IMPROVEMENTS IN HANGING AND DRIVING MILLSTONES, AND IN APPARATUS FOR GRINDING AND GRANULATING GRAIN, MIDDLINGS, AND THE LIKE, FOR MAKING OATMEAL, AND FOR ENDING WHEAT, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES ; ALSO IN APPLIANCES FOR FEEDING MILLSTONES, AND IN MILLSTONE PROVERS. AND STAFFS
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Harrison Carter at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 12th February 1879.
JAMES HARRISON CARTER, of 82, Mark Lane, in the City of London, Mill
Furnisher. "IMPROVEMENTS IN HANGING AND DRIVING MILLSTONES, AND IN
APPARATUS FOR GRINDING AND GRANULATING GRAIN, MIDDLINGS, AND THE LIKE,
FOR MAKING OATMEAL, AND FOR ENDING WHEAT, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES ;
ALSO IN APPLIANCES FOR FEEDING MILLSTONES, AND IN MILLSTONE PROVERS.
AND STAFFS."
My improvements in apparatus for grinding consists, firstly, in mechanical
arrangements for ensuring the faces of millstones being perfectly parallel with each
other at all times, and being rigidly held, so as to secure when required the more
even granulation of the ground products, and to prevent the millstones being
quickly blunted by rubbing against each other when set closely together for very
fine grinding. I construct an iron ring for the rotating stone, with a flange round
the lower portion to carry the weight of the stone. This ring is provided with
three or more recesses, and into each recess the end of a bolt projects, the other
end of each bolt extending to the top of the ring, where it is secured by a nut with
a stop catch to prevent its changing from the position in which it is required. Near
the top of the millstone driving spindle is a boss with arms extending from it of
the same number as there are recesses in the ring. These arms drive the millstone,
and the parallellism of the millstone faces is secured by adjusting the aforesaid
bolts, which rest upon the arms.
In place of this boss with arms I sometimes construct a boss with a metal disc,
on which the running stone rests, but which has apertures in it to allow the wheat
to pass through when it is the top stone that is rotating. Either of the above
arrangements can be used in connection with existing spindles & bearings, but as no
true parallellism can be maintained between the stones unless the bush or bearing
in which the spindles rotate fits always very accurately round the spindle. I make
the spindle and the bush or bearing conical, and I keep the bearing tight to the
spindle at all times by means of a counter balance weight on a lever, or by springs
or screws. I make the large end of the cone at the top, so that the oil which is
applied near the bottom of the spindle collar will continually run to the top, and I
arrange that it flows down from it again to the oil receptacle in the bush, and so on
931...מ

page_text: continually. The bush is turned to fit accurately in the box, and is prevented from
rotating by several projections, which bear against the jaws of the lever or against
the springs. These projections enable the bush to be periodically moved in the box,
so that it may wear equally at all parts.
When it is the top stone which rotates, the box is fixed securely in bottom stone,
and when the bottom stone rotates it is fixed securely to the frame work below it.
Another plan is to make the spindle and bush doubly conical with bolts or nuts,
drawing the two ends of the cone together. Another plan is to have the spindle
cylindrical, but to have the box conical, with three or more bearing around it,
each held tight to the spindle by a lever with a weight or by a weight alone, or by
springs or screws.
Another plan is to have a ring standing up from the box of the understone, made
preferably convex at its upper surface, to hold the necessary lubricant, and accu-
rately turned. A corresponding ring is fixed in the upper stone, and a driver fixed to
the spindle gives motion to the runner by means of a cross bar. If the lower stone
rotates the convex ring will be fixed to the frame work below.
My appliance for feeding millstones is intended to supply the feed more in con-
formity with the varying speeds of the stones than is done by the present appliances,
and to lessen the possibility of their running empty. A light spindle is continued
from the stone spindle to the top of the millstone case; a worm is secured to it,
which gives motion to a worm wheel, and this in turn gives motion to a belt by
means of pins or teeth secured at suitable intervals around the belt. The grain, etc.,
passes on to the belt from a hopper, and a gate, adjusts the quantity.
My appliance for accurately staffing millstones consists in making a circular staff,-
so that no portion of the staff can go into a hollow portion of the stone. I make
the back of the staff of cast iron, and screw to it pieces of wood. Each piece of
wood, in addition to being secured to the iron back, is secured to the piece of wood
next to it, and a piece of rubber is placed between each strip of wood so as to
allow for the contraction and expansion of all the pieces without causing the staff
to become untrue.