IMPROVEMENTS IN ROLLER SKATES
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Hemsley at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 25th March 1876.
WILLIAM HEMSLEY, of 19, Salisbury Street, Strand, and Pimlico, Engineer.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN ROLLER SKATES."
Instead of employing any of the ordinary or well-known arrangements of angular
stud and castor-like disposition of studs (or studs and sockets), attached to the under
side of the sole plate or foot stock of wheel or roller skates, and of the arrangement
and disposition of the transverse axles carrying the rollers or wheels; and also
instead of the ordinary form of connection and mode of connecting such axles with
such angularly disposed stud or socket or castor-like" arrangement, I, by my
present Invention, substitute for such apparatus or mechanism, having as they
have numerous small parts and the complication incidental to such combination,
and use the following mechanical arrangement and disposition of parts, by which
a great simplification is effected. The number of parts reduced, the strength of
such parts increased, and the wearing of the surfaces and parts is reduced to a
minimum, whilst the safety and steadiness of the skates when in use is increased.
In applying my Invention to four-wheel skate, I attach to the under side of the
sole plate or foot stock, under the heel and toe thereof respectively, a grooved table-
peice, cast or formed at a suitable angle to and with the horizontal flange plate,
which is secured to the under side of the sole plate or foot stock, either by means
of two or more wood screws, or by means of a socket and screwed stud or pin, the
cheese or countersunk head of which is recessed into the upper side of the sole plate
or foot stock, and which screwed stud or pin, when tightened or screwed up, will
bring sufficient pressure to bear to cause four or more teeth or claws to enter the
under side of the wooden foot stock and hold the table peice or grooved carriage
firmly in its proper place. Within the grooves formed on the under side of such
table peice a carriage is fitted, having on its upper face the corresponding V or
other shaped projection to take into and slide therein freely, so that the motion or
movement of such carriage produces the compound motion necessary for enabling
the curved and straight movements of such skates to be readily effected by the
wearer or user thereof. To the lower part of such moving carriage is attached the
axle, having in some cases each of the rollers outside the bearers (right and left
thereof) when rollers of larger size are required; or, in most cases, I prefer to mount
the two wheels or rollers freely upon the same axle and within the width of the
carriage and the two outside bearings thereof.
Price 2dI

page_text: Any suitable form of spring may be applied, either separately to cach pair of
wheels (at the toe and heel) or a single spring may be interposed between the two
and act upon both simultaneously. and correspondingly. Vertical elasticity, or
yielding, or cushioning, may be introduced between the rollers or the axles thereof,
and the angular table peice, for taking off or counteracting the effects of shocks
whilst the skates are in use.