IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR SIFTING, CUTTING, AND MIXING TEA
Year: 1868

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Thompson at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
11th September 1868.
I, WILLIAM THOMPSON, of No. 85, Lower Gardiner Street, in the City
of Dublin, and of Clare Hall, in the County of Dublin, Ireland,
Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR SIFTING, CUTTING, AND MIXING
TEA," to be as follows:-
My Invention consists in combining with machinery or apparatus
for mixing teas, such as was described in the Specification to certain
Letters Patent granted to me, and bearing date the 17th July 1866,
No. 1861, other machinery or apparatus for previously sifting and cutting
the tea, arranged in the following manner:-Upon the top of the
framing of the tea mixing apparatus is fixed the tea cutting apparatus
composed of a horizontal cylindrical casing made slightly tapering
towards one end, in which is fitted a rotating drum of a corresponding
tapering form carried by a central spindle which passes through the
casing and is provided at one end either with a crank handle or with
a driving pulley. On the surface of the drum are fixed or formed a

page_text: number of cutting edges or blades running along the whole length of
the drum, and on the sides of the casing are fixed or formed other
cutting edges or blades also running the entire length of the casing,
which latter blades are by preference secured in a removeable manner
by means of screws to lugs on the outside of the casing, and are made
to pass through slits formed on the latter so as to be readily removeable
when requiring to be sharpened; they may however also be formed or
fixed permanently on the inner surface of the casing. The rotating
drum is made adjustable lengthwise in the casing by means of a set
screw at the one end of the spindle thereof, so that by adjusting the
drum by means of such screw it will be seen that on account of the
tapering form of the drum and casing the cutting edges on the former
will be brought closer to or removed farther from the cutting edges
on the latter, and thus the tea that is passing through may be cut
to a greater or less degree of fineness. The tea passes from the casing
of this apparatus through a passage into the casing of the tea mixing
machine below, and it receives the tea through a shoot leading from
the tea sifting machine above; this latter consists of a closed casing
provided with a hopper for the introduction of the tea at the top, from
which hopper the tea passes into one or more inclined screens in the
top of the casing, on travelling down which screens it is separated
from any nails, stones, or other foreign matter that may be contained
in it, and from which it passes into the open end of a revolving
cylindrical sieve, the spindle of which passes through the casing and
is provided with a driving pulley; in this sieve the dust and small
tea that does not require cutting is separated from the larger tea by
falling through the meshes of the sieve and is conducted directly
through a shoot into the tea mixing machine below, while the large
tea passes from the interior of the sieve through a second shoot into
the tea cutting machine.
The before described improved tea cutting and sifting apparatus may
also be employed with equal advantage separate and apart from the
tea mixing apparatus to operate on teas that do not require mixing
or that are mixed either previously or by a subsequent process.