IMPROVEMENTS IN AND APPARATUS FOR LUBRICATING STEAM AND GAS ENGINES AND FOR OTHER LUBRICATING PURPOSES, WHICH IMPROVEMENTS ARE ALSO APPLICABLE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF PRESSURE GAUGES, VACUUM GAUGES, BAROMETERS, WEIGHING, AND OTHER ANALOGOUS APPARATUS
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John James Royle at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 14th October 1881.
JOHN JAMES ROYLE, of 71, Market Street, Manchester, in the County of Lancaster,
Mechanical Engineer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN AND APPARATUS FOR LUBRICATING
STEAM AND GAS ENGINES AND FOR OTHER LUBRICATING PURPOSES, WHICH
IMPROVEMENTS ARE ALSO APPLICABLE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF PRESSURE
GAUGES, VACUUM GAUGES, BAROMETERS, WEIGHING, AND OTHER ANALOGOUS
APPARATUS."
This Invention refers, firstly, to improvements in a lubricator, for which Letters
Patent, No. 4909, were granted to me on the First day of December 1879, to
render such lubricator capable of feeding graphite or black lead (or other
lubricating powder) to engine cylinders, and consists in employing the steain jet
described in the Specification of my said Letters Patent to exhaust or partially
exhaust a vessel containing the powdered graphite or other lubricant in powder, so
inducing a current of air to act upon or through the graphite, and by thus agitating
it a portion of the graphite is carried along with the air passing to the steam jet,
and so fed into the cylinder. A valve is arranged to prevent the return of the
powdered lubricant at the period of high pressure in the cylinder.
Secondly. This Invention refers to the use of graphite (or other lubricant in a
powdered state) as a lubricator for gas engines, and to a modification of the
foregoing for feeding it to the cylinder of the gas engines. I employ the same
method of agitating the graphite by placing the lubricator on some part of the
engine where the charge of air and gas is drawn into the cylinder, and so that a
portion of the air may pass through the lubricator, and by agitating the graphite
carry some portion of it into the cylinder at each indraught.
Thirdly. This Invention refers to a novel construction of lubricator for use on
the valve chest or main feed pipe of steam engines, as well as on the cylinder of
such engines, and consists in the use and application to the purpose of one or more
diaphragms of corrugated steel or other suitable material acted upon through a
pipe from one or both ends of the engine cylinder. Valves are arranged in
connection with the diaphragms to control the flow of the lubricant and a glass
tube to indicate the quantity of lubricant being fed to the engine. At each
pulsation in the cylinder the diaphragms alternately act to draw in and press the

page_text: oil forward against the steam pressure into the valve chest or steam pipe. The
glass tube in conjunction with a regulating valve controlling the movement of the
diaphragms and the amount of lubricant fed to the engine. It should be
understood that instead of a diaphragm a piston and spring might be
substituted.
Fourthly. These improvements refer to a modification of the foregoing for
feeding lubricating material to journals or bearings of machinery, and consists in
employing one or more of the said diaphragms connected with the engine cylinder,
so that at each stroke of the engine a portion of the lubricating material may be
lifted and fed to the journal. I also employ the same corrugated steel diaphragm
in the construction of a pressure guage, and which is acted upon on the one side
by the fluid or gas whose pressure it is desired to ascertain, and on the other by a
colored liquid (as hereinbefore described) rising into a capillary tube of glass
arranged against a suitably divided scale. The deflections of the diaphragm under
the varying pressure causes the liquid to ascend or descend in this glass tube and
so indicate the pressure in a very sensitive manner, and this without the use of any
mechanical means as heretofore. The improvements lastly described are equally
applicable in the construction of barometers, weighing, and other analogous
apparatus.
The colored liquid which I prefer to employ in the before mentioned apparatus
is made by dissolving "fluoresceine" in alcohol, after which a little alkali is added
to increase the florescence.