Brake-and-Ledge Bar Dasher Churn: Slotted Brakes Break the Current, Ledges Turn It Back to the Dasher

"by the action of the dasher the mass of cream or milk in the tub is caused to assume a rotary motion, and the current thus created by coming in contact with the brakes, c, is thrown violently against the sides of the tub and as it passes through the openings, e, in the back part of these brakes and along the sides of the tub, it (the current) strikes against the ledges, d, whereby it is turned in again, toward the dasher"

Use a wooden tub 260 mm across inside at the bottom, 230 mm at the top and 420 mm deep, with its top hoop driven up to stand 25 mm above the staves. Glue a hardwood step, 70 mm across and 22 mm thick with a 27 mm hole 16 mm deep, in the middle of the floor. Cut a round cover to drop inside the top hoop, saw it in two across the middle, and bore a 42 mm hole in the middle and a 20 mm air hole 80 mm off it.

From 12 mm hardwood cut three brakes 30 mm wide and three ledges 18 mm wide, 345 mm long, their outer edges planed to the staves' slope. In each brake cut a slot 10 mm wide next to its outer edge, stopping 40 mm from each end: the openings e. Screw the brakes upright to the staves through the wall, 15 mm above the floor, one every third of the way round. Screw a ledge 15 degrees after each brake, in the way the dasher turns.

Turn a hardwood shaft C 40 mm across and 503 mm long, its foot turned to 25 mm for 15 mm and its top 24 mm square for 30 mm. Chisel five 25 mm square mortises through it at 45, 110, 175, 240 and 305 mm from the floor, each turned 90 degrees from the last. Cut five bars from 25 x 50 mm hardwood, as long as the tub allows at their height (179, 174, 170, 165 and 160 mm), and shave each from 25 mm square at the middle out to 50 x 8 mm at the ends. Glue them through the shaft. Fit a hardwood crank 190 mm long with a handle on the square top.

Stand the dasher's foot in the step and fill the tub with about 15 litres of heavy cream at about 15 °C, checked with the thermometer, up to the upper bar. Put the cover's halves on round the shaft. Turn the crank steadily the way the ledges face, timing it. When the butter comes, lift the cover and dasher, take out the butter, drain the buttermilk, wash the butter in cold water until it runs clear, work in a pinch of salt and weigh it.

**James Taylor** of Rushville, Schuyler County, Illinois, US 25,453, 13 September 1859, "Churn". He claimed the arrangement of perforated brakes and auxiliary reflectors with a dasher "having its blades flattened out gradually from near the shaft to their ends", and disclaimed the brakes of Hiram Brown's rejected application of 1852 and of M. R. Marcell's patent of 1858. "The number and size of these brakes and ledges depend entirely upon the size and diameter of the tub": the patent gives no sizes, and every size here is ours, as is the crank.