IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING LOZENGES, MEDALS, AND OTHER SIMILAR ARTICLES OF CONFECTIONERY
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Marrian at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 14th
June 1872.
I, HENRY MARRIAN, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick,
Manufacturer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING LOZENGES,
MEDALS, AND OTHER SIMILAR ARTICLES OF CONFECTIONERY," to be as follows:-
-
My Invention consists of the improvements herein-after described in
machinery or apparatus for cutting out, printing, or embossing and
distributing for drying lozenges, medals, and other like flat articles of
confectionery made from sheets or strips of sugar paste.
66
For convenience of description I will first describe my improvements
in printing lozenges:-I place the lozenges to be printed in a holder or
form" consisting of a plate of metal or other suitable material having
cavities or depressions in it suitable for the reception of a row of lozenges.
This holder or "form" has a series of pins or projections on its upper face,
which fit into corresponding holes or depressions on the lower face of the
stamp or type by which the printing is to be effected, so that the stamp or

page_text: type carrying the color can only be brought down upon the lozenge in
the position necessary to impress the lozenge in the required place.
When the printing is to be effected in several colours the several stamps
are made to register one with another, the guides on each stamp
having the same relative position with respect to some given point in
the design.
"
Although the holders or "forms and stamps described may be used
by hand, I prefer to work them by machinery constructed in the
following manner:-I fix the stamps for different colours in a straight
line and at equal distances from one another upon the under side of a
bar secured to a frame hinged to the bed of the machine. A vertical
reciprocating motion is communicated to the bar by means of sliding
inclined planes or other mechanical equivalents; as the stamps ascend an
inking roller or inking rollers advance underneath them and feed them
with colour. The rollers as they retire are themselves fed with colour
by cloths or rollers or otherwise.
"
The lozenges placed in the holders or "forms are fed across the
machine by an intermittent motion. This motion is effected by a
reciprocating catch or ratchet movement which advances the row of
lozenges at each motion through a distance equal to the distance between 2
the centres of two contiguous lozenges, the lozenges are advanced a
stage after cach descent of the printing stamps, and each lozenge thus
receives in succession an impression from the several coloured stamps.
I prefer to make the holders Or "forms"in which the lozenges are
carried in two parts. The holders or forms" in this case may either 2
be made of two parallel strips, the one having the cavities for the
reception of the lozenges, and resting upon the other strip, which is
plain, or the holders or forms may be solid and divided across the
middle of each cavity. The printed lozenges are removed from the
holder or form automatically, and by means of endless bands or grooved a
guides they are arranged on trays to dry. The holders or
"forms" may
be separated for the delivery of the lozenges, and reunited by means of
grooves or guides and inclines.
Instead of cut lozenges fed in the way described a strip of sugar paste
lying upon and fed into the machine by an endless band having an
intermittent motion may be employed. The printed strip is afterwards cut
up into lozenges preferably by means of a punch of the kind herein-after
described. The cut out lozenges may be separated from the paste by

page_text: a
the chain band hercin-after described, or by a lateral motion which brings
the punch when depositing the lozenge immediately over a travelling
band. Instead of supporting and actuating the printing stamps in the
manner described they may be suspended so as to have an oscillating
or pendulum like motion in addition to a vertical motion, and are
depressed upon the colour pad at one end of their path and upon the
lozenges at the other end of their path; or the stamps may be arranged
in sets upon the periphery of a drum or cylinder having an intermittent
rotatory motion. The sets of stamps may either be arranged around the
drum in a plane at right angles to its axis, or they may be arranged on
the drum in planes parallel with its axis. In the former case the path
of the lozenges is across the axis of the drum, and in the latter case it
is parallel therewith.
Instead of bringing down the stamps upon the lozenges the stamps
may be fixed on the bed of the machine with their faces upwards and
the lozenges brought down upon the stamps. In this case the holders
or "forms" have narrow internal rims or flanges in their cavities, which
flanges prevent the lozenges from falling out. Instead of the holders or
forms passing across a curved swinging guide, the guide may consist of
a plate having a vertical reciprocating movement imparted to it to bring
the lozenges on to and away from the stamps, and the guide plate or
the stamp bed, preferably the latter, may have a horizontal reciprocating
movement in order to allow the colouring rollers or pads to be brought
into contact with the stamps. The rim cavities in the holders or
" forms
"
may be used in any of the arrangements described. The stamps may
be composed of an clastic or yielding surface so as to fit them for printing
dry or partly dry lozenges or paste. The holders or "forms" and other
parts with which the lozenges or paste come into contact are dusted
with starch or other material by means of perforated boxes or sieves.
The punches or cutters and the apparatus or mechanism for separating
the lozenges from the waste paste herein-before referred to are con-
structed as follows:-Each punch consists of a tube of the required
sectional figure, the lower end of which is made into a cutting or knife
edge; a piston fitting in the tube slides freely therein. The mechanism
which actuates the tube and piston is so arranged that the tube and
piston rise together with the lozenge just cut from the sheet until
sufficiently high for the trays of the chain apparatus herein-after
described to pass underneath them. The motion of the piston is arrested

page_text: while the tube continues to rise, and the lozenge is thus forced out of the
tube and deposited upon the tray.
The operation described is repeated after every cut of the punches, and
the lozenges after being received on the tray referred to arc subsequently
deposited automatically upon wooden trays to dry.
The chain apparatus herein-before referred to is constructed as
follows: Two parallel strips of thin steel or other suitable material
are disposed to run parallel to and at a suitable horizontal distance from
each other over rollers close above the bed of the lozenge-cutting
machine. The distance between these two strips is rather more than
the length of the row of cutters, and a series of trays or slips of metal
or other material are arranged parallel to each other and fixed at either
end to the strips or bands of steel. The trays are placed at a little
distance from each other along these bands so as to allow the row of
punches to descend between them. This chain of trays has an inter-
mittent advancing motion imparted to it so as to bring a space and a
tray alternately beneath the punches.
My Invention is applicable to the cutting out, printing, or embossing
and distributing for drying of medals and other flat articles of con-
fectionery as well as lozenges. When the said articles are to be
embossed, embossing tools are substituted for the printing types or
surfaces described.
My improvements in punches may be used either in conjunction with
or apart from the apparatus described for receiving the lozenges or
other articles, and the said apparatus for receiving the cut out lozenges
or articles may be applied to any lozenge machine.