A NEW OR IMPROVED PORTABLE OR TRAVERSING WASHING, BRUSHING, AND SCOURING MACHINE, FOR CLEANING CARPETS, FLOOR-CLOTHS, LEATHER, AND OTHER SUCH LIKE ARTICLES OR FABRICS
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Bell at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 17th April 1880.
JOHN BELL, of Paisley, in the County of Renfrew, North Britain. " A NEW OR
IMPROVED PORTABLE OR TRAVERSING WASHING, BRUSHING, AND SCOURING
MACHINE, FOR CLEANING CARPETS, FLOOR-CLOTHS, LEATHER, AND OTHER SUCH
LIKE ARTICLES OR FABRICS."
This Invention relates to a new or improved construction of portable or traversing
machino for washing, brushing, scouring, and cleaning carpets, floor-cloths, matting,
rugs, leather, and other such like articles and fabrics, which is specially designed to
facilitate and lessen the cost of brushing and cleaning such articles or materials
without the liability to tear and otherwise injuro them, which is usual with the
ordinary construction of machines.
The improved machine consists of a light wooden or malleable iron rectangular
framing, mounted on swivelling wheels or castors so as to be easily traversed in
any direction over the carpets, floor-cloths, or other materials to be cleaned, and
which are laid or spread out on the floor for the purpose, in contradistinction to
the usual practice heretofore of drawing or passing these through stationary
brushing and cleaning machines. A rotary brush of about the full breadth of the
machine frame is carried by a bracket lever at each end, centred on a spindle
carried in the framing above which forms the crank shaft of the engine by which
the brush is driven through a spur pinion on its spindle at one end, actuated either
directly by a spur wheel on the crank shaft, or through an intermediate spur
wheel, or other equivalent gearing. The revolving brush has a segmental cover
fitted over it, on the upper surface of which a small perforated U shaped channel
is formed into and through which water and soap or other cleaning liquid are
supplied from a pipe or pipes fitted with a cock leading from a small tank at one
end or side of the machine, so that the brush can be kept wet or moist during the
cleaning or scouring operation. The carrying levers of the revolving brush are
oscillated on the crank shaft or centre, so as to raise or lower and fix the brush,
to put it into or out of action by means of a transverse spindle, with hand or bell-
crank or other levers fulcrumed on the machine frame over the levers of the brush,
and acting either direct or through connecting rods to the levers of the brush.

page_text: The brush may be driven by means of a steam, gas, or other motive power engine,
fixed in a vertical, horizontal, or other position to the framing, and which is
supplied with steam or prossure fluid through a flexible tube or pipe, preferably led
up to the roof, so that the machine may freely traverse a considerable area. And
when the machine is put into action, as for cleaning carpets, these are spread out
on the floor, the machine run on to one end, and the brush lowered. The soap and
water being turned on to wet the brush, and the engine started, the whole machine
is pushed or drawn by a hand rail on the framing, preferably in the direction
opposite to that in which the rotation of the brush on the surface of the carpet
tends to move the machine. When one length or stretch of the carpet is traversed
the engine may be reversed and the machine run back, or the machine may be
turned round on its castors for the next traverse.
In some cases and for some classes of fabrics or materials to be cleaned the
revolving brush may be kept dry, or an additional revolving dry brush may be
fitted on each side of the central wet brush, one of which, such as that following
the wet brush during its traverse might be acting on the fabric, whilst the brush
in advance would be lifted out of action, both dry brushes being driven by suitable
spur or other gearing at the same or different speed from the central brush, and
being made to be readily raised or lowered separately by hand levers. By theso
supplementary or additional brushes the soap and water may be either brushed up
into a shallow trough behind the brush, or carried forward before it into a gutter
or channel at the end of the carpet.