The Valve Funnel: A Measure That Pours Only While You Press

"My invention relates to a device combining a graduated measure and funnel for measuring and discharging fluids without waste." "In using my device a given quantity of a fluid is discharged from the measure through the adjustable pipe g by pressing on the lever c, which causes the valve-rod e to press down and open the valve f, whereby the fluid flows into and out of the pipe, Fig. 1. The discharge is stopped by removing pressure from the lever, which permits the spiral spring h to close the valve, as shown in Fig. 2. In discharging a fluid—as, for example, milk—there is no waste, as the valve acts instantaneously as soon as pressure is removed from the lever, and it may be closed at the instant the required quantity of fluid has been discharged."

Fill a graduated measuring jug to its top mark with water. Hold a kitchen funnel over a second jug and pour until the first jug has dropped by a quarter, timing it. Repeat from half full and from a quarter full, pouring at the same tilt each time. With a valve funnel, fill it, open the valve fully and time how long each quarter takes to run out: the last quarter is slowest, as the notebook predicts. Then practise stopping at a mark and measure the overshoot in a small graduated cylinder.

**Charles Rehn** of San Francisco filed US 368,007 on 27 September 1886; it is dated 9 August 1887. He did not claim a funnel with a spring valve or a removable pipe broadly, only his combination. **Honest limits.** The patent gives no outlet size. The measure and outlet diameters and the discharge coefficient in the notebook are examples; a quart here is the US liquid quart.