IMPROVEMENTS IN REAPING MACHINES AND IN APPARATUS FOR MAKING UP CUT CROPS INTO SHEAVES
Year: 1873

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edwin Whitworth at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 20th
June 1873.
I, EDWIN WHITWORTH, of Ingoldmells, in the County of Lincoln, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
REAPING MACHINES AND IN APPARATUS FOR MAKING UP CUT CROPS INTO SHEAVES,"
to be as follows:→
The object of this Invention is firstly to construct reaping machines
in such a manner that the crop as it is cut is delivered from them in
the form of sheaves properly tied. For this purpose the delivery rake
or rakes which sweep the cut crop along the platform and ordinarily
throw it off therefrom, are arranged to sweep the crop as usual to the
delivery side, but in place of throwing it off therefrom the rake is caused
to rise and leave the bundle of cut crop below an arched frame. This
frame forms a support for an endless band having teeth upon its exterior
to gear with a toothed wheel by which it can be driven.
A
At one point of the band an arm stands out from it and carries a spring
clip. The cord or wire employed for binding the sheaves is wound

page_text: upon a reel, its end is taken hold of by the spring clamp, and the endless
band being caused to revolve the cord or wire is carried around the
bundle of cut crop which is lying below the arched frame before-
mentioned. If wire is used as the binding material the wire when first
taken by the clamp is by it laid into a radial slit in a disc wheel, and
after being carried around the bundle of cut crop is laid into another
radial slit opposite to the first slit, the endless band then comes to rest and
the disc wheel is caused to make a few turns, and so twist together the top
and bottom wires, the endless band is then again set in motion, and the
clamp is caused to release its hold of the wire and again seize the wire
between the sheaf and the recl from which the wire is being drawn. A
cutting apparatus then severs the wire between the sheaf and the clamp,
the endless band then again draws forward the wire, whilst at the same
time the finished sheaf is removed from the platform, and a fresh bundle
of cut crop takes its place below the arched frame and the wire is led
around it in a similar manner to that above described.
In order that the wire may always be bound around the several
sheaves with an equal amount of tension whether there be much or little
in a bundle, the reel upon which the wire is wound is by a friction
driving wheel caused to revolve in an opposite direction to that in
which the reel has to turn as the wire is drawn off from it, and it is thus
caused to again wind up the wire on to the reel after the wire has been
carried partly around a bundle and before the two ends of the wire are
twisted together.
When a cord is used in place of wire a knotting mechanism is used to
tic together the ends of the cord with a knot in place of twisting them
together as when a wire is used. A similar arrangement of apparatus
for tying up cut crops into bundles may also be adapted to horse rakes,
the bundle after being gathered together by the rake teeth being
elevated into a trough at the back of the implement, and while resting
in such trough having a wire or cord carried around and tied or twisted
together, as above described, by an endless band or by a revolving arm.