[Footnote 1: Paper presented at the New York meeting (December, 1897) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and forming part of volume xix. of the Transactions.] BY E. H. MUMFORD, PLAINFLELD, N. J. (Member of the Society.) Moulding machines may be classed under three heads. First, machines which only ram the moulds, and, when the ramming is done by means of a side lever, by hand, are generally called "squeezers." Second, machines which only draw the patterns, the ramming being accomplished by the usual hand methods. Third, machines which both ram the moulds and draw the patterns, ramming either by a hand-pulled lever or by fluid pressure on piston or plunger and drawing the patterns through a plate called a "stripping plate" or "drop plate"--till recently the usual method--or without the use of this plate fitting everywhere to pattern outline at the parting surface, the patterns being effectively machine guided in either case. It is to the third class that the machine which is used to illustrate the subject of this paper belongs, and which would seem to have enough that is novel in the application of machinery to the foundry to merit the attention of the society. [Illustration: FIG. 1.--ORDINARY METHOD OF DRAWING PATTERN SPIKE AND RAPPER.] At the risk of appearing pedantic, but with a view to developing an appreciation of the true function of the method of pattern drawing used in this machine, attention is called to the following sectional views of moulds and ways of drawing patterns occurring in machine moulding. Fig. 1 shows an ordinary "gate" of fitting patterns being drawn from the drag or nowel part of the mould by means of a spike and rapper wielded by the moulder's hand after cope and drag have been rammed together on a "squeezer" and cope has been removed. Frequently the pernicious "swab" is used to soak and so strengthen joint outlines of the sand before drawing patterns, in such cases as this. In this case, before cope is lifted, these patterns must be vigorously rapped through the cope; an amount depending (and so does the size of the casting) upon the mood and strength of the moulder. Fig. 2 shows the stripping or drop plate method of drawing patterns. [Illustration: FIG. 2.--STRIPPING PLATE METHOD OF DRAWING PATTERNS.] In this method the patterns are not rapped at all and are drawn in a practically straight line so that the mould is absolutely pattern size.