Im- PROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR WINDING YARN OR THREAD
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robertson, James
Guthrie Orchar, Matthew Andrew Muir, and James McIlwham at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their Petition, on
the 21st June 1872.
We, WILLIAM ROBERTSON and JAMES GUTHRIE ORCHAR, of Dundec,
in the County of Forfar, North Britain, and MATTHEW ANDREW MUIR
and JAMES MILWHAм, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North
Britain, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "Im-
PROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR WINDING YARN OR THREAD," to be as follows,
that is to say :-
This Invention relates to apparatus designed more particularly for
winding yarn or thread on pirns or into cops.
It is a well understood object in designing such apparatus to arrange
for maintaining the tension of the yarn as uniform as possible whilst
it is being wound, and notwithstanding the different. diameters of the
parts of the conical layers in which it is wound. In one class of
machines it has been attempted to obtain. the desired uniformity of

page_text: tension by varying the rotatory speed of the pirns or spinutes, WHNIST IN
other machines the pirns or spindles have been driven at an unvarying
speed, and the yarn has been guided by compensating levers, arranged
to give out and take up slack, so that the yarn may be drawn off
the reels or bobbins at a uniform rate and yet be wound at a varying
rate.
Both these plans have in practice been found to have certain defects in
themselves, and to involve inconveniences in various parts of the appa-
ratus, which defects and inconveniences are very greatly diminished, if
not completely avoided by the present improvements.
In a machine embodying the improvements the winding spindles are
placed vertically and have near their bottom ends discs, the under sides
of which are faced with papier maché to be frictionally driven by the
edges of discs.upon horizontal shafts. A frame comprises two rows of
such spindles one along each side and with a horizontal driving disc shaft
along each side. These two shafts are themselves driven through bevil
wheels by a transverse shaft at one end with the usual fast and loose
pulleys for a driving belt, and they are made to reciprocate longitudinally
so as to vary the speed of the spindles within certain convenient limits
by moving the driving discs alternately nearer to and further from the
centres of the spindle discs. The reciprocation of the driving disc shafts
is effected by levers on a transverse horizontal shaft, which is made to
vibrate by a third lever acted on by a grooved cam on a central longi-
tudinal shaft, hercin-after termed the cam shaft, this cam having round
one half of it a right handed helical or screw groove, which joins a similar
but left handed groove passing round the other half.
Whilst the mode herein-before described of varying the speed of the
spindles is as simple as can be desired it does not compensate for every
thing that tends to render the tension of the yarn unequal, and it is not
convenient when the difference between the extreme velocities is as
great as is necessary with some pirus in use.
By the present Invention, however, a compensating lever guide is
used in addition, and as it has only to provide for the comparatively
small inequalities which remain when the speed of the spindles is
varied as described, it can be arranged much more conveniently and
so as to work more satisfactorily than when it is attempted with it to
compensate for the very large inequalities accompanying a uniform

page_text: speed of the spindles. The compensating guide for a row of spindles
is a rod over which the yarn passes, and which is carried by levers on a
rocking shaft actuated by a "heart" cam on the cam shaft, such heart
cam being shaped to suit the precise form of pirn or cop, and so as
by causing the guide rod to take up or give back slack as required, to
render the tension as uniform as possible. The cam shaft is driven
through spur gearing from one of the driving disc shafts, and has also
on it the "heart" cams for working the finger guide traverse movements,
which heart cams are shaped with a spiral of a varying increment,
instead of the usual uniform increment, to cause the convolutions of
yarn on the pirn to be equidistantly wound.
A further improvement comprised in the present Invention consists
in substituting for the weighted lever, which presses each pirn upwards,
a lever having a spring applied to it obliquely and so as not to materially
vary the pressure on the pirn throughout the range of movement of the
lever.