THE MANUFACTURE OF IMPROVED MACHINE BELTING, AND APPARATUS CONNECTED THERE- WITH
Year: 1860

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Albert C. Richard at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 16th April
1860.
I, ALBERT C. RICHARD, of the City of New York, in the United States of
America, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "THE
MANUFACTURE OF IMPROVED MACHINE BELTING, AND APPARATUS CONNECTED THERE-
WITH," to be as follows (that is to say) :-
My Invention, which has reference to an improved treatment of the
material or stock out of which belting or banding formed of cloth or canvass
coated with india-rubber or other elastic gums, or their compounds, is manu-
factured, consists in performing by improved and novel mechanism most of the
operations which have been heretofore done by hand labour, and in finishing
the manufacture of such belting by submitting the same to the usual
vulcanizing or heating process under pressure between polished. glass, stone,
or slate surfaces, or between highly polished. surfaces obtained by coating
bodies which are good conductors of heat with a vitreous glazing or enamel
similar to the glazing usual on earthenware or porcelain.
The entire piece of canvass, coated in the usual manner, either single or
two or more thicknesses welded together, and with the cotton cloth lining
between its several convolutions (necessary to prevent its adhering together),
is hung on a hollow shaft in a frame, and by being passed over a metal roller
under a series of adjustable revolving knives to which motion is imparted by

page_text: power, is cut into as many strips in a longitudinal direction, as is desired, the
same operation winding the liberated lining on a separate hollow shaft pre-
paratory to future use. As fast as the strips are thus cut they are by the
same mechanism wound up, each separately, with linings adapted to their
several widths, on suitable hollow shafts, ready to be made up into belts.
I now place two strips, as described, in a frame, one above the other; the
lower strip is to be double the width of the upper strip; then I
pass them
through suitable guides, in order to bring the narrow or inner strip as near as
can be on the middle of the wider or outer strip. I pass the two together
between two welding rollers, by which they become firmly united to each
other. The compound strip issueing from between the welding rollers is now
formed partly into a belt by folding the sides of the widest strip over or around
the narrow inner strip in such a manner as to cause the edges to meet each
other on the centre of the narrow strip.
the forming
It is by thus
The frame in which the coils of strips are suspended, and which contains
the guides and welding rollers, is placed upon a railway (laid on the floor of
the work place), so as to be readily adjusted in relation to
apparatus (herein-after to be specified) by means of set screws.
regulating the distance between this frame and the forming apparatus that the
formation of belts of different widths is facilitated. The compound strip now
partly begun to be formed into a belt is forwarded to the forming apparatus,
consisting of a combination of devices fixed in a suitable framing fastened at
the end of the railway above referred to, passed between adjustable folding
rollers of peculiar form, then over one or more rollers provided with adjustable
collars, which determine the exact width of the future belt into or between
two callender rollers, which draw the formed belt through the previous train
of devices by the power applied to move these callender rollers. I likewise
provide on the forming apparatus a device which prevents the edges of the
outside strip from overlapping each other in the act of forming the belt; this
device guides a small endless strip of gum compound exactly on the seam
formed by the meeting of the two edges of the outside strip around the inner
one; this small endless strip is fastened on the surface of the seam by the
pressure of the callender rollers, which also renders the belt itself very compact
and solid, while the tension and drawing action induced by my mode of manu-
facture deprives the belt of its future liability to stretch when in use.
The belt after being thus formed and firmly consolidated, is placed for
heating or vulcanizing between two polished surfaces, which I form of plate
glass, of slabs of stone or slate solidly cemented to hollow metal boxes,
or I vulcanize the belt between surfaces which I form by coating any heat-

page_text: conducting bodies of suitable form with any hard or vitreous enamel sus-
ceptible of a high polish, by which I am enabled to give to the belt a smoother
and more general even surface than can be produced by the employment of
metal surfaces, which are constantly liable to corrode through the action of the
gases evolved during the heating process; metal surfaces are also subject to
lose their factitious polish through oxidation in the atmosphere.
When I desire to vulcanize several belts at one operation, I place smooth
enameled bars of a similar thickness as the belts between the edges of the
latter, in order to render these edges as near as possible smooth and square.
Heat is applied to the belts in any of the well-known manners.