The Open-Back Curry Comb: Three Bent Troughs and No Back to Clog

A curry comb with a solid back fills with dust and hair between its rows, and has to be rapped against a post to clear it, so it carries a projecting knocker for the purpose. William Wheeler of Troy, New York, received US 4,470, dated 25 April 1846, for currycombs made "of three longitudinal bars of sheet metal, united by rivets to two transverse bars, one at each end, and one at the middle of the instrument, there being open spaces formed by the junction of these bars, or plates, through which a large portion of the dust which would otherwise lodge in the comb, escapes in the act of using it." Each bar is bent twice at right angles into a trough, with teeth along both edges, which makes it "perfectly unyielding"; the middle transverse bar runs out as the tang for the handle. This rung works out why the trough is so much stiffer than the flat strip, then cuts, bends and rivets a comb from sheet steel and flat bar and grooms with it.