibres contained therein.
According to one arrangement of machinery which is more particularly
applicable to the treatment of the phormium tenax and other fibre-
bearing plants of a similar character, although it may also be applied

page_text: to the ordinary flax and hemp, we employ one or more mallets or beaters
of hard wood or metal in conjunction with a rounded surface as an
anvil. We have found that a copper rod of about one-half inch diameter
supported on a block of wood or metal will answer the purpose of an
anvil well. These mallets are actuated by any convenient or well-known
arrangement of mechanism which will cause them to strike repeated
light blows in rapid succession upon the plant under treatment as it
passes over the surface of the rounded bar or bars. The effect of this
action is to separate and remove the gummy, pulpy, and ligneous matters
from the fibre without injury to the latter. The leaves or stalks are fed
in to the machine longitudinally by means of an endless travelling apron
or other well-known feeding device, and the fibres may pass under a
series of any number of mallets, suitable drawing and squeezing rollers
being situate between. cach pair of mallets for the purpose of carrying
forward the material to be acted upon. The fibres having been subjected
to the action of the beaters are next washed, for which purpose they pass
slowly along the surface of a smooth board or metal plate, by preference
at an inclination, and are held in position on the surface, whilst being
subjected to the action of a brush and stream of water, by two metal
plates or straps placed at a slight distance from each other so as to leave
a space for the brush to operate effectively upon the fibre. This brush
is by preference flat, and has a striking as well as a drawing action
upon the fibre produced by combined eccentrics or other well-known
mechanical contrivance. The washed fibres may or may not be passed
at once over ordinary steam drying cylinders for the purpose of drying
the same for market.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said George Henry Andrews and William Gibbs in the
Great Seal Patent Office on the 6th February 1872.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, GEORGE 3
HENRY ANDREWS, Civil Engineer, and WILLIAM GIBBS, Gentleman,
both of New Brentford, in the County of Middlesex, send greeting..
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-fifth day of September, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, in the 3
thirty-fifth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,

page_text: give and grant unto us, the said George Henry Andrews and William
Gibbs, Her special license that we, the said George Henry Andrews and
William Gibbs, our executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as we, the said George Henry Andrews and William Gibbs, our exc-
cutors, administrators, or 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
THE TREATMENT OF FIBRE-BEARING PLANTS, AND IN THE MACHINERY OR APPA-
RATUS EMPLOYED THEREIN," upon the condition (amongst others) that we,
the said George Henry Andrews and William Gibbs, by an instrument
in writing under our hands and scals, or under the hand and scal of
one of us, should particularly 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 we, the said George Henry Andrews and
William Gibbs, 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 accompanying Drawings and to the letters and figures marked
thereon, that is to say :-
Our said Invention has for its object the treatment of the leaves, leaf
stalks, and stems of fibre-bearing plants in a fresh or green state, or as
soon after they are cut as possible, with a view to the more effectual and
rapid removal or separation of the gummy, pulpy, and ligneous matters
from the fibres contained in such plants.
According to our improved arrangement of machinery, which is more
particularly applicable to the treatment of the phormium tenax and other
fibre-bearing plants of a similar character, although it may also be applied
to ordinary flax and hemp, we employ one or more mallets, stampers,.or
beaters of hard wood or metal in conjunction with one or more acutely
rounded stationary surfaces as anvils. We have found that a copper rod
of about one-half inch diameter, supported on a block of wood or metal,
will answer the purpose of an anvil well; or, if preferred, a triangular
block of wood faced with metal so as to form a rounded surface at the

page_text: apex of each angle may be employed. In either case we place a cushion
of cork and india-rubber or felt between the actual anvil and the block
of wood which supports it. The acting faces of the said mallets or
stampers must be tangential to the rounded surfaces of the anvils. These
beaters may be actuated by any convenient or well-known arrangement
of mechanism which will cause them to strike repeated light blows in
rapid succession (say from 100 to 500 blows per minute) upon the plant
under treatment as it passes over the said acutely rounded surfaces. The
combined effect of the tangential faced beaters and the anvils with
acutely rounded surfaces is to separate and remove the gummy, pulpy,
and ligneous matters from the fibre without injury to the latter. The
leaves or stalks are fed in to the machine longitudinally by means of an
endless travelling apron or other well-known feeding device, and the
fibres may pass through a series of any number of beaters and anvils of
the kind before mentioned, suitable drawing and squeezing rollers being
situate in front and rear of cach anvil and set of beaters for the purpose
of slowly carrying forward the material to be acted upon over the sharp
rounded surface of the anvil. The fibres having been subjected to the
action of the beaters are next washed, for which purpose. they pass
slowly along the surface of a smooth board or metal plate, by preference
placed at an inclination, and are held in position on the surface, whilst
being subjected to the action of a brush and stream of water, by two
thin metal plates placed with their contiguous edges at a slight distance
from each other, so as to leave sufficient space between them for the
brush to operate effectively upon the fibre. This brush is by preference
flat, and has a striking as well as a drawing action upon the fibre, such
motions being produced by combined eccentrics or other well-known
mechanical contrivances. The washed fibres may or may not be passed
at once over ordinary steam drying cylinders for the purpose of drying
the same.
1
And in order that our said Invention may be fully understood we shall
now proceed more particularly to describe the same, and for that purpose
shall refer to the several Figures on the annexed Sheet of Drawings,
the same letters of reference indicating corresponding parts in all the
Figures.
Figure 1 of the Drawings reprosents a plan of our improved machine
for treating the phormium tenax and other like fibre-bearing plants.
with a view to the separation of the gummy, pulpy, and ligucous matters

page_text: therein contained from the fibres; Figure 2 is a partial side elevation
and longitudinal vertical section of the same; and Figures 3 and 4 are
enlarged sectional details of our peculiar rounded. anvils.
A, A, are the standards or main supports for carrying the several
component parts of the machine. At one end of the standards there is
arranged the endless feeding cloth B, which is mounted upon the two
carrying rollers C, C¹, and kept in a distended state by means of the
adjusting screws a, a, acting upon the sliding bearings b, b. The roller C
receives a slow rotatory motion by means of the worm wheel D and
worm E, the latter being fast on the worm shaft F working in bearings.
attached to the side of one of the standards. The shaft F is driven by
means of the bevel gearing G from the vertical shaft H, which derives
its motion by another pair of bevel wheels I from the first motion or
main driving shaft K. Across the standards of the machine there are
placed at convenient intervals a number of fixed anvils L, L. (We
have shown in Figures 1 and 2 of our Drawings three of such anvils
extending from side to side of the machine, but any greater or less
number may be employed as found most convenient.) Each of these
anvils must be provided or formed with an acutely rounded surface c of
metal or hard wood, over which the fibrous plant or fibres to be treated
are drawn, and upon which they are beaten by the sets of mallets or
beaters M, M, the beating faces d of the said beaters being tangential
to the rounded surface of the anvil, as shewn clearly in the enlarged and
modified details of two anvils at Figures 3 and 4. For convenience and
economy we prefer to employ a copper rod c (Figure 3) as the acutely
rounded, fixed surface of the anvil, such rod being let into a groové or
channel made to receive it in a gun metal seat e secured to the upper
edge of a beam of wood L of triangular section, the said gun metal seat
resting upon a layer of india-rubber and of cork f, or other suitable
yielding material. If preferred the beam L may form an equilateral
triangle in cross section, as shewn in Figure 4, each angle being faced
with a triangular sectioned metal bar c, having its outer apex acutely
rounded. A cushion of felt or other suitable yielding material fis to be
interposed between the base L and the rounded metallic portion c of the
anvil. An anvil thus formed will contain three surfaces, and may be
turned over when one of such surfaces has become worn, so as to present
a fresh surface to the action of the beaters. The beaters M are here
shown as consisting of mallets mounted upon lever arms N, N, working
freely side by side on transverse rods or spindles 9, 9, and lifted by

page_text: means of the revolving tappet wheels O, O, carried by the shafts P, P.
These shafts carry pullics Q, and are driven by means of belts R froni a
conc-driving pulley S on the main driving shaft. The relative sizes of
the driven and driving pullies Q and S respectively are so arranged as
that the mallets or beaters which first operate upon the fibrous sub-
stances shall make fewer blows per minute than those which come after,
the number of blows imparted to any given length of fibre being thus
progressively increased as the fibre passes over the successive anvils,
cach succeeding set of beaters being worked at a quicker rate. T, T, arc
blade springs for adding force to the blows of the beaters; U, U, repre-
sent a series of pairs of drawing or feeding rollers situate in front and
rear of each anvil for the purpose of continuously drawing the fibres
along. The lower one of cach pair of drawing rollers is driven from.
a worm / on the main shaft F, which gears into the worm wheel i on
the axis of the roller. 'V, V, are guide rollers turning freely in their
bearings, and situate in close proximity to the anvils L, in order to guide
the fibres at the most suitable angle on to and off the rounded surfaces c.
k, k, are endless travelling cloths passed over the lower guide rollers
and between the intervening drawing rollers U, U, for facilitating the
passage of the fibres through the machine, the said cloths being actuated
by the nip of the rotatory drawing rollers U, U, as shewn clearly in
Figure 2. On leaving the last pair of drawing rollers the fibres are
drawn down the inclined surface W by the drawing rollers U¹, U¹, and
pass underneath the two thin metal plates 1, 1, which serve to hold the
fibres down whilst they are acted upon by the brush X and a stream of
water from the perforated pipe Y, in order that any pulpy or gummy
matter which may be still adhering to the fibre may be finally and
effectually removed by the washing and brushing process. The brush X
is caused to strike or dab the fibres by means of the eccentric Z, with
which it is connected by a yielding telescopic connecting rod m. A second
rod n connects the same brush to a crank pin o in the lowest one of
the train of spur gearing, so that a combined striking and drawing
motion shall be imparted to the said brush.
The brush actuating
mechanism is driven from the main driving shaft K by means of the
belt p and pulley q, the latter being keyed on to an intermediate shaft r
carrying the spur pinions, which gears into the two spur wheels t, t¹,
of the train of gearing. The drawing rollers U', U¹, are driven by the
belt u, which passes round the pulley von the axis of the lower one of
the pair of drawing rollers U, and over a corresponding pulley won the

page_text: axis of one of the rollers U¹. After leaving the drawing rollers U¹, U', the
separated and cleaned fibres may be conveyed over ordinary steam drying
cylinders or otherwise dried, when they will be ready for the market.
Having now described and particularly ascertained the nature of our
said Invention, and the manner in which the same is or may be used or
carried into effect, we would observe in conclusion that what we consider
to be novel and original, and therefore claim as the Invention secured
to us by the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent is,-
1st. The system or mode of removing the gummy, pulpy, and ligneous
matters from the fibres contained in the leaves, leaf stalks, and stems of
fibre-bearing plants by subjecting the said leaves, leaf stalks, and stems
to a rapid succession of comparatively light blows whilst passing in a
continuous sheet or sliver over the acutely rounded surfaces or angles of
one or more fixed anvils, substantially as herein-before described and
illustrated by our Drawings.
2ndly. The peculiar combination and arrangement of machinery or
apparatus for separating the gummy, pulpy, and ligneous matters from
the fibres of fibre-bearing plants, as herein-before described.
3rdly. The system or mode of washing or cleansing vegetable fibres
after they have been separated from the gummy, pulpy, and ligneous
matter of the plant by subjecting the same to the action of a jet or
jets or stream of water, and to a brush having a combined striking
and drawing motion imparted thereto, substantially as herein-before
described.
4thly. The combination of the metal plates 1, 1, with the compound
action brush X, substantially as and for the purpose herein-before
described and illustrated by our Drawings.
In witness whereof, we, the said George Henry Andrews and William
Gibbs, have hereunto set our hands and scals, this Fifth day of
February, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred
and seventy-two.