IMPROVEMENTS IN MECHANISM OR APPARATUS FOR FEEDING FUEL INTO FURNACES, FIRE-BOXES, AND FIRE-GRATES.”
Year: 1878

page_text: 66
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Francis Hutchinson at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 20th April 1878.
FRANCIS HUTCHINSON, of Grimston, near the City of York, Glass Manufacturer.
IMPROVEMENTS IN MECHANISM OR APPARATUS FOR FEEDING FUEL INTO FURNACES,
FIRE-BOXES, AND FIRE-GRATES.”
My Invention has reference to the mechanism or apparatus for feeding fuel into
furnaces, fire-boxes, and fire-grates, for which Letters Patent were granted to John
Frisbie on the 3rd day of January 1868, No. 27, and my said Invention consists of
the improvements herein-after described in the said mechanism, whereby it is made
to supply fuel from a hopper, and the manual labour required to work the mechanism
as originally constructed is in great part dispensed with.
In order that my improvements may be the better understood, I remark that the
mechanism to which my Invention relates introduces fuel into the furnace, fire-box,
or fire-grate at a central opening in the bottom of the furnace, fire-box, or fire-grate,
and the said mechanism consists essentially of a feeding box, in which the fuel to be fed
to the furnace is charged. This feeding box is carried by a shaft, and by the motion of
the feeding box upon its shaft it can either be brought immediately under the opening
in the bottom of the furnace, or turned aside from that position. The said feeding
box has a moveable bottom, and when the said feeding box, charged with fuel, is
brought under the opening in the furnace the moveable bottom of the said feeding
box is raised, and the fuel contained in the said feeding box introduced into the
furnace. As the feeding box is turned from under the opening in the bottom of the
furnace the said opening is closed by an apron or curved plate attached to the rear
of the feeding box, which plate passes under the opening in the furnace as the
feeding box retires from the said opening.
In the mechanism, as originally designed, the feeding box was charged with fuel
by manual labour.
My improvements consist of the following additions to and modifications of the
said mechanism, whereby it is made to effect the charging of the feeding box from
the hopper:-I place by preference in front of the furnace a hopper or chamber for

page_text: containing a store of the fuel with which the furnace is to be fed. At the open
bottom of the hopper is an inclined shoot or passage, the lower end of which ter-
minates at the curved plane in which the top of the feeding box travels as it retires
from under the opening in the bottom of the furnace.
To the front of the feeding box is attached an apron or curved plate similar
to that at the rear of the said feeding box, the said aprons and top of the feeding
box being concentric with the shaft on which the feeding box turns.
When the feeding box, after having discharged its contents into the furnace,
retires from under the furnace it comes under the lower end of the shoot, down
which fuel from the hopper descends and fills the feeding box.
When the charged feeding box is brought under the opening in the furnace the
bottom of the shoot is closed, and the descent of fuel arrested by the apron in front
of the feeding box, which apron advances under the bottom of the shoot as the
feeding box retires from under it.
By the construction and arrangement of parts described the charging of the
feeding box is effected automatically, the retiring motion of the feeding box from
under the opening in the furnace effecting the filling of the feeding box with fuel
ready for its next advance under the opening in the furnace.
My improvements involve some slight changes in the details of the original
mechanism, which I do not consider it necessary here to describe.