Patent Pending Blog - Patents and the History of Technology

The First Full Suspension Bike

You might think the first full suspension bike was associated with mountain bikes, and could have logically happened in the 1980s.  Or it could have been associated with American cruiser bikes of the 50s.  But a pretty modern looking full suspension bicycle was patented in 1891, by McGlinchey.  As in full suspension bikes of today, the rear stay is articulated, and has a spring to allow give.  The front forks have a spring to absorb shocks.  Another full suspension bike from 1890 has a link below.

The full suspension of 1892 was not exactly for off road or mountain bike use.  In those days, the roads would be considered "off road", compared to the smooth pavement of today.   In additon, the solid rubber tires needed some cushioning on the rough roads, and hence there was quite an interest in spring suspension of bikes.   

Other early suspension systems on bikes are at:

Rear suspension, 1892

Front suspension, 1889

Front suspension, 1889

Full suspension, 1890

Telescoping forks, 1922

Better Than Sliced Bread

Before 1928, no one said something was better than sliced bread, because the bread slicer was invented in 1928.  It was invented by a jeweller, Otto Rohwedder. He had been working on it for 16 years, having started in 1912.  He learned that a bread slicer was doomed to fail unless it was combined with a bread packager, because when bread is sliced it dries out a lot quicker.  When he asked bakers if a bread slicer was a good idea, he was told by all that it was a dumb idea.  When the slicer was built, he found it very hard to get a baker to use his machine, much less buy one. 

In the patent figure, 33 is a loaf of bread, and the bands 47 are like little band saws, each one slicing two cuts in the bread. 

Interchangable Parts

The first use of interchangeable parts in manufacturing was by a French artillery general, General Gribeauval.  He instituted interchageable parts to be used in cannon carriages for his army, in about 1765 I think.  I'll have to check that.  The tolerances for his carriage parts were fairly large, but parts of one gun carriage would fit another carriage, and complete carriage could be built up of stock parts.

 

Thomas B. Jeffery, Clincher Tires

After Dunlop pneumatic tires became available for bikes, they were pretty much like the garden hoses they started out as.  They were tubular in shape, and were secured to the bike rims by glue, and air pressure pressing them against the rim.  The rims were wooden, and has a concave surface for receiving the tube. 

These tires sometimes came off the rims, and a more secure type of tire was needed.  Thomas B. Jeffery was a bicycle manufacturer and inventor, and came up with an improved tire.  It was held on by a wire that was embedded in the rubber of the tire, and the wire could be tightened onto the rim.  He got a patent on the ancestor of all clincher tires in 1882.   

This was the ancestor of all clincher tires, which is the kind of tires on most bikes and cars today.  Clincher tires today have two wires embedded on either side of the tire, and the wires fit inside the edges of the rim, and hold the tire in place when it is pumped up with air. 

Jeffery made a velocipede that ran on a railroad, and bicycles with the clincher tire and other innovations he pioneered.  The bicycles were sold as the Rambler, and were made in Chicago from 1878 to 1900.

Jeffery later started building automobiles, also called the Rambler, in 1902.  His first car had a 4 cylinder engine, 38 horsepower, with a displacement of 286 cu. in., and sold for $1650, about 8 times as much as a bicycle of the day.  The ad is from Vintage Ads 4U.  The Jeffery Company became the Nash Company, making Ramblers, and later became American Motor Company, which my Dad bought stock in, so we had one or two AMC cars in the 1960s when I was a kid.  How embarrassing.

 

The Hand-Crank Ice Cream Maker

In 1843 Nancy Johnson got a patent on a machine to make ice cream by hand.  This was an ingenious device that provided a real treat to everyone in the U.S., if not the world.  Milk, sugar and flavoring, such as vanilla, were placed in the inner can, and a rotating paddle was placed in the milk. 

The inner can was placed in the outer bucket, and ice and salt were placed between the inner can and outer bucket.  The salt lowered the freezing point of the ice, and contact with the inner bucket made a thin layer of milk freeze on the inside of the inner can.  The rotating paddle, turned by a crank, scraped off the frozen milk, and let a new layer freeze.

Sneaky adults let the kids do all the work, but it was worth it because the ice cream was so good. 

When enough of the milk had frozen, it became stiff, and was spooned out to eagerly awaiting kids, like me, my brother Mike, and sister Sue in the photo below, from about 1955, with our Mom and a farm cat watching. .

 

Charles Goodyear, Vulcanized Rubber

Rubber in its natural state is a nasty and almost useless substance, but in 1823 a Scottish chemist name Charles MacIntosh filed for a patent on a method for making waterproof fabric using rubber.  However, early rubber products would become brittle in cold weather, and would melt in hot weather.  In 1835 a process was patented that the inventor thought would make rubber more useful.  However, after two years, all the products made with the rubber formula turned to liquid and stank so bad they had to be buried.  Thirty five year old Charles Goodyear bought a rubber lifepreserver made from this rubber, and designed an improved valve for holding air for it, and then learned that the rubber itself was faulty. 

With no training in science or chemistry, he set out to improve it.  Just when he thought he had improved rubber, his new formula rubber melted in the sun.  Further hopeful successes were dashed by failure, and the cycle repeated many times, for about 5 years!!  He eventually learned that certain sulphur containing substances helped the texture of rubber, and once he accidentally dropped a sample of sulphur treated rubber on a stove.  Spots on the sample had superior characteristics of cold and heat resistance, and thus "vulcanized" rubber was born.  Natural rubber, treated with sulphur and heat, resulted in rubber that could coat fabric and be made into useful waterproof objects.  One of the main objects made with vulcanized rubber was water hoses, especially garden hoses.  The Mac raincoat, however, gets its name from the Scottish inventor Charles MacIntosh, whose products greatly improved by the use of vulcanized rubber.

The Bush Roller Chain

Hans Renold was 21 when he moved from Swizerland to Manchester to find his place in the world.  Six years later, in 1879, he bought a small chain company, and in 1880 invented the bush roller chain.  The figures below are the drawings from his British patent on the bush roller chain.

The difference between a roller chain and a bush roller chain is that the bush roller chain includes an extra tubular section which surrounds the bush, through which the pin extends.  The roller is free to rotate, and protects the bush from wear.  This extends the life of the chain.  An exploded view of a bush roller chain is shown below.

James Starley incorporated a Renold chain into his Rover bicycle of 1884, the prototypical diamond framed bicycle. 

Renold's invention revolutionized all kind of industries, especially the textile industry in England, which was huge.  Renold expanded his business, and in 1925 purchased his largest competitor.  Further acquisitions followed, and Renold became established as a supplier of excellent quality chains, gears, couplings, and freewheels to industry.   

Renold presently has about 3300 employees, and facilities in 22 countries around the world.  Their current offerings of chains are found at their site under: Renold Roller Chain.

The First Recumbent Bike?

I don't know if this was the first, but it is certainly an early recumbent bicycle, to J. Jarvis, 1902.  Another early one is to W.C. Kidney, 1907. 

   

The Scooter

The Razor scooter is quite popular with kids, with a sudden entry in the field a few years ago.  Here is a scooter from 1919 that looks very similar to the Razor and its imitators.  The Razor is shown below.

Ball Bearings

A type of bearing was known in northern Europe in the days of Rome (100 bc) (Technology in the Ancient World, Henry Hodges, p 243).  The Goths and Vandals of that era were basically societies on wheels, and moved from place to place, as grazing availability, farmland, and population pressure dictated.  They used a type of wooden roller bearing on the wheels of their wagons, which were much advanced over the Roman wheel technology.

Leonardo de Vinci also designed bearings of various types.  In the culture that he worked in, he could not profit from disclosing his inventions, so he kept them secret, and used them only on commissioned works.  Thus, few of his inventions were put into practical use. 

The technology did not exist to mass produce ball bearings until the late 18th century.  Ball bearings were first patented by Philip Vaughan of England in 1794, for use on axles and wheels.  E.A. Cowper adapted the ball bearing for bicycle wheels, and soon ball bearings were also used in the cranks, pedals, and stem of bicycles.  When automobiles began being built, they borrowed heavily from the technological advances that were embodied in bicycle technology of the time.