New scutching machinery is exhibited at cattle show in Belfast (1860)

Another interesting focus in agricultural implements which were exhibited was that from Messrs Rowan, York Street Foundry, the News Letter detailed: “This firm exhibits two articles of machinery - a portable steam-engine of four-horse power, the boiler being of tubular construction; with an internal firebox, and the engine built on the top of the boiler; and, secondly, a patent scutching machine for flax, hemp, and similar fibre, which has this advantage, that it requires no skilled labour to attend it. In this new machine for scutching flax, a pair of rocking levers, supported by two side frames, have reciprocating motion communicated to them by a shaft with two cranks. From the ends of these two rocking levers are suspended horizontal bars, by means of a pair of links at each end of the two levers. These bars, which hang in pairs, one pair on each side of the machine, have their opposed face's armed with jaws consisting of plates of cast-iron, which look into each other, and have the acting edges serrated. These serrations, or teeth, are made progressively finer from one end of the machine to the other, the end where the flax first enters being the coarsest. The horizontal bars, to which the scutching jaws are attached, are guided at each end by vertical slides connected to a parallel motion, and are made to approach and recede from each other by eccentrics, or cambs, fixed on the crank shaft. The action of the machine is as follows: The flax straw; in proper quantities, firmly fixed in holders, is placed at the end of a slide extending across the machine, so that the tail of the straw hangs down between the jaws just described. The holder traverses along the slide, being actuated by a screw, which, in turn, receives its motion from a lever on the axis of the rocking levers, by means of a ratchet wheel and pawl. The cambs, or eccentrics, are so set on the shaft in respect to the cranks, that immediately before the horizontal bars with the scutching jaws descend, the vertical slides are made to approach each other, and, the teeth of the scutching jaws closing on the flax the downward motion immediately following, produces the scutching action on the material under operation. On the arrival of the scutching jaws at the bottom of the stroke, the cambs cause them to separate, so that they are quite free from the flax during the returning or up stroke. The attendant on the machine supplies holders charged with flax as fast as space is left, by the preceding holders having advanced on their journey across the machine; and, on the arrival of each holder at the opposite end of the machine, another attendant receives it, and, after reversing the flax end for end in the holder, he passes it along the other side of the machine, to be subjected to a similar operation on that portion of the material previously in the grasp of the holder and, consequently, untouched in the stage of operation. Thus, since both sides of the machine are precisely similar, when the holders have made their return journey, and have arrived at that end of the machine they started from, the flax contained in them is completely scutched throughout the whole length or the fibre; and the first-named attendant removes the finished flax, making use of the holders for fresh portions of the flax straw. The quantity of work these scutching machines are capable of doing has been tested, and it is found that with flax of a fair average quality, each machine can scutch at the rate of one pound of the finished flax per minute. To do this quantity of work requires the attendance of one woman to prepare and streak the flax (as is done in the common practice for the ordinary rollers); and four boys to fill and empty the holders. The mechanical power, which may be either steam or water, required for each machine, is from three to four-horses power. As the flax, with these machines, requires no preparatory rolling, the machines for this purpose in common use are entirely dispensed with; and another advantage gained is, that no skilled labour is required. The waste produced in scutching with these machines is less, and, consequently, the yield greater, than by the use of the common scutching mills, amounting sometimes to an increase of 40 per cent. This machine was in full working order, and the shed in which it was erected was thronged with spectators.”