the Seats and Backs of Chairs and other Furniture.
Year: 1886

page_text: the Seats and Backs of Chairs and other Furniture.
I HENRY HARRIS LAKE, of the firm of Haseltine, Lake & Co, Patent Agents,
Southampton Buildings, in the County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature
of my invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following statement:-
My invention has for its chief object to provide a new form of spring especially
adapted for upholstery purposes or for use in the seats and backs of chairs, car-
Beats, sofas, lounges and other similar articles of furniture, and for cushions.
Heretofore spring seats of chairs and other articles of furniture have involved
the use of spiral springs placed some distances apart and held in positions relative
to each other by cords, and, to prevent the contact of said springs with the
covering material, hair or other packing has been placed between the springs and
the covering.
In order to obtain the necessary resiliency and extent of motion, the spiral
springs heretofore used have been made somewhat deep or long (in practice about
four inches or more) so that with the necessary packing considerable space is
required. Hence, in practice only the seats of furniture have been made with
springs, and chairs so fitted must have deep seats or bottom spaces. The backs of
chairs have been generally upholstered with hair or other equivalent packing, no
springs, ordinarily, being used, even where the seats have been provided with
springs, and many kinds of chairs have not been made with upholstered seats
because the latter were not deep enough to receive the spiral springs heretofore
employed in this connection.
By my invention I now supply a new form of spring which has as much
resiliency as the spiral spring heretofore used, while occupying less space than the
latter, and which may be used without hair or any other packing.
My invention consists, essentially, of a spring composed of a braided, plaited or
woven wire cylinder or tube longitudinally corrugated or grooved as hereinafter set
forth, whereby each wire thereof becomes a torsional spring.

page_text: In carrying my invention into effect I first produce a cylinder or tube of
braided, plaited or woven wire. This is preferably done on a braiding or plaiting
machine which produces a seamless cylinder, but the desired result may be
achieved, though perhaps less effectively, by bending a sheet of woven wire into a
cylindrical or tubular form and soldering or otherwise securing the edges. This
cylinder or tubular piece is then longitudinally corrugated or grooved on two of its
opposite sides. There may be only a single groove or there may be two or more
grooves or corrugations on each side. The grooved or corrugated sides may be
considered the edges of the spring. The remaining two opposite sides may be left
plain and be curvilinear or they, or either of them, may be made flat.
The improved spring may be made of soft or untempered wire and yet will
possess a remarkable amount of resiliency and elasticity; and it may have a depth
of only about one half that of the spiral springs heretofore used for upholstery
purposes, and yet will have all the yielding motion or "give" necessary for the
purpose in the seats of chairs and similar articles of furniture.
When a series of my improved springs are placed together, edge to edge, to form
the spring portion of the seat or back of an article of furniture they will not
require to have any such material as hair or packing placed between them and the
covering. They may be covered directly with the outside covering or with the
muslin or "white" that is generally used in upholstery.
In the accompanying drawings
Figure 1 is a plan of a complete spring embodying the invention.
Figure 2 is a perspective view of a portion of a spring embodying the invention.
Figure 3 is an end view or diagram showing one wire or spring in its open or
normal, and also in its compressed, condition.
Figure 4 is a perspective view illustrating the courses of the wires composing a
spring, only two wires being shown.
Figure 5 is a plan illustrating the courses of two of the wires composing the
spring, the dark or shaded part showing the bottom of the wires and the light or
unshaded part the top, the said wires being flat.
Figure 6 is a side elevation of the end portion of a spring, showing the duplicate
fastenings or clamping plates.
Figure 7 is a side elevation of the end portion of a spring, showing a single
fastening or clamping plate.
Figure 8 is a perspective view of a single flat wire illustrating the course of each
of the wires composing a spring.
A represents a spring which embodies the principles of my invention.
Said spring is composed of wires B B which are braided or plaited together as
shown (or which may be interwoven) and in the first place are combined in the
form of a hollow cylinder or tube of any desired shape in cross-section. This
cylinder or tube is corrugated or grooved on two of its opposite sides, as shown
at C C, there being a single groove or corrugation formed on each side, or two or
more such grooves or corrugations on each side, as may be preferred. The other
two sides D D¹, which form the spring bottom and top when in use, may be left
plain or ungrooved, and, if it be desired to obtain a flat surface for such top and
bottom or for either of them, they, or one of them, may be flattened.
The groove in each side of the wire lies between the edges b b, the bottom of the
groove being indicated at 61 and the parts of the wires lying between the edges b, b
and bottom 61 of the grooves being indicated by the letters 62, 63, in figures 4
and 5.
When a series of these springs are placed together to form the entire spring
portion of a chair-seat or back or other like or equivalent part of any article of
furniture, their edges or grooved sides should be together, and may be in contact su
as to fully occupy or fill up the spring space in such seat or back, and yet when
weight or impact is imposed on the springs, as when one sits down on the seat or
leans against the back, the springs will not widen, as the corrugated portion or
groove yields or "gives" inwardly, and the width of the spring remains the same

page_text: or substantially the same whether open or compressed. This feature of the spring
is illustrated in the diagram figure 3, where the upper portion of the figure
represents the spring as open or in its normal condition and the lower portion
the spring in a state of compression. The vertical lines on either side of the figure
represent the plane of the edges, and it will be observed that these remain the
same, while the inner edges or bottoms of the grooves come closer together when
compressed than when the spring is open. .
A chair seat or back composed of a series of these springs differs from a seat or
back having a series of spiral springs in the following particulars:-My springs are
individually unlike ordinary spiral springs, and, when combined as described, their
axes are in a plane parallel, or approximately parallel, with the plane of the seat or
back while the spiral springs heretofore used are placed in the seat where they
are used in planes which cause their axes to be transverse or perpendicular to the
plane of such seat.
It will be noted that the wires constantly cross and recross each other, as in all
braided or plaited wire cylinders or tubes, and that they are diagonal with respect
to the longitudinal axis of the cylinder, as a spiral is with respect to its axis. But
it should be further observed, as constituting an important feature of my invention,
that, by reason of the grooving or corrugating, the direction of each wire is reversed
at the bottom of each corrugation or groove that is that each wire is caused to
travel or tend towards the axis of the spring and then lead outwardly therefrom.
This will be seen by following a single wire as in the view figure 8.
The described construction of the spring, namely the corrugation or grooving of
a spirally braided, plaited or woven cylinder or tube, has the effect that when the
spring is compressed, by pressure perpendicular to its longitudinal axis, torsion is
produced in the wires composing it. This torsion results from the fact that the
grooving or corrugating of the sides of the cylinder or tube produces bends or
deflections in the wires, the bends on one side of any wire, or one side of the
spring, being in the reverse direction from the bends on the opposite side. For
example, referring to figure 8 of the drawing, the bend 65 on one side is in the
reverse direction from the bend 66 on the opposite side. Now, when pressure
perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the spring is imposed upon the top of the
spring or part 67 which extends between the bends 6 68, the bends tend to spread
or diverge in opposite directions, that is, one bend to sway or trend towards one
end of the spring and the other bend to sway or trend in the opposite direction,
producing a motion or effect equivalent to a twist or torsional action of the wire.
By "bends" will be understood the portion of the wire between the edge b, and
the bottom 6 of the groove figure 2. In order to make more clearly apparent the
relation of the wires to one another I have shown the spring in figure 4 skeleton
in form and as composed of few wires widely separated at different parts of the
structure. But in practice the springs will be quite close together and equidistant
as shown in figure 2.
Although a very good spring for upholstery purposes may be made of soft or
untempered wire, yet, for some kinds of springs it may be desirable or expedient
to use tempered wire. Hence my invention is not confined to the particular
quality of wire used.
Where a very stiff spring is required, several thicknesses or layers of wire may
be used, and this result may be obtained by braiding or plaiting the wires over
each other in successive layers or strata.
The ends of the spring may be tapered or diminished in depth or width, or such
ends may be left the full dimensions of the body of the spring, and, in either case,
said ends may be fastened in any suitable manner, as by securing them in metallic
clamping plates E E which latter will not only prevent the "fraying" of the wire
but will afford means of fastening the springs to the frame of the chair or other
article of furniture to which they may be applied, one plate at either end, confining
all the wires at such end, may be used, as shown in figure 6, or two plates, each of

page_text: which confines the ends of one half of the wires, may be employed, as shown in
figure 7. Or any other form of end fastening may be employed.
In Figures 5 and 8 I have, for convenience of illustration, shown a flat wire, but
in practice round wires are used in composing or forming the spring.
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 Correspondents I declare that what I claim is :-
First. A spring composed of a series of braided, plaited or woven wires, each of
said wires having divergent bends on opposite sides, said bends following the
diagonal course of the wires and being from the outside of the spring towards its
longitudinal axis, whereby, when pressure perpendicular to said axis is imposed
on the spring, torsion is produced in the wires thereof, substantially as shown and
described.
Second. A spring composed of a braided, plaited or woven wire cylinder or tube
having two opposite sides longitudinally grooved or corrugated, whereby the wires
thereof have divergent bends or deflections on opposite sides, and pressure on the
top of the spring and perpendicular to its longitudinal axis produces torsional
action of the wires, substantially as shown and described.
Third. A spring seat, back or support for chairs or other articles of furniture
composed of a series of springs each of which consists of a cylinder or tube of
braided, plaited or woven wire with their sides longitudinally grooved or corru-
gated, said springs having their axes parallel or approximately parallel with the
plane of the seat or support which they form, substantially as shown and
described.