Machinery for Preparing and Combing Wool and other Fibrous Materials.
Year: 1851

page_text: Machinery for Preparing and Combing Wool
and other Fibrous Materials.
..
Ten dorm
انة
*****LISTER'S SPECIFICATION. 21
>>
rd
....
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I
SAMUEL CUNLIFFE LISTER, of Manningham,, neur, Bradford, in the
County of York, send greeting;
WHEREAS Fler present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria,
by Her Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster,,
the Twenty-fourth day of February, One thousand eight hundred and:
fifty-one, in the fourteenth year of, Her reign, did, for Herself, Her
heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said Samuel Cunliffe
Lister, my exorsadors, and assigns; Her especial license, full power,.
sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Samuel Cunliffe Lister,.
my exors; adñiors, and-assigns, or such others as: 1; the said Samuel
Cunliffe Lister, my exors, admors, or assigns, should at any time agree;
with; and no others, from time to time and at all times during the term
of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exer
cise, and vend, within England, Wales and the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, my Invention of IMPROVEMENTS IN PREPARING AND COMBING
WOOL AND OTHER FIBROUS MATERIALS," in which said Letters Patent
1

page_text: is contained a proviso, that I, the said Samuel Cunliffe Lister, shall
cause a particular description of the nature of my said Invention, and
in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument in
writing under my hand and seal, to be inrolled in Her Majesty's High
Court of Chancery, within six calendar months next and immediately
after the date of the said in part recited Letters.Patent, as in and by
reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large
the same,
appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the
said Samuel Cunliffe Lister, do hereby declare that the nature of iny
said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed,
are fully described and ascertained in and by the following statement
thereof, reference being had to the Drawings hereuntoannexed, and to
the figures and letters marked thereon, that is to say:
Up to this period the combing of long wood by machinery has never
been successfully accomplished, owing to the difliculty of properly pre-
paring it; the machines hitherto used have either broken the wool, or
the process has been too costly. The carding of fine wool has greatly
facilitated the after process of combing such wools, but the long coarse
wool requires a different treatment to preserve the spinning properties.
Now my Improvements in preparing consist in placing a comb in
front of ascrewgill, porcupine roller, or ordinary rollers, and as the wool
or hair is brought forward by the gill or rollers the points of the wool
are combed, worked, and opened out by the comb placed in front of the
gill, the wool being at the same time held tight and drawn into a sliver
by a pair of rollers placed about three inches from the front of the gill
for coarse wool, and about one inch for fiue wool; but the distance
may be varied according to the description of wool under process. It
is very important that the gill should have porcupine feed rollers, and
also be heated. And I find that a fire box placed under the gill combs,
so that the heat can ascend amongst the teeth, to answer perfectly well.
The comb that works the wool betwixt the gill and the drawing rollers
has motion given to it by a crank, but other means may be used; but
I prefer a crank, on account of the high speed at which it may be
worked. Supposing the gill to run at the rate of one hundred and

page_text: twenty fallers (gill combs) per minute, the crank motion should cause
the comb to make seven hundred blows per minute, but that may be
varied according to the wool undertreatment, fine wool requiring more
working than coarse.
In order that this part of my Invention may be more fully under-
stood, I will now proceed to describe the Drawings annexed. Figure 1,
shows a diagram of an arrangement for carrying out this part of my
Invention. W, is the wool to be operated upon, carried forward by
the teeth of g, (the gill,) which should be varied according to the
wool, say about four to the lineal inch, and three rows in each gill
comb for coarse wool, and for very fine wool about as many more.
The comb C, being governed and controlled in its motion by the two
cranks C1, C2, has nearly a circular motion communicated to it; and
supposing the teeth of the gill to be one inch and a half in length (the
combs having the teeth the same length), should rise one and a half
inch, and penetrate through the wool as near as possible to the gill ;
and supposing the drawing rollers to be three inches from the gill, the
comb should travel in a horizontal direction about two and a half
inches, so as to work the wool, and at the same time to deliver it to the
rollers R, so that the wool is not allowed to accumulate upon the comb,
but simply to be worked by it.
I will now proceed to describe my improvements in combing. The
workman in combing wool by manual labour lashes the wool on to the
comb, and each successive portion of the wool is retained by the loop
formed by the fibres of the wool round the teeth of the comb, and that
is also the usual practice in machine combing; but in some instances
that mode of proceeding is reversed, and each portion of wool is taken
by the comb approaching to and receding from the feed rollers; but in
every case the fibres are looped round the teeth of the comb, and thus
when the wool is drawn off, the fibres are broken and more noil is
made.
Now it is evident that any system of filling combs with wool straight,
and without looping it, must be attended with great advantages; and I
will now proceed to describe the method that I use for doing so ; but
I do not confine myself to the plan shewn, as porcupine rollers or com-

page_text: mon feed rollers may be used instead of the screw gill, and the other
parts of the machine may be varied.
Figure 2, shews a longitudinal section; Figure 3, a side view; and
Figure 4. a plan of so much of a machine for combing wool as will
illustrate this part. of my Invention. , a, is the framing; b, is the
driving shaft, which is driven by means of a suitable band froma steam
engine or other power acting upon the drum 61. Upon this shaft b, is
fixed the pinion 6, which takes intoand drives the toothed wheel con
the shaft or axis el, upon which are fixed the bevilled pinions c, c
which take into and drive the bevilled pinions d, d, on the axes of the
lower pairs of screws by which the gill combs are worked; and these
lower gill shafts are connected with the upper screw shaft, so as to
give motion thereto by means of the pinions, as is well understood.
The wool or hair is fed into the gill combs e, e, through the feed
rollers, and is received from the gill teeth by the bars or nipping
instruments g, h, which separate from each other just as they come to
receive the wool or hair from the gill teeth, and then close, so as to hold
a portion of wool or hair firmly between them, and draw out as they
recede from the face of the gill teeth such portion from the other, still
held by the gill combs. In order to this being done, the instrument.g
consists of a plate carried by the bar g', with a capability of its yielding
somewhat when nipping by means of the springs g², g. The bar g', is
fixed to the upper ends of the armsg.g, which are connected together
attheir lower ends by the bossg', and turn freely on the shaft or axis y'.
The lower nipping instrument h, is carried by the side plates ', which
are capable of sliding on the arms g³, in order to the instrument h,
separating from the instrument g, to admit of the fibre being received
between them, and then closing to hold the fibre, as described. This
movement is obtained by means of the cams 2, affixed to the shaft or
axis gs, acting on the trucks or rollers he carried by the side plates /'.
The shaft or axis g, receives motion from the pinion be, by means of
the intermediate wheel 4, taking into that pinion and into the teeth of
the wheel, aflixed to the shaft or axis g. The upper ends of the
arms g3, are controlled in their movement, so that when the nip on the
fibre has taken place, the drawing or detaching may be effected by

page_text: means of the connecting rods go, go, which at one end receive the ends
of the bar g', and at the other ends are connected to the crank pins g',
from the axis c¹. The portion of fibre detached from that in the gill
teeth is brought forward by the instrument g, h, into the position indi-
cated by the red lines, when the comb i, comes into operation to take
the wool from the instrument g, h, (they separating at that time for
that purpose,) and lay it on to the comb teeth j, which I have shewn
to be of the ordinary kind, travelling in a circle, but this may be varied.
The comb i, is supported by an arm from the axis i¹, and is controlled
in its movement in the following manner :-The axis ¹, is capable of
turning in the socket formed at the end of the lever², but is prevented
being loose therein by reason of the spring 3. The lever 1³, is at its
lower end affixed to the crank i¹, on the axis , upon which is affixed
the toothed wheel, which receives motion from the toothed wheel i7,
affixed on the axis g. The lever 2, is also connected to one end of
the link 8, the other end of which turns upon a stud carried by the
framing as shewn. By this combined action of the crank is, and con
necting link 18, movement is obtained to the upper end of the lever 22,
and the combi, is further controlled by means of the studs 20,20, carried
by the fixed rod 10; these studs receiving between them the stem i¹¹,
from the axis . The wool or other fibre, as it is received on to the
comb, is pressed down by means of the brush, which is supported
at the upper end of the rod k¹, which slides through the guide k, and
and has up and down motion given to it by means of the lever c³,
which turns upon the axis +, and at its other end is connected to the
excentric rod, from the excentric 6, by which it is worked.
And I would further remark that by this system of filling, much finer
combs may be used than is usually the case. In each gill comb there
should be three or four rows, and not less than twelve to the lineal inch,
and they may be increased in proportion to the fineness of the wool;
and the comb upon which the wool is placed should not in any case
have less than twelve to the lineal inch, and eight rows of teeth, but it
must be increased in fineness according to the wool.
Second, my improvement consists in applying heat to the machine
patented by Josué Heilman, in One thousand eight hundred and forty-

page_text: five, and also in making the teeth that first comb the wool as fine as
the back rows, which has not hitherto been the case. The Inventor of
this machine appeared to think that heat would be objectionable; but
I find, on the contrary, it is very beneficial in preserving both the wool
and the teeth of the combs from injury; for if the teeth are broken it
is evident that the fibres must be injured at the same time; and as is
well known to all experienced combers that heat causes the teeth
to pass through the wool with greater facility, especially when worked
in a moist or damp state. The fire box is placed in such a position,
that heat ascends and warms the teeth as soon as the noil is removed,
and before they begin to comb the wool. This arrangement is shewn
by Figure 5. a, is the cylinder upon which the combs are fixed; and
F, the fire box placed underneath; it is very simple, and readily applied.
It has been found in practice that the combs used in Heilman's ma-
chine are very subject to be broken and injured, and in consequence of
that they have always been made with the teeth stronger and coarser in
front, that is, those that first begin to comb the wool. Now this injury
has proceeded from two causes; first, the want of heat; and secondly,
from the wool not being properly prepared. Now I find that when the
combs are heated, and the wool well carded, that the teeth that first
begin to comb the wool may be made with great advantage as fine or
finer than the back rows, especially for carded wool, on account of the
knots being so small and difficult to extract.
Another part of my Invention consists in carding upon a common
carding engine the noil or short silk made in combing that which is
long; also the tow or noil made in heckling or combing the long flax,
and afterwards combing it, either upon the machine herein described, or
any other suitable machine. The chief thing to be observed is, that the
fibres are preserved in carding, and then the combs are sufficiently
fine to take out the knots, say not less than twenty-four to the lineal
inch, but I prefer about forty to the inch for combing the silk noil.
I would here remark, that I do not claim for combing or carding and
combing the long silk or flax, but only the refuse, that is, the noil which
has never before been combed ; and I would also observe, that it may
be prepared by other suitable means before combing, but I prefer to

page_text: card it. I also find that cotton after being carded can be combed with
great advantage upon the machine herein described, especially where it
is required to be spun to high numbers The success of a combing
machine depends very much upon the fineness of the combs used; in
such machines as Preller's, having moveable combs, I find that a great
deal better work and more top may be produced by having the combs
finer than they are now used, say not less than twelve to the lineal inch.
The mode of action of this machine is to lash each detached piece of
wool as taken from the feed rollers against a surface covered with cards,
so that the trash is effectually removed from the beard of the wool; but
when the wool is drawn from the combs now used, the knots are drawn
out of the comb head. Now I find this effectually prevented by using
combs for fine wool with about twenty teeth to the inch.
There is also another kind of machine, patented by Ramsbotham,
where the wool is fed on to a circular comb, and is worked by a screw
gill comb. In such machines I find it a great improvement not to have
less than sixteen per lineal inch in each row in the circular carrying
comb, and not less than twelve to the lineal inch in the screw gill
working comb; but for very fine wool about twenty-four to the inch.
The combing of alpaca and mohair or goats' wool by machinery has
not hitherto succeeded; the alpaca wool requiring, if possible, to be
combed without a single imperfection; and it is at the present time
combed three or four times over by hand to make the wool as perfectas
possible. Now these wools can only be successfully treated by using fine
combing instruments. The machine herein-before described is peculiarly
adapted, because the gill comb can be made and used of any degree
of fineness. Also the machine known as Preller's may be used with
advantage for combing such wools, especially after being carded upon a
common carding engine, because after being carded such wools are free
and open, and the knots readily removed by any fine combing instru-
ment; and I claim for combing such wools, after being carded upon
the machines above described. Coarse Russia wool, such as is usually
made into moreens, may also be combed with advantage after being
carded upon combs having not less than five to the lineal inch. And I
claim for combing such wools upon Preller's, or any combing machine

page_text: where the teeth, whether card or otherwise, are close and finely set,
after being first carded.
In witness whereof, I, the said Samuel Cunliffe Lister, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-third day of
August, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred
and fifty-one
Enrolled the Twenty-third day of August, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-one.