AN IMPROVED APPARATUS, WHICH I DENOMINATE AN OPERAMETER, APPLICABLE TO MACHINERY FOR DRESSING WOOLLEN OR OTHER CLOTHS
Year: 1829

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, SAMUEL
WALKER, of Beeston, in the Parish of Leeds, in the County of York, Cloth
Manufacturer, send greeting..
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twentieth day of February, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine, and the tenth year of His reign, did,
for Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said Samuel
Walker, His especial licence, that I, the said Samuel Walker, my exors,
adñiors, and assigns,, or such others as I, the said Samuel Walker, my exors,
adiñors, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time
to time and at all times during the term of years therein expressed, should
and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales,
and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "AN IMPROVED
APPARATUS, WHICH I DENOMINATE AN OPERAMETER, APPLICABLE TO MACHINERY FOR
DRESSING WOOLLEN OR OTHER CLOTHS;" in which said Letters Patent is contained
a proviso, obliging me, the said Samuel Walker, by an instrument in writing
under my hand and seal, particularly to describe and ascertain the nature of my
said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, and to cause
the same to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six
calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said in part recited
Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will
more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Samuel Walker, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described
and ascertained in and by the following description thereof (that is to say):—
My improved apparatus, denominated an operameter, is a peculiar construc-
tion of counting machine, intended to be connected to a gig for raising the pile
of woollen cloths, or to a shearing machine for cropping the pile, or to any
other machine employed for the dressing of cloths, by which the number of
rotations made by the gig barrel, or by the butter, or by any other of the
operative parts of any such machines, may be known by inspecting the face of
a dial. The object of this apparatus is to measure, ascertain, and register the
quantity of work done, that is, the number of rotations of the working parts
of the gig or other machine to the operations of which the cloth had been sub-
mitted. By the attachment, therefore, of this operameter to any of the machines
employed for dressing cloth, the requisite quantity of work may be apportioned
to each piece without depending upon the fidelity of the workman. And the
actual work done will be shewn without the possibility of deceiving the
employer. The shape in which I have found it most convenient to construct
the apparatus is exhibited in the accompanying Drawings. Fig. 1 represents
the external appearance of the operameter, which is enclosed within a box or
case of metal, having partitions within and a dial plate without on its face,
with numbers similar to a clock, with hands attached to the outer extremities.
of arbours, moved by wheel work within; Fig. 2 is a side view, exhibiting the
internal mechanism, the outer case with the internal partitions being partly
shewn in section; Fig. 3 represents the wheel work as seen in front, the face-
plate being removed and the front of the upper compartment also; Fig. 4 is
the back part of the operameter, with a small dial corresponding to the small
dial in front; Fig. 5 exhibits the wheel work in the back compartment of the
case, (shewn also in Fig. 2,) which is exposed to view by removing the back
plate and dial seen in Fig. 4. The machine, whether a gig, a shearing frame,
a brusher, or any other machine for dressing cloth, whose movements are to
be registered by this apparatus, may be connected to the operameter at several
points, that is, at the sides, the top, the bottom, or the back, as convenience
may require.
I shall first describe the most simple mode of communicating the rotatory
movement of the machine to the wheel-work of the register and that which I
usually employ- when connecting the operameter to a gig. a is a shaft, passed
through the side of the case into the back compartment shewn at Fig. 5; the

page_text: outer extremity of this shaft a is to be connected by coupling to the drawing
roller or any other suitable part of a gig, or to the worm shaft or other con-
venient part of a shearing frame. At the inner extremity of this shaft an
endless screw b is fixed, which takes into a toothed wheel c, and on the same
arbor behind c there is a smaller toothed wheel d, taking into a corresponding
wheel e; the arbor of e, as may be seen in Fig. 2, carries a bevel toothed
wheel f, which drives two corresponding bevel teethed wheels g and h, and
these turn loosely on the vertical shaft i, being connected thereto by hanging.
levers or catchers through the medium of the drum k fixed on the shaft i;
shewn in section in the auxiliary Fig. 6. These catches hang in opposite
directions, so as to cause one of the wheels only at a time to be locked to the
shaft, and, consequently, whichever way the wheel f turns, the vertical shaft i
will be driven round by the locking of one of the wheels g or h. This con-
trivance is for the purpose of registering the movements of a reciprocating
machine, whichever way it may turn, by a continued rotation of the vertical
shaft i. At the lower part of the verticle shaft i there is an endless screw 1,
taking into the wheel m, on the long shaft n, n, carrying at its extremities
what may, for distinction sake, be called the minute hands o, o, acting upon
the small dials at the back and front of the operameter. The same endless screw
also takes into another wheel p, fixed on a cross shaft q (see Fig. 3), on which
shaft there is an endless screw r taking into a toothed wheels, the outer
extremity of the arbor of which carries what may be called the hour hand t,
acting on the face of the dial, see Fig. 1. It will now be perceived that by
the train of wheel-work described, that 1,400 rotations of the drawing roller
of the gig, or of the worm shaft of the shearing frame, or any other actuating
part of dressing machinery to which the shaft a of the operameter may be
attached, will cause the indexes o, o, to traverse once entirely round the small
dian plates, every rotation of which is represented by the advance of the index t
through one division of the circle on the large dial on the face of the opera-
meter. It may be necessary here to observe that an additional or idle hand is
placed upon the same arbor, and made to turn round loosely as a check for the
use of the overlooker. It is scarcely necessary to add, that any mariation in
the diameter and teeth of the wheels may be made, suitable to the speed of
the working machine; as it may be necessary, according to the situation and
construction of the gig or shearing frame, the operations of which are to be
registered, to attach the coupling either at the top or bottom or opposite side
of the operameter to that already described; I have made the side pieces u, u,
u, u, at the back part of the case (see Fig. 5) to shift their situations, in

page_text: order that the shaft a may be. placed in either of the positions shewn by dots,
in all of which the endless screw.b will take into the wheel d, and drive the
train in the manner above described. As it may sometimes be desirable to
drive the operameter by a coupling at the back part, I should, in that case,
dispense with the shaft a and its endless screw 6, and in place of them intro-
duce a shaft v, carrying a toothed wheel w, shewn by dots in Figures 2, 4,
and 5, the shaft being passed through a sliding plate as in Figure 4. The
shifting of the plate affords the means of putting the operameter in and out of
gear, and of adapting a larger or smaller wheel w, according to the speed with
which the meter is required to register, or instead of the shaft v and wheel w
a shaft. and wheel y, likewise shewn by dots, may be employed, both of which
take into and drive the wheel d, which produces the movements of the opera-
meter in the way above described, and registers 'the number of revolutions of
the working machine connected thereto.
In witness whereof, I, the said Samuel Walker, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Eighteenth day of August, in the year. of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine.
SAMUEL (L.s.) WALKER.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Eighteenth day of August, in
the tenth year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Fourth, the said
Samuel Walker came before our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and
acknowledged the instrument aforesaid, and all and every thing therein con-
tained and specified, in form above written. And also the instrument aforesaid
was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute made in the fifty-fifth year
of the reign of His late Majesty King George the Third.