States Splitting Machine.—About the same period of time that we saw the machine at Messrs. Bevington's (which, we should have added, was said to the invention of Lieut. Parr), another machine was brought under the notice of the Society of Arts, who rewarded the inventor, Benjamin Stott, of Bermondsey Street, with the sum of twenty guineas for the communication of the same. Ie is described with engravings in the twenty-fourth volume of the Society's Transactions, of which we subjoin the following brief account:—The skin is wrapped round a cast-iron barrel, having wooden ends, over which the sides of the skin are overlapped and made fast by pins stuck through them into the wood. There is also a longitudinal groove in the barrel for the insertion of a locking bar with points that holds down the ends of the skin underneath them. The barrel, with the skin so stretched upon it, to revolve by the agency of an attached cord passing over a pulley, and having a weight appended to the other end. The axis of the barrel rests upon two anti-friction rollers, which turn in a slip of brass fixed to the wooden frame of the machine ; and the weight is only just sufficient to overcome the friction of these parts, and to bring up the skin against the edge of the knife as it cuts by the traversing motion of a frame to which it is screwed.
Revere's" Machine.—By a reference to the eighteenth volume of the Repertory Arts, Second Series, we find the specification of an English patent Arts, to r. Joseph Warren Revere, an American, "for a new and improved method of splitting hides and shaving leather," dated dated in which the patentee declares his method to "consist in the use of a fixed or stationary knife, and in so placing and confining it as to meet the hide or leather before it escapes from the action of the forcing cylinders; and also in the construction of, and the manner in which, a powerful action is obtained from the forcing cylin ders, whereby the hide or leather, as it passes through, has not room to deviate, but must necessarily be forced and proceed right onward to the knife, and undergo the splitting and shaving intended. • By this machine the hides or leather are split or divided into any thickness required, and with great expe dition; and when divided or split, are left with smooth surfaces, and free from any marks of the knife." Thus far saith the record of the patentee ; but whether the motion of the knife can be dispensed with, and yet produce good work, is a point that may still be questioned. We can conceive the possibility of its answering to split a skin, were it of uniform thickness; but it is other wise, and the patentee has made no provision in his machine to accommodate that circumstance. He has a feeding roller set all over with points, which con ducts the skin between a pair of inflexible rollers, " grooved or fluted longitu dinally upon the surface of both of them ;" and it is these that are said to force the akin so it cannot deviate from passing on each side of the edge of the knife. But it seems to us evident that a sheep varying as it does in its thickness, must be absolutely crushed in its thick parts before the thin parts can be com pressed firm enough to be cut by a mere push, especially at that distance that a knife edge can approach &fluted roller; and as the pressure must be unequal where the surfaces of the skin are not parallel and the rollers are, it seems to follow that the skin would be cut into ridges in the direction of the motion of the skin.
We shall finish' our account of this curious branch of art by the description of a novel and recently patented invention for the purpose, which has been furnished to us by that eminent draftsman, Mr. C. Davy, of Furnival's Inn, London.' Danbury's Patent Skin Splitting Machine.—Mr. Davy states that it has been found that the parallel sides of a cylinder are not adapted for the smooth exten sion of a skin upon them; and that the consequence of compressing it between such surfaces is to form little wrinkles, which the straight knife cuts through, and thereby produces holes. To obviate this defect, and also that of the ridges produced by the reciprocating action of the knife, a variety of machines has been projected, in which the cutters partook of a rotatory motion ; but the mechanical difficulties attending the application of the principle have led to their abandonment. Mr. Duxbury has, however, by a novel position of the cutters, and a peculiar form of the bed over which the skin is laid, overcome all those difficulties, and the skins are cut by one continuous smooth slice over the whole surface. The machine, as shown in the subjoined engravings, Figs. 1 and 2, essentially consist of a great vertical wheel A, 17 feet in diameter, com posed of wood, strengthened by iron arms ; the axle of which turns in plummer blocks, upon a strong framing I I. On the periphery of this wheel are fixed twenty-five thin plates of steel, ground to a fine edge, and so closely fitted as to form a complete circular knife, projecting a short distance horizontally from 'the side of the wheel. The skin to be split passes over the drum E, which instead of being straight sided longitudinally, has a curved concavity of the same radius as the curve described by the revolving knives, or continued circular knife before mentioned ; his drum is made of wood externally, fitted upon an iron frame, and turned to the true curve. A slit is cut lon gitudinally on the surface of the drum, wherein the edges of the skin are secured; and the skin is kept distended during the operation by means of a cast-iron frame F, called by the patentee the governor, and shown in the following figure (3), on a larger scale. The ends slide in guides in the upright posts of the framing, to which it may be adjusted and fixed; and it is provided at B with a lever and chain for raising or lowering it from its position, as may be required. The skin as it is split passes through the opening H, and thence on to the roller G, whereon it is wound. Motion is given to the machine by a band passing round the pulley B, which actuates the pul ley Con the same axis; and this, by means of an endless band, turns the pulley D ; on the axis of the latter is an endless screw M, which turns the wheel L on the axis of the drum ; thus motion is communicated to the whole. In splitting -small skins, several drums, such as that described, are arranged under the lower side of the great cutting The patentee also employs occasionally a " governor " of a different kind, to compensate any irregularity that there may be in the surface of the drum; it consists, as shown in the annexed figure (4), of a series of pieces of metal hanging loosely on a bar, so that they may, simply by their gravity, press with a uniform force upon an irregular surface.