IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINES FOR CUTTING FABRICS AND MATERIALS
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edward Griffith Brewer at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 23rd February 1870. A communi-
cation from abroad by Pual Clovis Gerard, of Paris, France.
EDWARD GRIFFITH BREWER, of Chancery Lane, London. « IMPROVEMENTS IN
MACHINES FOR CUTTING FABRICS AND MATERIALS." A communication from abroad
by Paul Clovis Gerard, of Paris, France.
This Invention consists in the employment of a cutting blade as hereafter
described forming an endless band, applicable to machines for cutting delicate
articles, for example, fabrics, leather, skins, and even wood, ivory, and the like.
The essential features of this Invention are as follows:-
First. In the employment of an adjustable guide for the cutting blade, which can
be raised or lowered according to the thickness of the material to be cut, in order
that the blade may be supported and steadied at or near that part where it has the
most work to do.
Second. In the employment of a second and adjustable guide for the cutting tool
flush with the table, the said guide being made of wood or metal.
Third. In the employment of a regulating appliance for regulating the tension of
the blade.
Fourth. A machine constructed according to this Invention occupies relatively a
very small space without external motion, and the machine being portable can be
placed in any part of a workshop without any preparation for its reception being
necessary.
Fifth. The machine may be driven by the foot or hand without any addition to
the machine, by a treadle in the one case, and a crank in the other, and driving
pulleys.
Sixth. In the employment of automatic means for sharpening the blade by means
of sharpeners or stones arranged in convenient positions, and coming into operation
at a given moment, and at the will of the operator operating on the blade.
Seventh. The combination and arrangement of the parts of this machine allows of
its easy transport from place to place without fitting or foundation, and it carries its
own motive power.
Eighth. In the blade passing over special pulleys and independent of the driving
pulleys.
T..

page_text: The frame of the machine may be of wood or metal and be driven by a treadle
and fly wheel; there is a driving pulley and another pulley for transmitting the
power therefrom, on the axis of the latter pulley there is another pulley round
which passes an endless blade, which also passes round two other pulleys for
driving the blade, motion being imparted by foot or other convenient means.
At the upper part of the machine there is an arm or swan neck supporting a
carriage. The tension of the blade is obtained by means of a regulating screw and
its adjuncts. There is a guide for the blade above the table, by preference made of
metal, and arranged so as to be easily removed and replaced. Two sharpening
stones operate against the blade, either at top or bottom or the sides at once, so as
always to keep the blade sharp, which operation is effected at any desired time.
It is the general arrangement of the parts of this machine which is claimed as
new, not the parts in detail.
°
By the arrangements described fabrics can be cut with great facility, such as
shirts, collars, cuffs, other articles, and clothes in general, not only of a single
thickness, but any number of thicknesses at a time.
The machine instead of being driven by treadle may be driven by crank, and
the material to be cut may leave the patterns stamped through the different thick-
nesses to facilitate the cutting lip.