The Bail-Opened Kettle Lid: Throw the Handle Down and the Cover Lifts Itself

"A designates a tea-kettle of ordinary construction, and B is a handle, which is pivoted in the ears C. One end of said handle, as D, is extended through the wall of the kettle through the aperture A' and designed to engage with a hook or connection attached to the cover." "By this construction it will be noted that when the handle of the tea-kettle is raised to a vertical position the inner end of the bail or handle will cause the cover to be closed, and the weight of the cover when closed will hold the handle normally in a vertical position, as shown in Fig. 1."

**Body.** Use a large tin can, open at the top, as the kettle. Cut a round cover of brass sheet to its mouth, hinge it at one side with two small tabs of brass sheet pop-riveted to the rim and a pin of wire through their rolled ends, and pop-rivet a strip of brass under the cover 4 cm from the hinge as the strap. **Bail.** Pop-rivet two ears of brass sheet to the can's sides just below the rim, each with a 3 mm hole, on the line across the can that passes 4 cm from the hinge. Bend galvanised wire into a bail that spans the can, with one end through its ear and on through a 4 mm hole in the wall beside it, then bend that end inside into a crank 2.5 cm long, pointing down when the bail stands upright. **Yoke.** Bend a wire yoke that hangs from a loop in the strap and ends in a hook round the crank. **Test.** Stand the bail upright and check that the cover is shut and holds it there. Throw the bail down to one side and measure how far the cover opens with a protractor; repeat with the crank bent 1.5 and 3.5 cm long.

**Frederick S. Hunt** of Albany, Whiteside County, Illinois, filed US 636,805 on 2 March 1899; it is dated 14 November 1899. The cover E is hinged to the kettle beside the opening, and a strap F under it carries in its looped end the yoke K, whose end hooks K' engage the inner end of the handle. To open the cover the handle is thrown over on the side of the kettle, and it is held open. He noted that it may be applied to any receptacle. His claims cover the pivoted cover, the handle with one end extending into the kettle, and the connections between them; and the kettle with its pivoted cover and bail, the strap and the hooked yoke. **Honest limits.** A tin-can model shows the linkage and is not for the stove; he gives no sizes. The notebook treats the yoke as rigid and upright; its lengths are examples. Your measured angles are the result.