US39187A - Improvement in carding-engines - Google Patents

Description

UNITED STATES Arnim* muon.

JOHN C. WHITIN, OF NORTHBRIDGE, MASSAGHUSETTS.

IMPROVEMENT IN CARDlNG-ENGINES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 39,1%?, dated July 7, 1863.

To v@ZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, JOHN C. WHITIN, of Northbridge, in the county of Worcester and State of Massachusetts, have invented'a new and useful Self-Stripping CottonCardin g Engine; and I do hereby declare that the following is a correct description ofthe same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making part of this specification, and to the letters ot' reference marked thereon, in which drawings- Figure 1 is a sectional plan of my improved cotton-card. Fig. 2 is a side elevation of the same. Fig. 3 is a side elevation of a cottoncard with George VVelmans self-stripper attached. Fig. 4 is a side elevation of a cottoncard with Gambrill 8v Burgees improvement attached.

The common way of carding cotton was by the use of narrow strips of wood, called iiats77 or top cards, covered with fillet on one side, and fixed just outside the periphery ofthe cylinder. These top cards were stationary, and so adjusted as to card the cotton and catch the dirt as the cylinder revolved. They soon became lled with imperfect seed, leaf, and other dirt from the cotton, and when in this state failed to do the carding well 5 consequently they had each to be taken from the card and stripped with a hand-card by the operator about every fteen minutes. The work by such cards must be uneven and imperfect, as the machine cards well when the top cards are clean, and ill when filled with the refuse taken up from the cotton. Mr. George Wellman, of Lowell, invented and patented a selfstripper which obviates these difficulties, and the cotton operated on by his self-stripper is uniformly carded. Messrs. Gambrill & Burgee, of Baltimore, patented a carding-engine, in which they have substituted workers and cleaners in the place of the top cards, and a small stripping-cylinder, with varyin g speed, acting at times as a stripper of the main cylinder, and at other times as a feeder to the main cylinder, according to the speed. The strippings by this process are mixed with the partially-carded cotton and run through the machine, and more than double the amount of cotton can be run through these than the ordinary carding-engines. The objection is that too much leaf and dirt is run through and in- 'to the sliver to make very good work, only the heaviest of the dirt, trash, Ste., being thrown olf by the revolving cylinders of the Gambrill & Burgee card. By my arrangement I combine the advantages ot' the two improvements, and overctme the objections to each of them. The Gambrill 8a Burgee stripping and feeding cylinders and the workers and cleaners so prepare the cotton, by carding and opening it and keeping it at the periphery of the cylinder, that by the time they reach the top cards the Wellman stripper efficiently removes the dirt and trash, particularly the light refuse, as pieces of leaf' and imperfect seeds, having short fibers of cotton attached to them, which would pass through the Gambrill & Burgee card without this combination. The Wellman card has to be stopped about every two hours for the purpose of stripping the cylinder by hand, because the carding is Well done only When the cylinder is comparatively clean, but by combining with it the cylinderstripper of Gambrill & Bur-gee the cylinder is kept nearly uniformly stripped, and the top flats are thus enabled to do more and better work and more effectually straighten the bers of cotton by laying them parallel With the sliver, the want of which straightening in the Gambrill & Burgee card is an imperfection.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention, I will proceed to describe its construction and operation by explaining the annexed drawings.

A is the card-frame, B, the main cylinder 5 C, the doffer; D, the lap-roll; E, the feed-rolls; F, the licker-in; G, a feeder and worker. H is the variable-motion cylinder, which when running at its highest speed strips the main cylinder of the card. I J are Workers and cleaners, made in the-usual way. K are top cards. Sixteen of them are shown on the drawings, but there may be any convenient number of them. These top cards are cleaned by the stripper patented by George Wellman aforesaid, and are shown as being driven by a pulley on the main cylinder-shaft, driving by a belt the pulley L at the top of the main arms X. On the 'shaft with the pulley L are pinions M, one on each side of the card, driving stud-gears N, Which have pinions 0 on their hubs gearing into the cam-gears P. The cam-gear P has an equal number of teeth with the pinions Q, made wider than the others to drive pinions Q one revolution when the shoe It slides over the remainder of the circumference of the cam-gear till the long teeth strike the pinions Q again, when it is allowed to make another revolution, and the operation proceeds as be fore. Gears Q are on short shafts, having on their other ends pinions S,whch gear into the racks T. rlhe pinions S travel over the rack one way, and passing around the end return under the rack, carrying the main arms X of the stripper, which turn on the boxes of the main cylinder.

1n the drawings the pinions S are shown over the rack T, with the main arms at the center of one of the top cards, the top card being lifted and the cam U ready to draw the stripper in. One revolution of the pinions S carries the main arm from the center of one top card to the center of the next but one, and so on until it arrives at the end of the rack, when the pinions S, passing under the rack, stop the main arms over the center of those top cards they missed when traveling` over the rack. Short arms Y, turning on the hubs of the cam-gears P, allow the pinions S to swing for the purpose of traveling around the rack. When the main arm X is stopping "Swat the center of the top cards, the cams on the hack of the cam-gears P lift the top card and hold it up till the cam U on the outside of the camgear P draws the stripper on the arms V under the top card, when the cam allows the tcp card to drop slightly, and the stripper being withdrawn as the camgear revolves, strips the top cards more perfectly and uniformly than is done by hand.

I do not claim to have invented a cardingengine with top cards which is self-stripping, as that has been done by George Wellman, and patented December 6, 1853, January 27, 1857, and others, nor the carding-engine of Gambrill 8a Burgec, with the varying cylinder for stripping the main cylinder, patented February 27, 1855, September l, 1857, and November 17, 1857; but

That I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

Combining the self-stripper of Wellman with the cylinder stripper of Gambrill 85 Burgee, essentially as above described.

JOHN C. WHITIN.

Wii nesses P. WHITIN DUDLEY, HENRY B. Oseoon.

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