IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR WASHING, WRINGING, DRYING, AND FINISHING CLOTHES, NAPERY, BLANKETS, AND THE LIKE.
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Anderson Smith at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 30th March 1878.
WILLIAM ANDERSON SMITH, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark; North
Britain. "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR WASHING, WRINGING, DRYING, AND
FINISHING CLOTHES, NAPERY, BLANKETS, AND THE LIKE.'
"
This Invention relates to apparatus designed for washing, wringing, drying, and
finishing clothes, napery, blankets, and the like, in an improved and more complete
manner than heretofore.
The improved apparatus comprises a metal vessel, the upper part of which is by
preference nearly cylindrical, and the bottom part spheroidal; and this vessel is set
in a metal casing provided with a fire-grate and outlet smoke pipe.
Inside the vessel there is arranged any convenient known kind of agitator with
mechanism for working it, preference being given to a vertical spindle placed centrally,
fitted with horizontal cross rods, and connected by bevil gear to a horizontal
rocking shaft, which imparts an angular reciprocating motion by means of an
external lever worked by hand or by means of a rocking foot board. This apparatus
is thus quite independent of a separate boiler or fire for heating the washing water.
Above the washing vessel there are mounted in a suitable framing a pair of
wringing rollers, which are hollow and made of brass, or of iron coated with brass,
or of some other suitable metal or metals.
Provision is made for heating one or both of the rollers by steam or hot water
from the vessel below, a pipe being led up one side to a hollow stud on which the
roller end is carried and turns, whilst a similar pipe is led down from a hollow stud
at the other end of the roller.
Provision is made for withdrawing air from the roller and pipes at starting, so
that the steam or hot water may circulate.
The necessary pressure is applied to the rollers by stiff or springing levers placed
above the end journals of the upper roller, and having their upper ends connected
by two wires or rods, which are connected in the middle by a right-and-left screw
coupling, by adjusting which the pressure may be regulated,

page_text: The screw coupling may be made heavy to impart a yielding tensile strain to
the levers.
For drying of the clothes or other articles, air pipes are arranged under, or
through, or over the fire, and have their further ends turned up, so as that air may
pass through them and issue in heated currents from such turned-up ends into a
chamber, or box, or a simple bag, or other receptacle in which the articles to be
dried are placed.
After the clothes or other articles are more or less dried they may be passed
again between the rollers to be finished, this operation being improved by the
heating of one or both of the rollers, as herein-before described. The finishing
effect may be further improved by having one or both rollers coated with vitreous
enamel; or an enamelled metal roller may be used in combination with a rubber
one.
The apparatus has attached to it a table or shelf on which to place or fold the
clothes or other articles, and this table or shelf is by preference made of galvanised
iron, formed with small or fine corrugations and a wired edge.