The Needle Brace Bar: A Sliding Bar That Holds the Needle Near the Cloth While It Feeds

"The object of this invention is to guide and support an eye-pointed needle of a sewing-machine during its descent into the cloth, and also to support the needle while the feed is taking place." "Since the feed takes place in needle-feed machines while the needle is in the material, and since at this time, by my invention, the needle is held and supported in the socket of the bar at or near the surface of the bed on which the material lies, near which bed, either above or below it, the power which accomplishes the feed is applied to the needle, it follows that the needle will be supported and sustained by the strength of the bar D against the force of the moving power, and they will be less liable to become bent or broken"

**Needle bar.** Screw a hardwood upright to a base with a hardwood block sliding in a groove on its face as the needle-carrier. Clamp a sewing needle in its lower end, pointing down, with 30 mm free. **Brace bar.** Cut a strip of spring steel that slides in a second groove on the carrier's face, held by two small clamping strips so friction keeps it from falling. Bend its foot into a small eye that the needle passes through, just above the needle's eye. **Stop.** Screw a small stop under the carrier's path so the brace rests on it at the cloth's level while the carrier and needle go on down. **Test.** With the needle through a pad of cloth, push sideways on the cloth with the spring scale at 2 N and measure how far the needle's shank moves with the caliper against a fixed pointer, first with the brace pushed up out of the way and then with it resting at the cloth.

**E. E. Bean** of Abington, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, assignor to himself and Jacob Chickering, received US 51,890, dated 2 January 1866; he signed the specification on 20 May 1865. A hanging arm e on the needle-bar held the bar D stationary as the carrier rose, and he said the action could be produced by fixed stops or dogs; he did not claim supporting a crochet needle, hook or awl, nor a stationary support for an eye-pointed needle. His claims cover the needle support that slides vertically and moves laterally with the needle in needle-feed machines, and the bar D with the hanging bar e. **Honest limits.** A hand-moved carrier and a simple stop stand in for his machine's needle-bar and hanging arm. The notebook treats the needle as a straight cantilever; its force and sizes are examples. Your measured bend is the result.