THE METHOD OF MAKING CERTAIN MACHINES FOR CUTTING OR SHEARING THE FUR FROM ALL PELTERIES, AND FOR SHEARING CLOTH
Year: 1811

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES
MALLORY, of the State of New York, one of the United States, now residing
in the City of London, Hatter, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twelfth day of March,
in the fifty-first year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said James
Mallory, my exors,.adññiors, and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole
privilege and authority, that I, the said James Mallory, my exors, adiiors,
and assigns, should and lawfully might, during the term of years therein
expressed, make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, an Invention communicated to me by certain
Foreigners, of "THE METHOD OF MAKING CERTAIN MACHINES FOR CUTTING OR
SHEARING THE FUR FROM ALL PELTERIES, AND FOR SHEARING CLOTH;" in which
said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said James
Mallory, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to cause a
particular description of the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be enrolled in His Maty's High
Court of Chancery within six calendar months after the date of the said
recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation being thereunto bad)
nay more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
James Mallory, do hereby declare that the nature of the said Invention, and

page_text: the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described
and ascertained as follows (that is to say):-
Firstly, as to that one of the certain machines aforesaid which hath been.
invented for cutting or shearing the fur from all pelteries, the construction.
thereof is shewn in the annexed Figures, Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, in which the
same letters denote the same parts or things. A, A, &c., denote the framing
of wood or other fit material; B, B, is an axis or shaft to which the first
mover is to be applied, whether the same be an handle or strap, or any other
instrument of counexion with the moving power.. The said axis or shaft has
a flexure at C, by means of which a crank is formed, which gives an up and
down motion to the jointed piece D, and to a framed piece E, E, E, E,
which is connected therewith, and rises and falls between the guides G, G;
the lower part of the said last-mentioned piece H, H, is faced with steel or
hard metal presenting a flat horizontal surface towards the edge of a knife
1, I, which is directed upwards; and the said knife is secured and adjustable
in its place by screws, so that H, H, in its descent shall not actually strike 1, 1,
but shall approach with its face very near to the said edge; and in order to
prevent any stroke from actually taken place, there are two small steel blocks
or anvils at the ends of the blade, but a little higher than its edge, upon which
the lower face H, H, impinges at the lowest descent. One of the said small
blocks or anvils is seen at h, and the other, at the extremity N, could not be
shewn on account of the other apparatus there exhibited. M, M, represents
two fluted or grooved cylinders connected together by toothed wheels, and
upon the arbor of one them is a ratchet wheel N, and a driving pulley K.
O, P, is a lever moveable on the centre O, and confined to a certain position
by an under spring u and a pin stop not represented in the Figure; but the
said lever is capable of having one end raised by the projecting piece Q, which
is fixed upon E, E, and consequently, at the same time of having the outer
part P depressed along with a rod or piece R, which is moveable upon P as a
center, and is kept locked in the wheel N by the action of the back spring T;
and the center P may be set farther out from or nearer to the center O by
putting the center pin P in a different hole, or by any common adjustment of
the like description, so as to cause a greater or less depression of the piece R,
which acts upon the wheel N. S is a spring click to prevent any recoil or
L, L, are two other fluted or grooved
irregular motion of the wheel N.
rollers, placed so that a line supposed to be drawn intermediate between I
and L and M and M, shall pass either correctly thro' the line of the edge 1, I
or a little below it; and the said pairs of cylinders have their axis parallel to
each other and to the said edge; and the said cylinders respectively in each

page_text: pair are made to take or act into each other firmly by means of weights or
springs with or without the intervention of levers, according to the various
well-known methods of compressing cylinders together, but the pressure in the.
present case is to be steady and gentle; V represents a pully, which is driven
by a string or band from k with a cross therein, and carries W a plain roller,
which, along with another small roller X, carries a web Y, Y, stretched upon
the said rollers, and the diameters of the said pulleys K. V, and of the roller W.
must be such that the surface of the said roller W shall move with the same
velocity as the mean surface of the roller M, upon the arbor of which K is fixed.
The proportions of the said diameters will admit of great variety, but one of
them, which is as simple and obvious as any, is to make K and Vequal and W.
and M equal, as is done in the Drawing; and it is convenient that X should
not exceed on inch in diameter. The action of the said machinery is as
follows: The pelts, having been slightly damped to render them flexible, are
to be passed between the rollers L, L, over the edge of the knife I, and
between the rollers M, M, for which purpose it will be convenient that a
number of the said pelts should be sewed or pasted or otherwise attached to
cloth or to each other, so that the same may be successively drawn along.
The hair side or face is to be turned downwards, so as to pass over the edge
of the knife. The cutting is effected by turning the arbor B, B, which causes
the framed piece E, E, to rise and fall; when H arrives at its lowest descent.
it strikes the back of the skin, and causes the knife I to cut thro' the fur, but
not thro' the skin. When the framed piece E ascends, Q acts upon O, P, by
depressing P, which, by means of R, pushes the ratchet wheel N through a
fit space to draw the skin forward about one thirtieth of an inch, more or less;:
when II descends again, a new cut is made through the fur. O, P, recovers
its position, the cut fur is kept on the side I by the face of the knife, and the
rise of E, E, again causes a like shift of the ratchet wheel N and the pelt,
which is drawn between M and N, and by continuing these successive strokes
the fur is neatly and effectually cut off, and gradually descends without
breaking asunder or separating till it arrives at X, where the web gently.
takes it up and carries it along precisely in the same condition and relative
situation as it occupied upon the skin.
And I do farther declare, that the said machine may be formed so as to
produce the same effect by a similar mode of action with various changes in
the construction and relative situations of the several parts thereof, and that
the smaller parts of the fraining which have been omitted for the purpose of
exhibiting the essential parts are such as may with facility be adapted and
made by any competent workman; and to the end that the said various.

page_text: changes may be more easily apprehended, I do declare that as parts or parti-
culars of some of the said changes the fly wheel F may be omitted, and is
scarcely requisite unless the work be done by hand turning; that the piece
E, E, may be not only altered in its figure and guided by braces or parallel
work or other well-known leading pieces, but the same may also be raised and
let down by tripping pins or snail work, or other such gear which are familiar
to millwrights and other mechanics; that the vertical positions of the knife
and the sticking piece are not essentially necessary; that, provided the relative
actions take place, it is scarcely material whether the actual motion be in the
knife I or in the flat piece II, tho' I prefer the construction I have given;
and that, in like manner as the pelts may be presented to the machines in a
state of connexion with or fastened to a long web of cloth rolled up for the
convenience of carriage, so likewise may the cut fur be received upon the face
of a long web of cloth instead of the web Y, Y, which long web may be rolled
up along with the said cut fur, and carried away for the purpose of selection,
sorting, and packing at any subsequent time.
. And farther I do declare, that in order to accommodate itself more perfectly
to skins considerably differing in the thickness of their respective parts, I do in
some machines make the lower part H, H, not of one continued piece, but
of a number of small pieces of steel set in a socket or long quadrangular
groove, in the manner of printers' types, but so confined in the said socket or
groove that the said pieces shall be at liberty to come forward and form one
uniform face, each being urged by a back spring and stopped by a side stud
or nick, or other equivalent contrivance, by which structure all the said pieces
are made to come down upon the back of the skin in the same manner as the
plain face would have done; but if resisted in any part by an extraordinary
thickness, that part of the compound metallic face will yield and recede instead
of causing the knife to enter more deeply into the face of the skin.
And, secondly, as to that other one of the machines aforesaid which hath
been invented for shearing cloth, 1 do hereby declare that the same doth
consist in a variation of the machine herein-before described in and as to the
following particulars:-I make the knife I, I, with an edge bevelled on one
side only, like the edge of shears; and instead of the face H, H, I do fix and
apply to the rising and falling piece a corresponding straight edge bevelled
the other way; and I make the line of the edge H, H, not parallel to I, I,
but inclined to it in a small angle lying in the plane of the motion (see the
scetch, Fig. 4). And I do cause the elges to bear against each other by
springs at the guides 9, 9, or counterweights and levers or such other means
as are well-known to be suitable to such purposes; and instead of using the

page_text: rollers L, L, M, M, and the apparatus K, P, W, Y, I do pass the cloth over
or round o roller L (see the sketch, Fig. 3), from which the same is led very near
the cutting edge I, I, over a smooth strait cylindrical edge of wood X, Fig. 3,
or the like parallel to I, I, and after passing the said edge, the cloth is turned
back between a pair of grooved rollers or over one roller Y, Fig. 3, armed
with short points and very slightly tapered from the middle to the ends, which
said two pair of grooved rollers or single roller armed with short poiuts are or
is moved by apparatus of the same description as that denoted by the letters
N, O, P, Q, R, S. And farther, I do, by carding or combing cylinder M,
Fig. 3, lay the nap of the cloth all oue way in the direction of its motion
previous to the arrival of the same near the cutting; and just before its actual
arrival at that edge, I do raise the said nap by the application of a long thin
open-haired brush N, Fig. 3, of stiff bristles, immediately after passing which
brush the said nap falls over upon the said edge I, and is cut off by the stroke,
and, is in the former machine, the cutting stroke and the action of shifting
the pelt are alternate, so in the machine now describing, and for the like
reasons, the action of shifting or drawing forward the cloth is made in the
interval between one cutting stroke and the other next following.
In witness whereof, I, the said James Mallory, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Twenty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and eleven..