Definition

This class is intended to cover machines, appliances, and processes involving or for the performance of one or more of the operations necessary in the manufacture of brushes, brooms, or mops, except those of such general application to other arts or articles as to have acquired a distinct status elsewhere--as, for example, in nailing and stapling, sewing-machines, wire-working, folding-machines, woodworking.

In the terminology of the present classification the words "brush" and "broom" are not used as synonymous, but as connoting, in general, certain distinctions--as, for example, of greater coarseness and stiffness in a broom than in a brush, and of animal bristles, hair, or equivalent in a brush, rather than the vegetable straw, splints, or equivalent of brooms; also of the uniformly smooth periphery and substantially circular cross-section which generally characterize bristles, properly so called, in distinction from broom materials.

Under brush-making machines are placed those which deal with natural or artificial bristles of animal or vegetable origin and of the characteristics above mentioned or which handle metal bristles in an equivalent way to produce an implement whose working face consists of the ends of a mass of such bristles lying in substantially parallel and generally mutually contacting relation. Those employing means for cutting wire into uniform lengths and separately inserting them in a backing are excluded along with means for molding rubber bristles integrally with a backing. The latter is placed in Class 425, Plastic Article or Earthenware Shaping or Treating: Apparatus.

Under broom-making machines are included those which handle broom "straw" or equivalent material or splints or equivalents which are too stiff, heavy, coarse, or angular in cross-section to be properly termed "bristles".

Because of indicated differences in the character of the material handled the types of machines placed under the respective stated heads are so different as to make it extremely unlikely that a structure placed under one head could anticipate one falling under the other.

Under mop-making machines are placed those dealing with sheets, folds, fibers, or strands of spun, woven, or other fabric in such manner as to assemble them into a more or less amorphous mass capable of acting as a wiper, rather than as a brush or broom, and in general of capillary absorption and retention of foreign matter or of a suitable cleaning or polishing substance. It is to be noted that in the use of a wiper for cleaning purposes foreign matter to be removed is carried away with the wiper, which is not the case with brushes or brooms.

In the Encyclopedia Americana, edition of 1920, is an article on brushes and brooms whose perusal will often prove useful as a preliminary to a search in this class, due allowance being made for some inaccuracies and omissions.