A MACHINE FOR CLEANING AND FINING RAW COTTON, SILK, AND WOOL
Year: 1793

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES AXON,
of Carey Street, in the Parish of Saint Clement Danes, in the County of
Middlesex, Turner and Carpenter, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twenty-seventh day of February, in the thirty-third year of
His reign, give and grant unto me, the said James Axon, His special licence
that I, the said James Axon, during the term of years therein mentioned,
should and lawfully might use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and
the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "A MACHINE FOR CLEANING
AND FINING RAW COTTON, SILK, AND WOOL;" in which said Letters Patent is
contained a proviso obliging me, the said James Axon, by an instrument in
writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one calendar
month next after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and
by the same, relation being thereunto had, will more fully and at large
appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
James Axon, do hereby declare that my said Invention is described. in
manner following (that is to say):-
The machine consists of a strong square frame, with four pair of brass rollers
fluted and fixed in it, of different dimensions, and one pair of jointed wooden

page_text: rollers, five wooden cylinders of different dimensions, in three of which rows of
hair as brushes are fixed from one end to the other; and into the two other,
thin plates or slips of tin plate are let in, and of divers wheels herein-after
particularly mentioned and described. The machine is put in motion by hand,
water, wind, horses, or any other moving power which may be found most
convenient. On the upper part of the machine, a cloth, called a feeding cloth,
is placed, which moves horizontally. The cotton, silk, or wool must be spread
thinly upon this cloth, and when the machine is put in motion it brings the
cotton forward between the wooden rollers, and from thence to the brass rollers
which are fixed on a slope, from whence it is delivered between two of the,
brush cylinders, which deliver it to another brush cylinder of a larger size,
from whence it is taken by a tin cylinder or stripper and delivered to a large
wood cylinder, which, after working it, throws it upon a wire riddle or screen,
which cleans it from any dirt, sand, or other foul stuff, and then drops it into
a box for use. The wooden rollers which receive the cotton from the feeding
cloth are fluted from one end to the other, and act independant one of the
other, being jointed in the middle, where pivets are cut through. These wooden
rollers are an inch and a half in diameter; the width of the frame is three
feet, and two inches and a half long, which is the given length for all the rollers
of every sort, they being all fixed in the same frame. The brass rollers, which
are immediately placed under the wooden rollers, are of different diameters,
the first, second, and third pair being each one inch in diameter, and the
fourth pair three-fourths of an inch in diameter. These deliver the cotton,
silk, or wool between the brush cylinders, as above mentioned. A wooden
cylinder is framed in front of the brush cylinders, which is in diameter
three inches and a half, and, with the tin plates or strips of tin fastened
into, is in diameter five inches, and the tin plates or strips of tin are one
inch above the surface of the wooden cylinder; the hairs of the cylinder
brushes are one inch and a half above the wood. In the largest brush
are twelve rows of hairs, and in the other two are ten rows each. The
largest cylinder of all is fixed below the others, and is nineteen inches in
diameter, and has fifty-two strips of iron, each of them an inch and three-
quarters deep, whose use is to seperate the cotton from the brushes, and deliver
it into a wire screen that is placed underneath. This screen is put in motion
by a crank from a wheel of the largest cylinder, and its use is for seperating
the foul particles from the cotton as sand, motes, &c. A small wheel that
works the crank is on the end of the engine where the handle is placed to work
the machine. The opposite end to the handle is fixed on a wheel, which gives
motion to the sundry brass and wooden rollers mentioned above, and is for

page_text: turning the whole. This wheel is two feet and one inch and a half in diameter,
and has fifty-five teeth; the first wheel which takes into that is eleven inches in
diameter, and has twenty teeth, and is fixed on the largest cylinder with the
iron cleaners. A wheel is fixed on the same side of the machine as the
handle for turning the machine is fixed on, which wheel is twenty-one inches
in diameter and has thirty-eight teeth, and is fixed on the largest cylinder.
There is another wheel on the same axle that is eighteen inches and three
quarters in diameter, and has thirty-three teeth, and a wheel of seven inches
diameter with twelve teeth, which takes into the largest wheel of thirty-eighd
teeth and turns the tin cylinder or stripper above mentioned. A wheel of nine
inches and three eighths in diameter with sixteen teeth, and a wheel with ten
teeth, work into the largest wheel of thirty-eight teeth, and turn a brush
cylinder. A crank wheel with ten teeth takes into the same wheel of thirty-
eight teeth, and a brass wheel of four inches diameter with thirty-one teeth in
the inside of the said wheel of ten teeth works into another wheel of the same
diameter and the same number of teeth, and together turn a pair of small
brass rollers, which deliver the cotton into the large brushes. A wheel of
wood, with six teeth, fixed on the opposite and of the brush cylinder on which
the wheel of ten teeth is fixed, the diameter of which is nine inches and one
half, takes into a wood wheel of eighteen teeth and nine inches in diameter
fixed upon the brush cylinder on the back side of the rollers; and in the inside
of that wooden wheel there is a brass wheel, of two inches and a quarter in
diameter, with sixteen teeth, which takes into a brass wheel of six inches and
three quarters in diameter, with fifty-five teeth, on the spindle of the lowermost
brass roller but one; and on the same spindle of the wheel with fifty-five teeth
is a brass wheel with seven teeth, the diameter one inch and one eighth, which
turns a wheel immediately above of two inches and three eighths diameter,
with twenty teeth, which gives motion to the third pair of brass rollers; and
in the inside of that wheel, on the spindle, is a wheel with seven teeth, that
is, one eighth diameter, which works into a wheel of twenty teeth, and in
diameter two inches three eighths, which works the fourth pair of rollers; and
in the inside of this last wheel is a wheel of seven teeth and one inch and
one eighth in diameter, which gives motion to a wheel of three inches and a
a half and twenty-seven teeth, which is on the end of the two wooden rollers
that move the feeding cloth which brings the cotton forward.
In witness whereof, I, the said James Axon, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, the Twenty-seventh day of March, in the year of our Lord
One thousand seven hundred and ninety-three.
JAMES (L.s.) AXON.

page_text: AND, BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the Twenty-seventh day of March,
in the year of our Lord 1793, the aforesaid James Axon came before our said
Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Indenture aforesaid,
and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form above written.
And also the. Indenture aforesaid was stampt according to the tenor of the
Statutes made for that purpose.