Cloth-cropping machine and a canal for the Wool Guild
Shear-and-cloth mechanisms in red chalk and pen, with a note on a lock-free canal to the lake
The sheet works out the cloth-cropping machine in red chalk and pen: cranks for lowering and raising the shears, a toothed wheel with odd teeth, closing wires hidden under the cloth, and gearing whose tooth spacing Leonardo dimensions in detail. Working notes tell him to cut the base at a-b to conceal the pull beneath, to make the covering cloth six braccia long so it covers bench and mattress at once, and to keep the wheel pivots thin. Along the right margin a separate memorandum proposes that the Wool Guild build a navigable canal from Prato through Pistoia and Serravalle into the lake, without locks, more durable and yielding more revenue along its route.
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A lock-free canal for the Wool Guild
The right margin proposes that the Wool Guild build the navigable canal and collect its toll, the canal passing from Prato, Pistoia and Serravalle and emptying into the lake; being without locks it would be more durable and yield greater revenue from the places it passes.
Raising the shears and hiding the closing wire
A figure with two cranks is for lowering and raising the shears. Another wire runs hidden under the cloth, and where a screw is set at a the closing wire of the shears is to stay concealed beneath it; the base is to be notched at a-b so the pull underneath passes unseen.
Dimensioning the gear teeth
In the gearing below, marked a-r o a-n-m with the base and space of the tooth on the opposite side of the circle, the tooth o stands perpendicular and when o reaches r the point a at the opposite end lies on the line of o. The upper tooth is to be half the interval of the lower teeth, or rather one third, and that interval is to equal three tooth-thicknesses.
The cloth cover and slit guides
A small red-chalk figure notes making the cloth that covers the bench six braccia long, so it covers the mattress and the other bench in one stretch and lies more even. Two little figures with slits b-a mark the notches a-b where the wire that draws the cloth is set, and the pivots of the little wheels are to be made thin.