IMPROVEMENTS IN CARDING ENGINES
Year: 1844

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
HENRY RITCHIE, of Lincoln's Inn, in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by
Her Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twenty-seventh day of September, in the eighth year of
Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto
me, the said William Henry Ritchie, Her especial licence, full power,
sole privilege and authority, that I, the said William Henry Ritchie, my
exors, adiñiors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said William Henry
Ritchie, my exors, adñiors, 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, the Inven-
tion of "IMPROVEMENTS IN CARDING ENGINES," communicated to me by a certain
Foreigner residing abroad; in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso
that I, the said William Henry Ritchie, shall cause a particular description
of the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be inrolled in Her said 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
William Henry Ritchie, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully described and
ascertained in and by the following statement thereof, reference being had to
the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the figures and letters marked thereon, 5
that is to say:-
The object of the present Invention is to apply apparatus to carding engines
to clean out in an uniform and regular manner the top cards. The apparatus
is capable of acting upon each of such cards, and is worked by the movement
of the carding engine, and is intended to supercede the present system of 1
cleaning out the cards by hand, which presents many difficulties, and is done
very irregularly, one workman being employed to clean the heads of eight or
ten cards, and whilst he is cleaning one, the others become choked up, which
produces great irregularity in the preparation ;..whereas by the adoption of this
improvement to each card, these inconveniences are prevented, and there is a
continuous uniformity which is indispensable to produce a good preparation of
the material under operation. The apparatus produces the following effects,
constituting the peculiar character of the combination:-
First, the raising up each head by the two ends.
Second, the head of the card being raised up, is held there sufficiently firm
to allow of its being cleaned out readily.
Third, a cleaning-out card, pressing against the head in its passage, takes
the material on to its teeth, then it moves back on its return to fall in a box,
which is open, one or more times a day according to circumstances.
Fourth, the card having been cleaned, is brought back again into its original
position on the cylinder.
This application consists of four parts,-
First, the means of putting it in operation.
Secondly, the successive elevation or raising up the heads of the cards.
Thirdly, the to-and-fro movement of the clearing cards. And,
Fourthly, the operation of the system of clearing the cards.
The Drawing will assist in understanding the nature of the Invention.
Figure 1 represents a lateral elevation of a carding engine, having the
apparatus applied thereto. Figure 2 is an end view, with the clearing system
applied. In the Drawing, the ordinary parts of the carding engine are not
shewn except so much as will shew the application of the new apparatus to it;
the red lines shew the cylinder, and also the framing of the machine, which
may be of wood or metal. I will first explain the method of putting in
operation the new apparatus. At the left-hand end of the shaft A is fixed a

page_text: pulley B, which is connected by means of a band to another pulley C, fixed upon
an intermediate axis or shaft D which runs across the machine. The opposite
end of this shaft carries a small bevelled pinion F, the shaft D being supported
in bearings E, E. The pinion F takes into the beveled wheel G, the axis of
which turns in a necked piece I fixed to the framing of the engine. At the
lower part of this axis is another wheel H, which by its alternate contact (at
each end of the action of the clearing system), with one or the other of the
bevilled wheels J and K, changes the way of working the apparatus. These
two wheels work together on the same socket which slides on the shaft L.
This shaft L has formed on it a screw a' which takes into the wheel M,
supplied with a pin 7, the effect of which is, in pressing at the end of a course
upon the spindle of the balance lever N, to which are attached the chains of
the springs (or they may be counterweights) P, sliding motion is given to the
forked piece O, which connects one of the bevil wheels J or K with the wheel
H on the vertical shaft I. At the end of each course the pins / produce this
effect, the forked piece O sliding the contrary way, and taking into the other
wheel on the vertical shaft, and thus changing the turning of the shaft L.
At each end of this shaft L is a toothed wheel q, over which passes a chain x,
which chain is conducted on one side by the small wheel H, and gives motion
to the toothed wheels y, one of which is placed on each side of the axis of
the large drum. Each of the chains x afterwards pass over another wheel X
carried by the side frames or arms S. The axes of these wheels X carry
small pinions which takes into the wheels R, R'. Thus it will be seen, that
the preceding arrangement has been to establish the communication of the
movement of the carding engine to the wheels R and R', where will be found
concentrated the command of the different parts of the apparatus. The object
of changing the wheels J and K, so as to bring them alternately into gear
with the wheel H, is to change the way of working of the clearing system at
each end of the course or partial rotation of the large cylinder. I will now
describe the mode of raising the top cards. The wheels R and R' differ the
one from the other, inasmuch as the wheel R has an eccentric groove formed
in its side which the wheel R' has not. At the back of the wheels R and R'
is a small truck b, which in the rotary movement of cach of those wheels raises
an arc c, from the socket of which rises a rod d, which is guided at the upper
part by the collar f, and at the lower part by the collar f', these collars being
carried by projections from the arms 8, s, placed on each side of the carding
engine, and which carry all the parts of the clearing apparatus (it being made
in two parts to facilitate its movement around the axes of the large cylinder
without depending upon it). It results from the rotatory motion of the

page_text: truck b, b, and the arrangement of the are piece c, and square supports e, e,
which come under the ends of the top cards and are fixed to the rods d, that
one of the top cards will be raised each revolution of the wheels R, R', and
kept so during, the contact of the trucks with the ares c, the parts 'e being
so formed as to hold the ends of the top cards. I will now describe the to-and-
fro movement of the clearing apparatus. The eccentric groove a in the wheel
Rreceives a projection attached to a sector T, which oscillates upon a
bearing m fixed to one of the arms S. This sector has teeth at its upper part
which take into a pinion U, fixed at the end of the shaft or axis V, which
extends across the machine as shewn. On this axis V are two pinions o, o, in
contact with racks p, p. These racks p are affixed to the clearing card i
which is stationed to clear the heads of the cards g. This card i, the racks p,
the axis V, and the box j (where the material from the cards is deposited) are
all supported by the side arms S, S. The motion of the projection l' in the
eccentric groove a of the wheel R produces, by means of the sector T and the
pinions o, o, the to-and-fro movement of the racks p, p, and consequently of
the clearing cards i, i, to which the racks p, p, are attached. The eccentric
groove a and the sector T, with the pinion U, are placed only on one side of the
machine, that being sufficient. The clearing card i is worked to and fro by
means of the pinions o, o, taking into the racks p, p. I will now describe
the movement of the clearing apparatus. In the previous description I have
described the mode of raising the head of the card and the method of clearing
the top card by forcing out of it the material into the box j, and also how the
head of the card falls down again in its position upon the large drum or
cylinder of the engine (when the trucks on the wheels R, R', pass from under
the arcs c, c). It only remains now to describe how that motion is given to
the apparatus by which the different heads of cards, as the machine goes round,
may be operated upon in their turn. In order that the clearing of the heads
of cards may be continuous, the apparatus is arranged not to clear every
card consecutively, but every other head of card. It will result from this,
that when the apparatus has passed round nearly half the circumference of the
large cylinder, only half the number of the heads of the cards will have been
cleared, and in returning the other intermediate heads will be cleared; there
will be no stoppage of the system of clearing. Thus, supposing in the first
instance, the numbers of the top cards to be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, up to 20, and
that in the first action of the apparatus the numbers cleared would be 1, 3, 5
7, 9, &c., in returning they would be 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 3, 2,
until the apparatus arrived at the position from whence it started, when it
would be ready to go on again-as before. This selection is produced by the

page_text: following arrangement. On the framing Z is fixed an are which is divided
into as many hollow notches as there are tops in the carding engine. At the
angle of each of these notches are two projecting pieces S, S, which form
toothed picces into which the projections on the wheels u work. These
wheels u are fixed one upon the axis of the wheel R, the other upon the axis
of the wheel R, and turn with those axes. The movement of the wheels is
such, that when the top card is being cleared, and until after it has resumed
its position upon the drum or cylinder, one of the teeth of the wheel or plate
is removed from the notch of the arc z, and the other takes into, not the next
notch of the arc, but the following one; that is to say, that the plate u
slides into the intermediate notch without stopping. When this clearing
apparatus has passed through the first course, or nearly half the circumference
of the large cylinder, it has only cleared out half the number of top cards,
it will therefore be necessary on returning to clear out those cards which
had been passed over in the first movement. This change of operation is
effected by means of the reversing movement which has been spoken of above.;
but there is another effect to be produced, that is, the changing of the top
cards to be cleaned on the return of the apparatus, which should be placed
perpendicularly to those top cards which have not been touched by the first
operation of the apparatus. To obtain this result the last notch s at each end.
of the arc z, instead of being of the same piece as the arc, is fixed by a
pivot, and is acted upon by a spring as shown. The operation of this tooth is
such, that when the apparatus comes to turn back it yields under the pressure
of the tooth of the plate u, which cannot then take into it but passes on to
the next notch, which changes the position of the aparatus, and places it
under the top cards that have not been cleared. This notch, which is placed
at each end of the arch, is for the purpose of producing the change in the
position of the apparatus to the top cards. The character of the Invention is,
the combination of the different parts which constitute the peculiarity of the
system. The mode of communicating motion from the large drum or cylinder
to the wheel R, R', may be modified so as to produce the same effect, and the '
parts may be varied, and also the materials of which it is constructed.
Figure 3 represents three views of the principal wheel R.
1.
Figure 4 shews one of the sectors for raising the tops of the cards.
Figures 5 and 6 are the elevation and plan of one of the top cards with tlie
square piece e..
Figures 7, 8, and 9, are different views of the clearing apparatus i, with
springs at each end to give an elasticity to the pressure under the tops.
Figure 10 represents the arc z with the wheel or plate u.

page_text: Having thus described the nature of the Invention, and the manner of
performing the same, I would have it understood that the Invention is not
confined to the precise details described, so long as the character of the
Invention be retained. But what I claim is, the mode of cleaning the top
cards of a carding engine, as herein described.
In witness, I the said William Henry Ritchie, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-seventh day of March, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and forty-five.