A NEW MODE OF PROTECTING IRON OF EVERY KIND AGAINST THE ACTION OF THE WEATHER, OF RAIN, RIVER, SPRING, AND SEA WATER SO THAT IRON THUS PROTECTED MAY BE USED FOR ROOFING, FOR CISTERNS, PIPES, GUTTERS, WINDOW FRAMES, TELEGRAPHIC WIRES, FOR MARINE AND VARIOUS OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1853

page_text: COMPLETE SPECIFICATION filed by the said Nicholas Callan at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition and
Declaration, on the 27th September 1853, pursuant to the 9th
section of the Patent Law Amendment Act, 1852.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,
Nicholas Callan, of the R. C. College, Maynooth, in the County of
Kildare, Ireland, do hereby declare the nature of my said Inven-
tion of "A NEW MODE OF PROTECTING IRON OF EVERY KIND AGAINST THE
ACTION OF THE WEATHER, OF RAIN, RIVER, SPRING, AND SEA WATER SO
THAT IRON THUS PROTECTED MAY BE USED FOR ROOFING, FOR CISTERNS, PIPES,
GUTTERS, WINDOW FRAMES, TELEGRAPHIC WIRES, FOR MARINE AND VARIOUS
OTHER PURPOSES," and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement (that is to say):
Iron of any kind or form which may be required is coated with an
alloy of lead and tin by first tinning it in the usual way, and then
immersing it (in the same manner in which iron plates are immersed
in tinning them) into melted lead covered with some fatty or oily sub-
stance to prevent oxidation, or into a melted alloy of lead and tin, until
the tin on the surface of the iron combines with the lead or alloy. I

page_text: recommend that such alloy contain as much lead as tin, and not more
than five or six times as much lead as tin. When a thick coating
is required, the iron is immersed several times into the alloy. Iron
thus coated is protected against the action of the weather, of rain, river,
spring, and sea water; and will therefore answer for roofing, for cisterns,
pipes, gutters, window frames, telegraphic wires, for marine and various
other purposes. Even concentrated nitric acid will act far less on such
a coating than on lead. If the alloy with which the iron is coated
contain more than five or six times as great a weight of tin as of lead,
or twenty times as much lead as tin, its protecting power will be greatly
inferior to that of an alloy which contains as much lead as tin, or only
five times as much lead as tin.
Claim. I claim as my Invention the coating of iron of any kind in
the manner described with an alloy of lead and tin, in which alloy the
quantity of lead compared with that of tin is neither very great nor
very small, as a means of protecting the iron against the action of the
weather, of rain, river, spring, and sea water, and thereby rendering it
fit for roofing, for cisterns, pipes, gutters, window frames, telegraphic
wires, for marine and various other purposes. I recommend that the
alloy into which the iron after being tinned is immersed contain as
much lead as tin, and not more than five or six times as great a
weight of lead as of tin; but I do not bind myself to these pro-
portions.
In witness whereof, I, the said Nicholas Callan, of Maynooth
College, in the County of Kildare, Ireland, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Twenty-first day of September, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three.
(L.B.) NICHOLAS CALLAN.