W. F. ENSIGN, Felling Guide, No, 35,972, m Patented July 22, 1862, z'zz y W. ager or 77-24-72 esse-5 46, 46-42/7--ee- fé r UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE. WILLIAM F. ENSIGN, OF RENSSELAER COUNTY, ASSIGNOR TO JAMES WILL COX, OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK. IMPROVEMENT IN FELLING-GUIDES FOR SEWING-MACHINEs. Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 35,972, dated July 22, 1862. To all whom it may concern: mers’ are usually combined therewith, and it Be it known that I, WILLIAMF. ENSIGN, of may be attached thereto or thereon by means of the county of Rensselaer and State of New a plate, A, having a slot in it that admits of its York, have invented a new and useful im adjustment relatively to the needle and feed, provement in devices for turning and guiding which latter is here supposed to be in the di the edge or edges of cloth and other material in rection of the arrow shown in Fig. 2, the ad sewing-machines, the whole constituting, when vance edge f of the plate being the guiding combined, a felling-guide; and I do hereby de edge for the seam as it issues from the formers. clare that the following is a full, clear, and ex The one former a is made with a wing project act description of the same, reference being ing in the rear and lying at an angle across the had to the annexed drawings, making a part path of the feed and scooped or shelving up of this specification, in which ward, from whence it is connected by an ex-. Figure I represents a front or advance end tension or back, b, to the plate A, and made view of my improved felling-guide; Fig. 2, a gradually of a taper spiral or convolute from viewin perspective thereof, seen from the rear. toward its front end, the contraction of the Figs. 3 and 4 views in perspective of details spiral being from rear to front. The other detached; and Figs. 5 and 6, diagrams in illus former, d, is also a wing arranged to lie a little tration of the production of a felled seam by above or over the offside of the back piece, b, this my invention. to which piece it may be connected by a bent Similarletters indicatesimilar parts through arm, e, that permits of spring to said Wing out the figures. and forms of it an elastic blade. It likewise Numerous devices have before been devised is made of taper, spiral, or convolute form at for hemming, cording, and tucking automati its forward end, corresponding to the forward cally as the material has been fed across the end of the other former and surrounding the path of the needle in sewing-machines. These latter, so as to leave an intervening cloth space guides have been variously constructed to turn between them; and it is further provided at the edge of the cloth, and have in some in its forward end (or the same is otherwise suit Stances been more or less twisted and made ably attached) with an elastic blade, h, extend adjustable by means of screws or their equiva ing backward and lying slightly above the lents, to secure the proper fold or lap and to lower cloth-surface, also set at a suitable dis adapt the guide to different thicknesses of ma tance from the wing of the first-mentioned terial. None of these devices, however, have former a. This construction of either former been applicable to what is termed in sewed makes of each an elastic blade, as it were, to work 'felling,’’ and they have importantly accommodate different thicknesses of cloth, the differed in the construction of the “former one former, d, being a spring held or hung by for turning the edge of the cloth from that com the arm e, and the wing h springing to admit prised in the device represented in the accom the cloth underit onto the inner former, a, and panying drawings, and from its adaptation to the convolute ends of both formers being left “work different thicknesses of material, free to adjust themselves. whether the said former or formers be used for From the foregoing description and by ref. felling or for hemming or otherwise folding the erence to the drawings the operation of the edge of the cloth. By “felling’ or “producing instrument as a felling-guide needs but little a felled seam' is meant the interlocking of two further explanation. The arrows in Fig. 4 in - folded edges of the same material or two dicate the direction in which the material or folded edges of different material by turning materials are passed through or round either the two edges so that they will receive within former, and the red linese and g in Fig. 1 . them the lap or overlapping portion of each represent two pieces of different materials or other, and then binding the same together by two edges of the same material under opera stitching. tion in the feller, as seen transversely to the The instrument, taken as an entirety, is or line of feed. Thus, supposing both edges of may be arranged on the cloth-bed of a sewing the material or both materials, c and g, to be machine much in the same manner as “hem fed simultaneously, the one entering under h, 2 35,972 and one on or over the wing of the former a, edge of the material being sewed, constructing and the other entering under the wing of the the former or formers of said guides of an elas other former, d, the two edges or materials will tic blade or blades capable of springing to be caused, as they pass through the spiral ends adapt themselves to different thicknesses of of the former, to be lapped, so as to lie when material, substantially as herein specified. flattened within each other, Fig. 5 in the 2. The combination and arrangement in one drawing representing the relative positions of instrument, and relatively to each other, either c and g as they leave the formers, and Fig. 6 of the surfaces of the former or formers, so that their positions when afterward flattened by two edges engaged simultaneously within said passing under a pressure-bar or otherwise surfaces, of the same or different material, during the progress of the feed. The vertical shall, by the feed, be presented to the needle red lines k and i in Fig. 6 indicate the lines and across its pathfolded and interlocked, sub of stitching to hold together the seam, which, stantially as described and shown. however, at least so far as concerns any par In testimony whereof I have signed my name ticular mode of sewing the turned and inter to this specification before two subscribing locking edges together, forms no part of this witnesses. - invention. WM. F. ENSIGN. Having now described my invention, I claim Witnesses: as new and useful in sewing-machines DANIEL KING, 1. Guides which serve to fold or turn the JAMES DAUGREZ. d .