THE

London

JOURNAL AND REPERTORY

OF

Arts, Sciences, and Manufactures.

CONJOINED SERIES.

No. LXXII.

Recent Patents.

To AUGUSTUS APPLEGATH, of Crayford, in the county of Kent, calico printer, for his invention of certain improvements in printing calico and other fabrics.[Sealed 15th November, 1836.]

PLATE XIV., fig. 1, represents in elevation the wheel side of a machine for printing six colours; fig. 2, is the opposite side of the machine; fig. 3, is an end elevation of the same; and fig. 4, a horizontal view of the upper parts. The same letters refer to similar parts in all the figures: A, A, is the cast iron frame; B, B, the moveable frames or heads to which the block tables c, c, are attached by means of hinges, which permit the block tables to be turned over when the blocks require brushing &c.; D,' D, are the blocks which are cut, cast, coppered, pinned, or engraved in the usual manner; they are fixed to the block tables by means of screws 2 U

VOL. XI.

or T-headed holders, as further explained in the diagrams. Figs. 5, 6, 7, and 8; E, is the impression tables, which is made of cast iron or stone, and which should be flat, solid, and heavy, in order to receive the blow or impression. At each end of the impression table is a roller, which serves to guide the cloth to and from the impression table; F, F, are the rubber carriages, which support the rubbers G, G, in the notches; the under surface of the rubber carriages is made with inclined planes, so that when the carriages advance, they lift the rubbers one quarter of an inch; H, H, are the hammers or mauls which give the impressing blow to the block tables c, c.

The hammers are fixed to the wrought iron shafts I, I, by means of the sockets and binding screws, which permit them to be adjusted, so as to strike the block tables simultaneously: K, the feeding drum, which advances the printing cloth and the material to be printed, and the periphery should contain or be divisible into any certain number of spaces, each equal to the set of the blocks or the quantity of cloth which each block prints at one impression in this machine; it contains fifteen spaces of three inches each, which is the set of the pattern here shown.

The feeding drum is furnished with a wheel L, having ninety teeth of half-inch pitch, and it has also fifteen stop pins accurately pitched, which regulate and govern the advance or feeding in of the correctness of the cloth and the material to be printed, and upon which the joining of the pattern depends; M, is a double pinion or two pinions fixed upon the same axis; the small pinion has twenty-four teeth, and is always in the gear with the wheel L; the large pinion has forty-eight teeth, and is

furnished with four arms; it is occasionally driven by the toothed segment N, which is furnished with a curved wiper, which acts against the arms of the large pinion M; o, is a segment within the frame A, which occasionally comes in contact with the small wheel or roller P. The segment o, and the roller P, are made of wood, and are covered with coarse cloth, so as to produce motion by the pressure of their surfaces against each other without teeth. Upon the spindle of P, two band pulleys are fixed, which occasionally give a backward and forward motion to the rubber carriages F, F, by means of their catgut bands; Q, is another wheel or roller clothed as P, against which the cloth segment o, acts as soon as it has left P. Upon the axis of the roller Q, is a band pulley which carries a cross band to another pulley fixed upon the spindle P, whereby the motion of the spindle of P, and its band pulleys is reversed, and the rubber carriages are drawn back; R, R, are small grooved pulleys which guide the catgut bands; s, is a roller which binds or confines the printing cloth to the feeding drum K; T, is a similar roller, which binds the oil skin and material to be printed in like manner to the feeding drum K, so that they are conveyed by the feeding drum without any drag or stopper; v, is a pall which acts against the division pins of the feeding drum wheel L. The printing cloth or blanket is made endless, and passes from the feeding drum across the impression table and over the roller at the leaving end of the impression table, turning under the impression table to the roller s, and the drum L.

The oil skin upon which I prefer to print is also made endless, and passes over the roller T, to the feeding drum, then over the roller at the entering end of the impression table, across the table over the roller at the

leaving end of the table, and away from the machine, in the manner shown in the diagram, fig. 9. The cloth, silk, or material, to be printed, is first supplied from a roller in the usual manner. The cloth, &c., is conveyed to the impression table in the following manner :-The toothed segment N, and the pinions м, move one quarter of their circumference, which causes the feeding drum to advance as much as is equal to one set or impression of the pattern cut upon the blocks, and a little more so, that the division pin may pass the end of the pall v, just so much as to admit it to fall behind the pin, when the elasticity of the cloth, &c. will draw the drum and wheel a little back, until the pall stops the pin, and holds the drum and the materials upon it firm and steady during the impression; w, w, are wrought iron bars moving up and down in guides; they are connected with the moveable heads B, B, and are furnished with friction pulleys v, v, against which the cams act, and occasionally raise and depress the heads B, B, and the blocks; their brass guides are seen in fig. 1; x, x, are the depressing cams or shapes; Y, Y, are the lifting cams, they are fixed on the spindles of the wheels; Z, Z, are counter weights and their levers, they serve to counterpoise the bars w, w, and the heads B, B, and thus steady and soften the up-and-down motion.

The wheels q, q, q, are in gear with each other, and have seventy-two teeth of one inch pitch, which occasionally depress the pulleys and levers b, b, which are connected with the rods c, c, the upper ends of which are made to loop over and embrace the arms d, d, of the hammer shafts I, I, when the full part of the cams a, a, depress the levers b, b; the rods c, c, draw the arms -d, d, in a downward direction, and raise the hammers to the position shown in fig. 1; and they are detained

in this position by means of the hooked levers e, e, which move on the pins ff. On the cams a, a, are detached pins g, g, which occasionally raise the lower ends of the levers e, e, and cause them to let go the arms d, d, of the hammer shafts I, I, when the hammers fall by their own gravity, and give the impressing blow upon the block tables c, c, c. The force of the hammers may be increased by circular weights, having a central hole to fit on the head of the hammer; one of such weights is seen in fig. 1: h, h, are counter weights, which overbalance the rods c, c, and the levers b, b, and thus keep the looped end of the rods clear of the arms d, d, when they rise on the fall of the hammers.

The blocks are supplied with colour in the following manner:-i, i, is the sieve frame containing the sieves or colour surfaces j, j, they are made of water proof cloth, or any suitable material that will not suffer the colour to pass through; k, k, k, are brushes to spread or distribute the colour, called teering brushes, they are attached to the cross bar l, which is furnished with a small friction roller m, against which the inclined planes n, n, act as the sieve frame advances, and by which means the brushes can be lifted clear of the ends of the sieves and sieve frame, and the length of their contact with the sieves determined.

To assist the action of the teering brushes, a cross bar of wood or iron padded with a blanket, and covered with a piece of oil silk, may be fixed under the sieves to the side bars upon which the sieve frame slides, which will bear the sieves up as they slide between the cross pad and the brushes, and better enable the brushes to teer out and obliterate the impression of the blocks upon the sieves.. This pad is indicated by dotted lines in figs. 3, and 4; o, is a catgut band pulley