US1537328A - One-man power grader - Google Patents

Description

May 12, 1925; 1,537,328

w. r. BEATTY ONE-IAN POWER GRADE}! I Filed ly 31, 1924 5 Sheets-Sheet 1 f r P May 12, 1925. 1,537,328

w. 'r. BEATTY V ens-mm POWER unmm Filed July 31, 1924 5 Sheets-Sheet s May 12, I925.

. W. T. BEATTY ONE-MAN POWER GRADER Filed July 31, 1924 5 Sheets-Sheet 4 llay 12, 1925.

w. 'r. BEATTY ONE-IAN POWER GRADER Filed July 31, 1924 s Sheets-Sheet 5 Patented May 12, 1925.

UNITED STATES WILLIAMT. BEATTY, 1 FLOSSMOOR, ILLINOIS.

ONE-MAN POWER GRADER.

Application filed m 31, 1924. Serial N'o. 729,397.

To all whom it may concern:

' Be it known that I, WILLIAM T. BEATTY, a citizen of the United States, residing at F lossmoor, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in One-Man Power Graders, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to a self-propelled road machine, guided and operated by one man.

Road machines are distinguished from the road drag form of road maintainers by the fact that in the latter, there is no control over the drag except by gravity. It keeps its course along the surface of the road regardless of whether there are high spots or low spots encountered, with the result that while it scrapes something off equalities in that surface, which it does by.

the high spots, it correspondingly deepens the low spots'and it fails to eliminate these varying elevations of the surface by bringing them to a common plane.

The purpose of propelling a cutting blade along a road surface is to remove the incutting off the high spots and filling in the low spots, and the road machine in which the operator can continually adjust the blade to the every varying conditions of the road surface is a necessity for this work.

On two men machines of the prior art, there is a seat in front from which a man steers and the operator does not have to concern himself with the steering of the machine or if it is tractor propelled, the tractor, itself, in-steered in the proper direction while the operator has only to make an occasional change to shift his machine to one side or the other. In all these cases,

where more than oneman is used, the op 'erator is concerned only with his blade and he then need be located only so as to see the blade and the road itself in alignment,

' i. e., at one time, without moving his eyes.

When, however, a self-propelled machine is operated by one man, a much different.

problem is presented; he must guide the entire machine and he must simultaneously control the blade. For the latter, .two things are essential: first, the operator must out of order.

be so located as to be able to distinguish the high spots from the low spots and, second, he must have quick and responsive control of the blade which will enable him to make the rapid adjustments essential to the ever changing character of the road surface. Where the road shows an excess elevation, the blade must be set to cut it off; where there is a depression, the blade must beset to fill. it up. This requiresa constant changing of the vertical position of the blade and the efliciency of an ordinary road machine is determinedlargely by the effectiveness of its controls. For effective work, the operator must not only be in position to distinguish between high spots and low spots, but he must see them a suflicient time ahead of the-blade reaching them to enable him to make the required changes in the position of the blade, to meet what is coming. This cannot be done by an operator stationed substantially above the blade and looking down on it for he is looking down at the same time at right angles on the surface of the road, in which position it is always diificult and sometimes impossible to tell a hill from a hollow, and the part of the road he can see without moving his head isonly that which is directly in front of the blade.

On this type of machine, in order to see the blade and the road ahead of the machine, the operator must keep bobbinghis head up and down or back and forth, like a chicken eating corn. His failure to bob frequently enough will lead him into the difiiculty of not steering properly or of not. manipulating the blade properly and even if he does bob as fast as nature permits him,-he does not'have'the-road in profile ahead of the blade, so that he can determine what adjustmentsof the blade should be made.

The object of this inventionv is to' provide a self-propelled road machine guided and operated by one man, which overcomes all the above and other di'fiiculties of prior machines,which can be comparatively easily and cheaply made, which .is highly .eificiefit in operation and is not readily liable to get The present invention consists in a oneman, self-propelled machine, having front and rear wheel sustained axles between which the cut-ting blade is located, having all of the controls for the operation and steering of the machine centered at an operators station, far enough behind the blade so that the front portion or cutting end of the blade, the surface of the road immediately in front of the blade on which the blade is scraping or grading, and a substantial zone of the road through which the machine is being propelled, are in substantial alignment and can be seen practically simultaneously by the operator at the control station without materially changing the angle of sight of his eyes.

More particularly, the invention consists in numerous features and details of construction hereafter more fully set forth in the specification and claims.

Referring to the drawings in which like numerals designate the same parts throughout the several views:

Figure 1 is a side, Figure 2 a plan, and Figure 3 a rear View of mechanism illustrating this invention in its preferred form.

Figures 4 and 5 are front, sectional views on lines 44 and 55 of Figure 1.

Figure 6 is'a plan, detail view on line 6-6 of Figure 1 and Figure 7 is a side view on line 77 of Figure 6.

The road traversing part of the mechanism of the drawings is conventionally shown as comprising rear wheels 10, axle 12,

transmission 14 and engine power plant 16 of a well known commercial tractor, from the front end of which extends a frame 18 arched in side view and V-shaped in plan view, there depending from the front end of the frame a casting 20 sustained by front axle 22 and front wheels 24. the one man operators control station 26 being at the extreme rear of the machine.

Front wheels 24 are conventionally journaled on short axles carried on vertical pivots 28 at the ends of shaft 22 and.are rockable about these pivots, on operation of a conventional automobile steering gear 30,

' controlled by rearwardly extending rod 32 attached at its rear end to lever arm 34, pivoted to frame 18 at 36, the upper end of lever 34 being a segmental gear 38, rotatable by a worm 39 on diagonally disposed rotatable shaft 42, terminating at its upper end in steering wheel 40, under thehand of operator 44, at station 26, the upper end of shaft 42 being journalled in a suitable bearing 46 on an inverted U frame 48, rising from the main frame 50 of the power plant of which the operators platform 26 is a art.

Floating behind front axle 24, below frame 18, on a vertical pivot pin 52, in a U-shaped opening formed on the rear of casting 20 blade supporting wheel 62 having a horizontally disposed circumferential flange 64' sliding on and supported by angle iron 56. The center of this wheel 62, located on a bar 66 connecting two opposite sides of the wheel is journalled on a vertical bolt or kingpin 68 mounted in a horizontally extending truss 70 embracing reinforcing and supporting frame 54. As clearly seen in Figure 4, truss 70 extends to each side of the machine some distance beyond the wheel 62 and is provided near its ends with pivotal connections 72, for vertically extending rods 74 and 76. The upper end of rod 74 is pivotally connected to a crank, 78 on the forward end of a horizontally disposed rotatable shaft 80, extending back to operators station 26 where itcarries a segmental gear 82, driven by a worm 84, on a shaft 86, rotatable by a vertically disposed hand wheel 88, on the right hand side of operator 44 on station platform 26. In similar manner, the upper end of rod 7 6 is attached to crank 90, on shaft 92, carrying segment 94, driven by worm 96, and hand wheel 98 convenient to the left hand of operator 44. The operator can by rotating wheels 88 and 98 in unison raise or lower truss 70 and consequently frame 54 and wheel 62 as a whole. Obviously, by manipulating one wheel only, he can adjust one side only of the parts just named, thereby vertically adjusting the adjacent end of road cutting blade 100, extending across the machine under arched frame 18 and suspended from wheel 62 by depending arms 102 rigidly secured in place, for instance by rivets 104. The operator can, if desired, rotate wheels 88 and 98 simultaneously in opposite directions thereby securing very quiclfly a very radical, vertical adjustment of the blade 100. The connection of frame 54 to pin 52 is loose enough to permit any such vertical adjustment as may be desired, as well as permitting transverse swinging of the frame in a horizontal plane about said pivot.

Means must be provided for the operators changing the angularity of blade 100 across the road traversed from thefull line to dotted positions shown, and for doing it at any time regardless of positions otherwise assumed by the various parts. For this purpose, the operator 44 is provided at his right hand with a hand wheel 106 on a downwardly inclined shaft 108, journaled in frame brackets 110 and 112. Connected to the lower end of this shaft b a universal joint 114 is a non-circular sha t 116 reciprocal in a correspondingly shaped socket shaft 118, connected by a universal joint 126 with a horizontal shaft 122, journaled in a suitable bracket 124, rising from a casting 126, secured between frame members 54, as shown in Fig. 6. This bracket is so located that bevel gear 128, on shaft 122, meshes with bevel gear 130 on a vertical shaft 132, also carried by said bracket. Shaft 132 carries a sprocket wheel 134 interfitting with a sprocket chain 136, partially wrapping the circumference of wheel 62 and held under tension over the sprocket wheel by suitable spring tension devices 138, seen in Figure 6, carried by arms 102. The construction just described is so flexible that rotating hand wheel 106 in the proper direction will rotate the, sprocket wheel 134, thus causing the sprocket chain to travel over the wheel, thus partly rotating wheel 62, and consequently causing the desired adjustments o-fthe blade,

regardless of what other adjustments of the blade are present.

As the blade 100 does very strenuous road work, it is necessary to provide a positive lock for the blade in its various adjusted v positions, just described, and it is necessary to ive the operator positive control of this loc For this purpose, casting 126 is provided with upstanding lugs 139 between which are pivoted at 141 a vertically dis.- posed lock lever 140, whose'lower end selectively interfits with notches 142 on the inner circumferential surface of the horizontal flange of wheel 62 as seen in Figure 6.

Pivotally connected at 143 to the upper end' of this lock lever is arod 144 extending toward the extreme front of the machine and connected to one end of a lever 146 pivotally mounted on a bracket 148 located as near as may be to the point of frame 54 and pivot 52. On the opposite end of lever 146 is a horizontal rod 150 leading back to a foot pedal 152 at the operators station. On rod 150 is a conventional spring mechanism 154 always urging rod 150 toward the front of the machine and thus holding lock lever 140 in engagement with the particular notch 142 in which it may be entered. In other words, the blade is always locked against horizontal rotation except when the operator steps on pedal 152. Mounting le'ver 146 far forward on frame 54 permits operation of the device in all angular positions of the frame and blade about pivot pin- 52. Vhenever the operator wants to change the horizontal angular position, he first steps on pedal 152 and then rotates hand-wheel 106 until the parts'a-ssume the desired position, whereupon he takes his foot off the pedal 1'52 and spring device 154 instantly operates lock 140 to fasten the blade in new position.

Lateral adjustment by the operator of crosswise of the road traversed by the ma chine is effected by providing on the operators left a hand wheel 160 on a diagonally disposed shaft 162, journaled at its lower end in bracket 164, also affording bearing for a shaft 166, carrying a bevel gear 168, meshing with a corresponding gear 170 on the lower end of shaft 162. Connected to shaft 166 through a universal joint 172 is a screw 174I threaded through a block or nut 176 rigidly attached to an extension 178 of cross member 56 of the triangular blade carrying frame. Whenever the operator rotates wheel 160, he rotates screw 174 through nut 176 and thus swings the triangular frame and blade in a horizontal plane about bolt 52 :the direction of movement depending on thedirection of rotation of wheel 160 and the consequent direction of rotation of the screw. Screw 174'and nut 176 are of course self-locking to hold the parts in adjusted position when the operator lets go of wheel 160. Cutting blade 10 is adjustable to the vertical by virtue of being pivoted near its lower edge to arms 102 on pivots 180 and being provided near its top with segments 182, each provided with a plurality of spaced holes 184 through selected ones of which bolts 186 in members 102 may be inserted in conventional manner.

From the foregoing, it will be seen that the operator 44'at station 26 has all the controls of the blade 100 where he can reach them with hand, or foot,.without'taking his eye off from the forward end 100 of the blade or the profile 190 ofthe road surface to be cut or the general view of the road in front of the machine.

In other words, the blade 100 is so loca ed between the front and rear axles and between the front axle and the engine 16 and the operators station is so located that the operator, while having full control of the operation of the blade and the steering of the machine, has his eye on the blade to observe its Work and in alignmentwith the blade is the surface of the road directly ahead of it in profilethis so that the hills and the hollows on the road surface are clear and distinct to his eye and they are apparent to his eye sufficiently far ahead of the blade to enable him to change the blade to meet them for in a properly operated machine, the operator must have his eyeon the blade itself, to see what it is doing and to follow its work. It is not intended to imply that the operator sees the whole blade for it is only the forward end of a blade which is cutting, generally about one third to one half of it which he must see. The opposite end is always slightly elevated from the ground to allow the earth to drift away under it in proper distribution. There is no necessity or advantage in the operator being able to see the rear half of the blade (the left hand dotted half in Fig. 2). The front half is the one doing the work. The operator must see that and the road in front of it, in substantial alignment and profile and that is what he does see in this machine and fails to see in machines of the prior art. I

Machines of this class generally work on a road more or less rough, with irregular contours. Its tendency is continually to slide to one side or the other, and the operator must continually control it with the steering apparatus, to keep it where it is wanted. It is seldom wanted to run in a straight line very long but is steered to one side or the other, to meet the changing conditions as they occur. In the present machine, the operator has all these things in his eye, so to speak, without moving his head. He has the blade which he must see. the profile of the road immediately ahead of the blade, which he must see, and the general zone of approach for some distance ahead of the machine, which he must see. These are all on an alignment, allowing him to do the needful at any point of the operation.

The present machine with the blade located between the front axle and the engine solves problems not present where the cutting blade is located in front of the entire traction part of the machine and the problems present in very long machines having three or more axles carried by more than four wheels.

The connection 192 between members 176 and 178 is a swivel joint of conventional construction.

In another aspect of the situation, the machine of the drawings is a tractor, viz.: the engine 16, its traction wheels 10 and the controls for the engine; and a grader, viz.:

the frame 18, front wheels 24, blade 100, the

mountings therefor, and the controls for the grader, the two so combined that the weight of the tractor assists the grader in doing its work and the weight of the grader assists the tra'ctorin doing its work, the controls for both the tractor and grader being located at a common station at the rear of the machine where the operator can view the blade and the-road in the manner described. The necessity for and problem solved in such a combination lies in the following facts:

Practically the whole proposition of a road grader is to move dirt from the ditch at the side of a road up onto the crown or center of, the road. The contest in every instance is between the ability of the machine to move the dirt sidewise and the ability of thetdirt to move the machine sidewise. The machine will move the dirt as long as it is not overloaded, but the minute the maximum point of resistance is passed, instead of the dirt sliding away from the machine, the machine slides away from the dirt. The capacity of any machine to move dirt is fixed almost entirely by its own weight. There are a few mechanical contrivances embodied in prior machines, such as leaning wheels, staggered axles, etc, for the purpose of assisting the machine to avoid sliding away from the dirt, but these are of minor effect and the machine can practically depend upon nothing but its own weight in its contest with the dirt.

In this contest, the machine gets no assistance whatever in its effort to keep from sliding sidewise, from detached power propelling it, be it horse, mule, trucks, separate tractors or anything else. A separate 50 horsepower tractor weighing 10,000 pounds, to which the grader is attached, cannot help the grader in the slightest degree, from be ing pushed sidewise by the dirt. A separate 10 horse power tractor weighing 1,000 pounds will mean just the same to the grader in the matter of sliding sidewise and it can do no good to the grader to supply it with any amount of surplus power beyond the power required to pull the grader with its maximum load which is can handle without being skidded off by the dirt. The radical and fundamental difference between that of a grader drawn by separate power and the one of this invention is that in this grader, the tractor or propelling power is .built into, and, as to weight, becomes an integral part of the grader itself and the weight of the tractor, by being added to the weight of the grader, enormously increases the ability of the ader to resist the side push of the dirt. rader manufacturers have realized for years the unfortunate limitation placed upon all graders by their inability to use any of the weight of the separate tractor to increase their machines capacity for dirt moving, and producing the structure this invention has produced, with the immediate result of making a large market fora class of machines which has never heretofore existed. The machine of this invention combines a 4,000 pound tractor with a 1,000 pound grader and obtains the equivalent of a 5,000 pound grader in the matter of dirt moving capacity, so that the difference between this machine and prior machines is radical and fundamental as is evidenced by the large sales of this new type of machine immediately upon its presentation, and one of the great sources of such success is the location of all the controls of both the tractor and grader at a common point at the rear of the machine where the operator has the described view of the blade and the road.

I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. In a self-propelled road machine, a cutting blade carried over the ground by a machine sustained by not. to exceed four wheels and located between the front and rear wheels thereof, a wer plant, an operators station, means se ectively adjusting the blade. vertic ally, diagonally and latitudinally from said station, said blade and station being located at points on the machine where the eye of the operator without moving his head can embrace the front end of the blade, the surface of the road in profile, immediately ahead of the blade and the road in front of the machine for a substantial distance.

2. In a self-propelled, one-man road machine, a power plant, a cutting blade carried over the ground by a machine sustained by not to exceed four wheels and located between the front and rear wheels thereof, an operators station, means selectively adjusting the blade vertically, diagonally and latitudinally from said station, said blade and station being located at points on the machine Where the eye of the operator without moving his head can embrace the front end of the blade, the surface of the road in profile, immediately ahead of the blade and the road in front of the machine for a substantial distance.

3. In a self-propelled vroad machine, havin wheel supported front and rear axles on y, and a power plant, a cutting blade, located between said axles carried over the ground by the machine, an operators station, means selectively adjustin the blade vertically, diagonally and latitudinally from said station, said blade and'station being located at points on the machine where the eye of the operator without moving his head can embrace the front end of the blade, the surface of the road in profile, immediately. ahead of the blade and the road in front of the machine for a substantial distance.

4. In a self-propelled, one-man road machine, having wheel supported front and rear axles only, and a power plant, a cutting blade, located between said axles carried over the ground by the machine,,an operators station, means selectively adjusting the blade vertically, diagonally and latitudinally from said station, said blade and station being located at points on the machine where the eye of the operator without moving his head can embrace the front end of the blade, the surface of the road in profile, immediately ahead of the blade and the road in front of the machine fora substantial distance.

- 5. In a self-propelled road machine, a power plant, a cutting'blade carried over the ground by a machine sustained by not said station, said blade and station being located at points on the machine where the eye of the operator without moving his head can embrace the front end of the blade, the surface of the road-in profile, immedi-' ately ahead of the blade and the road in front of the machine for a substantial distance. t

6. In a self-propelled, one-man road machine, a power plant, a cutting blade carried over the ground by a machine sustained by not to exceed four wheels and located between the front and rear wheels thereof, an operators station, means selectively adjusting the blade vertically, diagonally and latitudinally and steering the machine from said station, said blade and station being located at points on the machine where the eye of the operator without moving his head can embrace the front end of the blade, the surface of the road in profile, immediately ahead of the blade and the road in front of the machine for a substantial distance.

7. In a self-propelled road machine, a cutting blade carried by the machine, an operators station on the machine, a power plant between the station and blade, a means within reach of the operator at the station, steering the machine, selectively adjusting the blade vertically or diagonally, or laterally of the machine.

8. In a self-propelled road machine, a cutting blade carried by the machine, an operators station on the machine, apower plant between the station and blade, means within reach ofthe operator at the station, steering the machine, selectively adjusting the blade vertically or diagonally, or later-' ally of the machine, an automaticdock for one of said blade adjustments, and means at the operators station releasing said lock.

9. In a self-propelled road machine, a cutting blade carried by the machine, an operators station on the machine, a power plant between the station-and blade means within reach of the operator at the station, steering the machine, selectively adjusting the blade vertically, or diagonally, or laterally of the machine, an automatic lock for the diagonal adjustment of the blade, and'means at the operators station releasing said lock.

10. In a self-propelled road machine, a cutting blade carried by} the machine, an operators station on the machine, a power plant between the station and blade-and meansvwithin reach of the operator at the station, steering the machine, selectively adjusting the blade vertically, or diagonally, or laterally of the machine, the structures of the parts being such that any two or more adjustments may be made simultanesteering the machine, selectively adjusting the blade vertically or diagonally, or laterally of the machine, an automatic lock for one of said blade adjustments, and means at the operators station releasing said lock, the structures of the parts being such that any two or more adjustments may be made simultaneously.

12. In a self-propelled road machine, a cutting blade carried by the machine, an operators station on the machine, a power plant between the station and blade means within reach of the operator atthe station, steering the machine, selectively ad ustingthe blade vertically, or diagonally, or laterally of the machine, an automatic lock for the diagonal adjustment of the blade, and means at the operators station releasing said lock, the structures of the parts being such that any two or more adjustments may be made simultaneously.

13. In a one man grader, in combination with not to exceed two wheel sustained axles, connected by a frame bearing power plant and an operators station at the rear of the machine, a floating frame below the first frame loosely connected at a fixed point near the front axle, a road cutting blade carried by the floating frame forward of the power plant, and means extending to the operators station for selectively elevat ng and lowering either side of the floating frame.

14. In a one man grader, in combination with not to exceed two wheel sustained axles, connected by a frame bearing power plant and an operators station at the rear of the machine, a floating frame below the first frame loosely connected at a fixed point near the front axle, a road cutting blade carried by the floating frame forward of the power plant, and means extending to the operators station for swinging the floating frame crosswise of the main frame.

15. In a one man grader, in combination with not to exceed two wheel sustained axles, connected by a frame bearing power plant and an operators station at the rear of the machine, a floating frame below the first frame loosely connected at a fixed point near the front axle, a road cutting blade carried by the floating frame forward of the power plant, and means extending to the operators station for adjusting in a horizontal plane the angle of the blade.

16. In a one man grader, in combination with not to exceed two wheel sustainedaxles. connected by a frame bearing power plant and an operators station at the rear of the machine, a floating frame below the first frame loosely connected at a fixed point near the front axle, a road cutting blade carried by the floating frame forward of the power plant, means extending to the operators station for adjusting in a horizontal plane the angle of the blade, a lock securing the blade in selected, angular positions so assumed by it, and means extending to theoperators station for releasing said lock.

17. In a one man grader, in combination with not to exceed two wheel sustained axles, connected by a frame bearing power plant and an operators station at the rear of the machine, a floating frame below the first frame loosely connected at a fixed point near the front axle, a road cutting blade carried by the floating frame, and means extending to the operators station for selectively elevating and lowering either side of the floating frame, the blade being in such a position in front 'ofthe operators station and power plant that, while operating any or all of said adjusting devices, the operators eye can, without moving his head, embrace the front end of the blade, the surface of the road in profile immediately ahead of the blade, and the road a substantial distance in front of the blade.

18. In a one man grader, in combination with two wheel sustained axles, connected by a frame bearing power plant and an operators station at the rear of the machine, a floating frame below the first frame loosely connected at a fixed point near the front axle, a road cutting blade carried by the floating frame, and means extending to the operators station for swinging the floating frame crosswise of the main frame, the blade being in such a position in front of the operators station and power plant that,

while operating any or all of said adjusting carried by the floating frame, and means extending to the operators station for, ad'usting in a horizontal plane the angle 0 the blade, the blade being in such a position in front of the operators station and power plant that, while operating any or all of said adjusting devices, the operators eye can, without moving his head, embrace the front end of the blade, the surface of the road in profile immediately ahead of the blade and the road a substantial distance in frontof the blade. a i

20. In a one man grader, in combination with not to exceed two wheel sustained axles, connected by a .frame bearing power plant and an operators station at the rear of the machine, a floating frame below the first frame loosely connected at a fixed point near the front axle, a road cutting blade carried by the floating frame, means extending tothe operators station for adjusting in a horizontal plane the angle of the blade, a lock securing'the blade in selected, angular positions so assumed by it, and means extending to the operators station for releasing said lock, the blade being in such a position in front of the operators station and power plant that, while operating any or all of said adjusting devices, the operators eye can, without moving his head, embrace the front end of the blade, the surface of the road in profile immediately ahead of the blade, and the road a substantial distance'in front of the blade.

21. Ina self-propelled road machine, the combination of a power plant, a wheel support for the rear of the power plant, a frame secured to and supporting the forward end of said plant, a wheeled support for the front end of said frame, a cutting blade carried in front of said plant beneath said frame, behind the front wheeled support, devices for vertically adjusting said blade,

'an operators station at the rear of said power plant, and means at said station for operating said adjusting devices while the blade is under visual control of an operator at the station.

22. In a self-propelled road machine having not more than four traction wheels, the combination of a frame having a wheeled support for'the front end thereof, a motor. secured to and supporting the rear end of said frame, a cutting blade mounted behind the front wheel support, in front of saidmotor, for vertical, transverse and angular. adjustment, an operators station at the rear of said motor meansoperable from said station for effecting said adjustments, and a wheel support for the rear of the motor.

23. In a self-propelled, one-man road machine, sustained by not to exceed four wheels, the con'lbination of an arched downwardly inclined frame, a wheeled support.

for the front end of said frame, a power plant secured to the .sides of and supported by said frame, a cutting .blade supported behind the wheels in front of said power plant for vertical, transverse and angular adjustment, an operators station at the rear of the power plant, and means operable I from said station for effecting said adjustments. g

24. In a self-propelled, one-man road machine .ca-rried by wheels on not more than two separated axles the combination of a power plant comprising the rear wheels, axle, transmission and engine of a tractor, with a frame secured to and supporting said plant, a wheeled support for the front end of said frame, a cutting blade carried behind the front wheels, in front of said plant, and beneath said frame, devices for adjusting said blade into operative position, an operators station at the rear of said power plant, and means at said station for operating said devices.

25. In a self-propelled road machine, carried by wheels on not more than two separated axles' the combination of a front and a rear axle, with a power plant supported at its rear end by the rear axle, a V-shaped frame supported at its front end by the front axle and having the rear ends of the side portions engaging and supporting the front end of the power plant, a cutting blade supported in front of said power plant, an operators station at the rear end of the machine, devices selectively controlling the positions of said blade, steering devices, and operating means extending from said steering and controlling devices to the operators station.

26. In a self-propelled, one-man road machine, carried by wheels on not more than two separated axles, the combination of a V-shaped frame, a wheeled support for the front, apex end of said frame, a power plant secured to the rearwardly extending sides of said frame, a rear axle secured to said power plant, an operators station at the rearend of the machine, a cutting blade, devices for adjusting said blade vertically, laterally and diagonally, steering devices, and operating means for said adjusting and steering devices extending therefrom to the operators station.

27. In a self-propelled, one-man road machine, the combination of a forwardly and downwardly inclined V-shapcd frame, a

wheeled support for the front, apex end of said frame, a power plant secured to the sides of said frame, a rear axle secured to said power plant, a cutting blade in front of said power plant, devices for adjusting said blade vertically, laterally and angularly, an operators station at the rear of the machine, and means at said station operatively connected to said devices. 28. The combination of a road graderhaving steering whcels and rearwardly ,extend- 4 ing controls, a tractor provided with propelling wheels and rearwardly extending controls, an operators station at the rear of the machinereceiving all said controls and means connecting the grader and tractor in a manner permitting the tractor weight to assist the grading operation and also permitting the grader weight to lendadditiona1 traction to the tractor propelling wheels.

29; The combination of a road grader having an elongated frame provided With steering wheels at the front end and blade adjustmentcontrols leading to the rear, a

5 tractor, having propelling Wheels, in the rear of the grader frame its front end steered and carried by the grader frame,

and means at the rear of both the grader and tractor for the simultaneous control of each. 1 10 In witness whereof, I have. hereunto Sub scribed my name.

WILLIAM T. BEATTY.

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