The accompanying illustration represents a combined biscuit cutting,
scrapping, and panning machine, specially designed for running at high
speeds, and so arranged as to allow of the relative movements of the
various parts being adjusted while in motion. The cutters or dies,
mounted on a cross head working in a vertical guide frame, are
operated from the main shaft by eccentrics and vertical connecting
rods, as shown. These rods are connected to the lower strap of the
eccentric by long guide bolts, on which intermediate spiral springs
are mounted, and by this means, although the dies are brought quickly
down to the dough, they are suffered to remain in contact therewith,
under a gradually increasing pressure, for a sufficient length of time
to insure the dough being effectually stamped and completely cut
through.

[Illustration: IMPROVED BISCUIT MACHINE.]

Further, the springs tend to counteract any tendency to vibration that
might be set up by the rapid reciprocation of the cross head, cutters,
and their attendant parts. Mounted also on the main shaft is one of a
pair of reversed cone drums. These, with their accompanying belt and
its adjusting gear, worked by a hand wheel and traversing screw, as
shown, serve to adjust the speed of the feed rollers, so as to suit
the different lengths of the intermediate travel or "skip" of the
dough-carrying web.

Provision is made for taking up the slack of this belt by mounting the
spindle of the outer coned drum in bearings adjustable along a
circular path struck from the axis of the lower feed roller as a
center, thus insuring a uniform engagement between the teeth of the
small pinion and those of the spur wheel with which the drum and