Improvements in Insulators for Telegraph Wires and the like.
Year: 1885

page_text: Improvements in Insulators for Telegraph Wires and the like.
I, WILLIAM PHILLIPS THOMPSON, Fel. Inst P.A of the Agency for Foreign Patent
Solicitors, 6 Lord Street, Liverpool in the county of Lancaster, and 323 High
Holborn in the county of Middlesex, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature
of this invention (a communication from abroad by Eduard Albert Müller of Kalk
near Cologne in the Empire of Germany, Inventor) and in what manner the same
is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement :-
The insulators for electric conductors hitherto usually employed, have the
disadvantage that they necessitate too complicated and unreliable a method of
securing the electric conductor to them.
Now the invention which forms the object of the present application for Letters
Patent is designed to obviate this drawback, and to permit of the conducting wire,
or other material being secured to it, without any troublesome wire lashings or
other contrivance for the purpose. These lashings or attachments are injurious to
the insulation and their oxidation and decay renders frequent repairs necessary.
The improved insulator can moreover be very easily fixed or dismounted, and is
consequently especially well adapted for field or army telegraphs, and similar
purposes, where it is desirable to set up or take down the apparatus as quickly as
possible. For this purpose the insulator should admit of the telegraph line being
wound up from one end as soon as it has been unfastened at the other end.
Moreover the insulators should be designed to admit of any single insulator
which has become unserviceable, being replaced without disturbing the other
portions of the telegraph line.
The construction of the insulators according to this invention is as follows
As shewn in the drawings, Figures I and II, the insulator has a perpendicular
slit s cut into it from above, dividing its head into two segments; each of these
segments has a piece cut out of it horizontally, somewhat deeper than to its centre,
and these two horizontal cuts are in opposite directions, each segment consequently
assumes the shape of a hook, one turned in one direction, and the other in the
other, as shewn in the drawings at 1 and r. In order to secure the telegraph
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line a b in the insulator, the line is inserted in the vertical slit s (Figures I and II)
and the insulator is rotated a quarter turn (towards the left, in the pattern shewn
in the drawings) whereon the books and r clasp the line as shewn in Figures III
and IV. By this means the line a b is held fast on all sides. Figure VI shews &
section y through the hooks, as shewn in Figure V.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said
invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, as communicated to
me by my foreign correspondent, I declare that what I claim is
The new or improved insulator, constructed of porcelain, glass, stoneware, or
other suitable material, divided by a vertical slits, and having the two segments
hollowed out in opposite directions, so as to form hooks and r, the arrangement
being adapted to secure the wire without coiling it round the insulator, or the
use of other fastening devices, as set forth above, the whole substantially as
described and shewn in the accompanying drawings.