MENTS IN MACHINES FOR TURNING OR CUTTING BUTTONS
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Lyle at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 24th July 1880.
"
JAMES LYLE, of Paisley, in the County of Renfrew, North Britain. IMPROVE-
MENTS IN MACHINES FOR TURNING OR CUTTING BUTTONS."
This Invention relates to certain improvements in the construction of machines
for turning or cutting buttons from wood, bone, ivory, horn, and other similar hard
substances, which improvements are specially designed to simplify parts of the
mechanism or fittings, and enable such machines to be operated more easily, whilst
admitting of a much greater number of buttons being turned or produced within
a given time than has been found possible with these machines as heretofore
constructed. An important advantage of the present Invention is that the
improvements can be applied with very little alteration or expense to existing
button turning machines.
In the arrangement of machines for turning or cutting buttons at present in
use the wooden, bone, horn, or ivory button flats or blanks are gripped one at a
time between a stationary and a movable open eyed holder or grips, and turned or
cut on each side by cutting tools fitted on revolving horizontal sliding spindles,
ranged in one longitudinal line on the machine framing, and driven by belts and
pulleys from a counter shaft below or above; and these cutting tools or cutters are
brought up to the work in succession, or one after the other, to turn the flat or blank
button first on one side or face and then on the other side. These operations are
effected by means of two separate hand levers or handles through links or reins "
connected to oscillating side levers which press on the ends of the sliding cutter
spindles, and thereby bring the revolving cutters into contact with the fixed button
blank or "flat." The two handles have to be turned or moved and relieved by the
operator, the one shortly after the other, to bring the two cutters successively into
action; and as one hand is always required to fit in the flats, the other hand only
is free to move the handles, and much time is consequently consumed in working
these hand levers, an objection, which under the present improvements is overcome
by an arrangement or device which admits of one hand lever being dispensed with,
and requires only a single motion of the hand.
The Invention consists essentially in the employment in machines for turning or
cutting wooden, bone, ivory, or other buttons, of a new construction of spring
locking " rein
or link, preferably in combination with the "swivel" and
"

page_text: "hawkesbill" which are at present only fitted when such machines are used for
turning bone buttons. This novel form of "rein" is substituted for one only of
the ordinary "reins," and is jointed as usual at its outer end to the oscillating side
lever, but instead of being fixed at its inner end to the swivelling joint piece of the
handle, it is formed with a projecting tooth or catch, which fits over and catches
on a pin on the joint piece to which the handle and the other "rein” are attached.
The projecting catch on the "rein "is made to keep its hold on the moving joint
pin by means of spring blades fitted on the back of the "rein," and when the
handle is turned partly round and fixes the grips or holders, it draws or pulls the
new spring locking rein, and the oscillating side lever to which it is attached, to
bring the corresponding cutter into action on one side or face of the button flat;
but at the point when the cutter is by this means pressed up to the full extent of
its motion to complete the cutting operation on that side, the further motion of the
operating handle causes a wiper or cam on the handle joint piece to press on a
shoulder formed on the spring locking rein immediately behind the locking catch,
which by pressing back the rein against the power of its springs releases the catch
from its pin on the handle joint piece, and frees the rein, which is now drawn back
with its cutter spindle and lever, by means of a spring or springs, the backward
motion being arrested at any desired part by an adjustable screw stop fitted on
the framing of the machine. The continued motion of the operating handle to its
full extent then draws the second rein, which is of the ordinary construction, and
brings its corresponding revolving cutter into operation on the opposite side of the
button flat, or now partly formed button, and completes the cutting or turning
operation; then the handle is let go or returned to its former position, and the
button drops out as usual by the opening of the grips or holders, ready for the
insertion of a new blank button or "flat