IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF CAKES, BISCUITS, SWEETMEATS, AND THE LIKE
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robert Lake at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 14th January 1881. A communication
from abroad by J. Henry Mitchell, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
of America.
WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE, of the Firm of Haseltine, Lake, & Co., Patent Agents,
Southampton Buildings, London. " IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR THE
MANUFACTURE OF CAKES, BISCUITS, SWEETMEATS, AND THE LIKE." [A communi-
cation from abroad by J. Henry Mitchell, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United
States of America.]
This Invention relates to improvements in machinery for the manufacture of
cakes, biscuits, and sweetmeats, and comprises the following distinctive features,
that is to say:-
Provision for separating the pan table from the dough or material chamber
or box, or vice versa, whereby the connection between the nozzle or outlet of the
box and deposit is broken.
Imparting to the pan conveyer intermittent motions of different extent.
Providing the dough or material chamber or box with a piston which alternately
ejects and stops the flow of the material.
Imparting to the piston an additional advance motion on the return from the
material box independent of the advance motion into the box.
An automatic stop motion to operate when the piston has descended to its full
extent.
In carrying the said Invention into practice I provide a frame upon which the
driving shaft is suitably mounted. There is also a swinging table which is
mounted at one end on a shaft, which, having its bearings on the frame, carries
a ratchet wheel which engages a pawl hung on an arm loosely fitted to a shaft,
said arm receiving motion from the driving shaft by means of a connecting rod.
Fixed to the driving shaft are cams which are adapted to bear against rollers
journalled to the table, and by rotation to elevate the table at intervals.
To said shaft is also connected a cam adapted to bear against one end of an
angular or rocking arm which is secured to a shaft mounted on the frame, the
other end of the arm having attached to it a spring, one end whereof is connected
to the frame.

page_text: I also provide an endless chain which is passed around a pulley connected to
a shaft and a pulley mounted on the end of the table opposite to said shaft.
To opposite ends of the shaft carrying the rocking arm are cranks to which are
attached upright connecting rods, the upper ends whereof are hung loosely on a
horizontal shaft which is mounted on a vertically sliding head located at the upper
portion of the frame and guided thereon.
Connected to the horizontal shaft are bevel wheels which gear with other bevel
wheels, each of which is fixed to a screw shaft fitted to an internally threaded
cylinder, the lower end of which is rigidly secured to a piston consisting of a hori-
zontally arranged head or plate which is fitted to the dough or material receiving
box of the machine, said box being freely supported on longitudinal guides whereby
it may be displaced and removed when required by sliding it on the guides clear
thereof; the cylinders are guided and retained in position by a cross piece attached
to the upper portion of the frame; the cylinders, vertical screw shaft, horizontal
screw shaft, and gearing move together as one with the head, and the box over-
hangs the table and chain.
The base of the box is provided with nozzles, and made removable from the box so
that nozzles of various designs may be employed and applied to the box for making
drops, scrolls, jumbles, lady-fingers, and other cakes or sweetmeats, and in the box.
above the base is supported a horizontal reticulated plate forming, in a measure,
a false bottom to the box. The base of the box has depending from it stops,
which limit the upward motion of the table and bakepans resting upon it, and the
piston has an air vent, the closing of which is occasioned by a valve.
A sliding rod, which extends parallel with the horizontal shaft, is mounted on
arms projecting from the head and is provided with stops, one abutting against the
arms and the other adapted to be engaged by a sliding nut which is loosely fitted
on said rod, and likewise fitted on the horizontal screw shaft so as to be moved
backward and forward in the transverse direction by the rotation of said screw
shaft.
Connected to a crank on the end of the driving shaft is an arm which is pivoted
to a pawl-carrying arm mounted loosely on the end of the horizontal screw shaft,
the pawl of said arm engaging with a ratchet which is keyed or otherwise rigidly
connected to the horizontal screw shaft. Fitted on the unthreaded part of said
shaft, and located between the ratchet and top of a portion of the frame, is a throw-
off consisting of a disc which rotates by friction with the shaft, and formed with a
flange which encircles a portion of the circumference of the ratchet wheel and top
thereof. In the edge of the disc of the throw-off is a notch into which the end of
the rod is adapted to enter, it being pressed thereinto at certain times by a coiled
spring which bears against one of the arms and one of the stops or abutments.
The endless chain, carriage, or conveyer is provided with upright studs or pins
which enter openings in the pans, and the sides of the conveyer are grooved for the
side edges of the pan, the beginning of the grooves being flaring.
The number or difference of teeth upon the first named ratchet wheel is a
multiple of the number of inches in the length of the pan or circumference of the
pulley around which the chain passes. For example, if the length of the pans and
circumference of the chain wheel is thirty six inches, and the number of teeth in
the ratchet wheel be six, the motion of the ratchet wheel will represent six inches
of motion of the pans, and six motions one entire revolution of the chain wheel
and a length of one pan.
The position of teeth upon the ratchet wheel is as follows:-The first five are
five and three fourths inches apart, and the last or sixth is seven and one fourth
inches apart, total thirty-six inches. This arrangement will make the last motion
of the pan, as it passes out from under the nozzle, one and a half inches greater
than the others. This increased motion will carry it clear of the space between
the pans and their edges.
In the centre of the frame is a scrap box which is suspended from transversely

page_text: extending ledges on said frame, whereby the box may be moved laterally and
displaced when required.
The reticulated plate has its perforations smaller than the nozzles, the object
whereof is first to sustain the material while the box is being filled, and afterwards
prevent the clogging of the nozzles with lumps of dough or other material. The
strainer is moveable and removable, and rises and falls freely with the action of the
piston upon the material in the box.
The piston has its sides horizontally grooved, so that as it descends into the
box some of the dough or other material oozes between the piston and box and
fills the grooves, thus making a plastic joint and preventing further escape of the
material.