US22020A

US22020A - Cushion foe

Info

Publication number: US22020A
Authority: US
Publication date: 1858-11-09
Anticipated expiration: 1875-11-09

Description

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LEVI DECKER, OF BERGEN, NEW JERSEY.

CUSHION FOR BILLIARD-TABLES.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 22,020, dated November 9, 1858.

To all whom it 'may concern: l

Be it known that I, LEVI DECKER, of Bergen, in the county of Hudsonand State of New Jersey, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Cushions of Billiard- Tables; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawing and to the letters of reference marked thereon.

It has been found by experience to be adiiiicult matter to construct from out of the materials in use for that purpose, especially when used in the ordinary manner an elastic cushion for billiard tables, which shall be of uniform elasticity throughout its whole length. It has been also found that these cushions when so constructed are liable to more or less lose their elasticity and to do so in a variable degree, in different parts of t-he same cushion. Furthermore all cushions of this kind are of such flexibility or soft-ness as to offer on their surface but little or no resisting force, consequently the ball has to penetrate to a considerable distance beyond the line of the cushions surface before an amount of resistance is called into action sufficient to overcome the momentum of and return the ball, thus causing a deep indentation which depth of indentation materially and injuriously affects the direction of the return of the ball.

The nature of my invention is to employ in the construction of billiard table cushions india-rubber in a stretched and unstretched state combined together, for the purpose of improving the cushion in the respects aforesaid.

In order to enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention I will proceed to describe its construction and operation.

The accompanying drawing is a transverse section of my improved cushion attached to the frame of a billiard table, in which A, is the frame, of the t-able B, B, B is the wood work or back and bottom of the cushion C, is the unstretched india rubber. The red colored streak is the stretched rubber. The white colored streak is an inner covering of textile material, say of canton flannel and the green colored streak is the usual outer covering of the cushion. All of these parts as so exhibited in the said drawing, with the exception of the stretched rubber, I construct in the usual manner and require no description, I then take a strip of elastic rubber or rubber compound of suflicient length and width and stretch it along so as to cover and strain over that face of the unstretched rubber of the cushion against which it is intended the ball shall strike, fastening it at each end so as to hold it in a stretched or strained condition, also if desirable, fastening it to the unstretched rubber.

The thickness of the strip may be varied at pleasure, from a very thin strip up to one of considerable thickness say as thick and if found necessary even thicker than the unstretched rubber. Neither do I limit myself to one strip at a time but claim the exclusive right to use as many as the exigencies of the case require. The stretched rubber may or may not be first united to textile cloth. It may consist of or have combined with it any number of thicknesses of the textile in which case the textile cloth will more or less aid in giving it strength.

The operation of my invention is as follows: The stretched rubber acts as a compress to more or less consolidate the unstretched rubber forming part of the cushion and thus adds to its active elasticity while at the same time it (the stretched rubber) resists throughout its whole length an attempt to deflect the surface of the cushion either inward or outward and while so resisting an inward deflection it is aided more or less throughout its whole length by the unstretched rubber behind it. rlhe stetched rubber thus applied forms a facing of the cushion of soft and very elastic material and possessing the function of a long acting spring which object has heretofore been sought by the use of material for a facing harder than that of the india rubber pad such as cork, leather, hard rubber, steel and whale-bone and which in practice has been attended with more or less difliculties of breaking, bending or producing too much no-ise by the blow of the ball.

What I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Let-ters Patent is rlhe combination in a billiard table cushion of stretched and unstretched rubber for the purpose hereinbefore described.

LEVI DECKER.

Witnesses:

MELVILLE V. Brees, MILES B. ANDRUs.