US32626A - Improved machine for detaching the short fibers from cotton-seed - Google Patents

Description

. 2 Sheets-Sht.

JENKS.

Cotton Seed Huller.

Patented June' 25.1861.

2 Sheeis L. P. JENKS.

Cotton Seed Huller.-

Patented )une 25; 186i.-

, are similarly marked.

"Unirse @retries Parnnr Ormea.

LEMUEL P. JENKS, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVED MACHINE FOR DETACHING THE SHORT FIBERS FROM COTTON-SEED.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 322,626, dated June 25, 1361.

To atl whom t may concern,.-

Beit known that I, LEMUEL P. JENKS, of the city of Boston, Suffolk county, State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful machine for the purpose of detaehing the short fibers from cotton-seed not now detached by the cotton-gin; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact descrip tion thereof, reference being had tothe accom.- panying drawings, and to the letters of reference marked thereon.

The nature of my invention I herewith eX- plain.

In the drawings annexed, Figure 1, Plate 1, represents a side view of the machine; Fig. 2, Plate 1, an end view; Fig. 3, Plate 2, a view from the top; Fig. 4, Plate 2, a horizontal section of the working part of the machine; and Fig. 5, Plate 2, a side or face view of a portion of thc inner part, (being a perforated plate,).

hereinafter referred to.

In thedrawings annexed, AA, Fig. 1, Plate 1, (&c., the same letters representing the same parts in each figura) is a short cylinder with its axis in a horizontal position, supported by four legs or standards, B B B B, Fig. 1.

O, Fig. 1, is a band-wheel supported by the side ofthe cylinder and the brace S, and borne uponthe shaft T, and bearing a handle, D. In Fig. 4, Plate 2, it will be seen that this shaft is fastened to a perforated plate, Y, similar to one, X, Fig. 4, placed opposite, which plate X is representcdin face by Fig. 5, Plate 2. The plate Y is caused to rotate by the niotion of the band-wheel O, to which it is at-` tached, and I sometimes make these plates with a plane surface, and sometimes one con-` cave and the other convex; and in the drawings, Plate 2, Fig. 4, the plate X is shown to be concave as regards the chamber between the plates,into which the cotton-seed is placed, and the plate Y is convex, and the perforations do not all point the saine way; but while the abrading-perforations in each plate point inward to the chamber between the plates, the alternate rows (marked Z Z Z I rand Z2 Zl Zz Z2 in Fig. 5 of Plate 2) point outward from the chamber. rPhe inward perforations are also seen in section View, Fig. 4, Plate 2, and

rPhe plate X is supported by the s'liaft G, (and sometimes additional by a brace outside of the cylinder,) and does not rotate, but is advanced to or receded the lever I, as above described.

from the plate 'P by means of the lever I. (Seen at Fig. 4, Plate 2, also at Fig. 3, Plate 2.) This lever is supported by the shaft G, and partly'by a pivot, V, fastened to the support XV, which (W') is fastened to the side ofthe cylinder opposite tothatwhichholdstheband-wheel. Theparts I-I H, Figs. 3 and 4, Plate 2, are disks fastened firmly to the shaft G, to facilitate the advancement or recession of X by means of the lever l, the friction upon the seeds generating a heat, which is further increased by the pressure between the abrading-surfaces of a roll of the longer of the detached fibers, (which, on account-of their length, cannot come through the perforations,) which roll is of course constantly increasing in size, while the space in which it is contained is as constantly diminishing during the working of the machine. It is desirable te moderate this heat. For this purpose I usea device which is also useful in abstraeting the detached fibers.

M and N, Figs. 1, 2, and 3, are two tubes or pipes firmly fixed into the lower part of the cylinder A, and entering to the chambers respectively formed by the plates X and -Y and their respective ends of the cylinder. Each of these tubes M and N; at their lower end, enter into the chamber U, Figs. 2 and 3, which chamber is fixed to the side of theblowa ingcylinder J, (which, differing in nothing from ordinary fan-blasts, need not be more particularly described.) This fan-wheel is actuated by means of the small band-wheel l, Fig. 1,which connects byatwisted band (when in action) with the band-wheel C.

It remains now to describe the operation of the machine. rIhe upper door, E, of the cylinder A A being opened, the lower door, F, Fig. 1, being closed, the cotton-seed is put into during the rotation the plate X is graduallyadvanced nearer to the plate Y by means of The seeds being rubbed or abraded between the plates, the apertures (seen in Fig. 4 in section and in Fig. 5 in face) allow the passage of the larger portion of the fibers detached, which are then sucked through the pipes llI and N by means of the fan-blast J, and discharged at L, Fig. 1,

'move Plate l. A portion of the detached ber remains with the seeds, and is afterward winnowed out. The seeds being nally cleaned, the plate Xis then withdrawn by means ofthe lever I, the rotation of the plate Y is stopped, and the lower door, F, Fig. l, being opened, the seeds are discharged entirely free from, any attached ber, 'and are then replaced in the cylinder by a new lot of seed.

It is obvious thatmy machine may be varied in form at the pleasure of the constructer by using but one abrading-surface, by combining several single machines lin one, and by divers other modifications; but the essential particulars of my machine are evidently these: rst, the abrasion of the seed to detach the ber, as contradistinguished from the seizure of the ber, as practiced with all cotton-gms, or from any chemical means, or from any hulling process.

The rubbing of seeds-such as clover-seed, rice, tc-is well known and commonly practiced; but the use of this rubbing is clearly indicated by the fact that the parts of the seed sought to be removed are naturally and invariably detached, requiring a crushing or destruction of the hull, and not a planing or abrading of it; and the object of the devices for hulling is the fracture or crushing of the outer covering or hull, which it is desired to re- The effect of these machines is, in fact, a simple breaking to fragments of a hollow vessel which contains the true seed. The cotton-seed vessel or cotton-boll is different, however, from these. Its true hull, properly so called, which holds the cotton-bers as they grow rmly attached to the separate seeds, is detached in the process of gathering, and my machine is not to facilitate this process. The seeds upon 'which I operate have ever been considered, so far as regards. the outer covering of their albuminous and oily portion or kernel, which covering I will for this purpose call the hull7 as entirely analogous to the appleseed or to the peach nut. In other words, it has always been thought that the horn-like or woody covering (whichever way one may choose to characterize it) which envelops the kernel .was entirely homogeneous, and that the bers not removable by the cotton-gin could be obtained only by the breaking of the hull. monly practiced, and is now, to my knowledge, extensively in use. The disadvantage is that the short bers remain rmly attached, as before, to these fragments of hull, and when the bers are used for paper the hull containing a deeply-colored dyeing substance, and being of no more capacity of coherence than, say, spent tan-bark, is mixed in the paper, destroying the color and, what is more, the strength of the ber. It is therefore customary to burn the broken hull with its accompanying ber.

The short bers detachable by my machine constitute in weight about eleven per cent. of the seed as it comes from the plantation, and this seed, with its short bers not taken off by The breakage has been comfunction of the hulls of seeds.

the gin, weighs about twenty-eight pounds to the bushel. Therevare about four pounds of seed collected to each pound of ginned cotton. From these data, taking rthe annual production of cotton in the United States,.it will be lseen that something over six hundred million pounds of cotton-ber t for the manufacture of paper are annually wasted in the United States, owing to the circumstance that the hull of the cotton-seed has been supposed to be analogous to the hull of the apple-seed, and probably, also, to the imitation by experimenters and inventors of the action of the cotton-gin, which readily removes the long ber, but cannot seize the short bers; but my microscopic and chemical examinations have discovered tome the important fact that there is apeculiarity in the structure of the cottonseed hull which I believe has no analogue in botany. The testa or hull, instead of being homogeneous, is composed of ve layers, the part next to the seed being a layer of substance resembling oak-bark both in its mechanical and chemical structure, and four layers ybeyond this, the rst three of a corneous or horny appearance under the microscope,

making in section three bands of light brown, yellowish, and dark brown, and, fth, a darkbrown layer thinner than either of the others, but rml y attached to and forming a part of them, of a substance resembling oakbark, and which, for want of any appropriate botanical name, may with propriety be called the supertesta. In this layer the cotton-bers are rooted. This layer is no wise analogous to the hull of wheat, rice, or clover.

To find with cotton-seed an analogue to the hull of wheat, rice, or clover, we must include the whole ve layers, they constituting the hull, the removal of which can readily be effected by hulling-machines, which machines are constructed and operated for an entirely different purpose. They will free the only kernel, and so far be valuable, but will waste and render useless the hundreds of millions of pounds of ber which mightbe annually utilized by my machine. This layer or supertesta appears to contain neither silex nor cellulose. It does not protect to any useful extent the albuminous portion from atmospheric influences or insect attacks, as is the recognized It is a thing sui, generis. to attach the bers to the testa or hull, and its removal is no wise analogous to the process calledhulling The removal of this supertesta is in effect not the breaking of the hull, as with hulling machinery, but the planing off of the outer surface of the hull-a process which has never before ,been practiced with any seed, because, so far as my investigations have gone, this supertesta does not exist with any other seed; next, the perforation of the rough abrading-surface to allow of the automatic removal of the detached ber in part; next, .the assistance to the removal of the same without the necessity of stopping Its sole function appears to be l the action of the machine; and, next, the modifvfying the Working of the machine, so that' its" y actionkwhich, if commenced with the mass of seed and attached ber occupying the same space as is required by the seed near the end of the operation, with but a small quantity of lthe fiber Whichv was originally attached would cause a strain upon the machine', a heating of the same, a breaking of thehun, &e.-,is graduated according to the work it has at the'instant to perform. These are the essential features ofv my machine. and I thus express-my', claims.

l. Det-aching the short fibers not now reof perforations pointing inward and outward', f

thus not only effecting the abrasion with the -nward-pointing perforations, but by means of the outwardpointing perforations assisting the cooling of the machine and abstraction of vthe ber by means of a fanfblast.

LEML. P. JENKS.

Attest:

JOHN S. HOLLINGSHEAD, PAUL STEVENS.

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