Ix-nay on the surveryor's tool, sheridan27-ga.
You appear to be in possession of a corner piece of a patented device
known as a stretcher frame. The piece you have is meant to be mounted
on the two mitered members of the frame where they meet in a
corner..there should be two slots in the piece through which a screw
can screw into the frame. The smallish wedge sits in between the
frames pieces, and by pushing the piece up towards a corner, the wedge
pushes against the frame and stretches the attached canvas.
Oh...I wish I could draw you a picture. But you can see it yourself
at the US Patent Office site. I'll explain how in a sec, but first
the particulars:
Patent # 320300 for a Stretcher Frame was issued June 16, 1885 to
Aaron D. Shattuck (ADS!) of Granby, Connecticut. It superceded his
earlier patent for the same device, issued on (go on, guess....) Feb
13, 1883.
The text-version of the patent is garbled due to poor scanning, but
you can get a sense of the patent nonetheless from this brief excerpt:
==========
Be it known that 1, AAioN D. SILA.TTUCK, a citizen of the United
States, residing at Granby, ill the county of Hartford and State of
Connecticut, have inN, ented certain new and .... and I do hereby
declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of
the invention, such as will enable others skilled ill the art to which
it appertains to inake and use the same.
My invention relates to the class of frames used by artists and
others for the purpose of' stretchin- canvas and similar material, and
....construction illustrated and described in my former Patent N o.
272,162, granted February 13, 1883).
211y present invention is especially adapted for stretcher- fraines
provided with panel- backs or cross-bars, or both; and it consists in
a Dew construction of frame, which is mitered at the corners, and is
provided with a notch or recess at each corner to receive a wedge,
which is joined to or cast integral with a metallic COrlier-plate,
the, wedge bein-, concealed within the corner when the plate is in
operative po sitioll.
My invention further consists in cutting away and beveling theback of
the wedge and n locating it centrally between the slots in said plate,
the object of which is to prevent the, wedge from doing iijury to the
canvas when driven in, and at the saine time to afford facilities for
inserting a panel or panels in the uslia'i way-that is, by tongue and
groove-, vithont the necessity of cutti 110' a notch i ii the panel.
===========
You get the idea, I trust.
Anyway, here are two options for getting a clearer view of the actual
patent (which includes pictures of the said device).
First off, you can try these two links, where I posted some pages from
the patent...I've never tried this before, and it may or may not work,
but give it a try. If the links below are not clickable, just cut and
paste them into your address bar:
http://www.furl.net/search?search=cache&id=127364&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpatimg1.uspto.gov%2F.piw%3Fdocid%3DUS000320300%26PageNum%3D1%26IDKey%3D5B30A077A8CA%26HomeUrl%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO1%252526Sect2%3DHITOFF%252526d%3DPALL%252526p%3D1%252526u%3D%2Fnetahtml%2Fsrchnum.htm%252526r%3D1%252526f%3DG%252526l%3D50%252526s1%3D320300.WKU.%252526OS%3DPN
http://www.furl.net/search?search=cache&id=127363&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpatimg1.uspto.gov%2F.piw%3Fdocid%3DUS000320300%26PageNum%3D2%26IDKey%3D5B30A077A8CA%26HomeUrl%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO1%252526Sect2%3DHITOFF%252526d%3DPALL%252526p%3D1%252526u%3D%2Fnetahtml%2Fsrchnum.htm%252526r%3D1%252526f%3DG%252526l%3D50%252526s1%3D320300.WKU.%252526OS%3DPN
==========
If these links don't work, you can see the images at the Patent Office
site itself after you download their viewing software.
The site for searching for a known patent number at the US Patent Office is:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm
In the search box, enter the number:
320300
Which should bring up a message reading:
"Full text is not available for this patent. Click on "Images" button
above to view full patent."
By clicking on "Images" the site will walk you through the process for
actually accessing the image of the patent for Mr. Shattuck's clever
invention.
I hope this answers your question to your full satisfaction. But if
anything here is not clear, or if any links give you problems, let me
know by posting a Request for Clarification, and I'll be happy to
assist you further.
pafalafa-ga
search strategy: searched Lexis-Nexis patent database for the two
dates you gave me, which led me to Shattuck's patent, which I then
accessed at the Patent Office site. |
