IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND STEEL
Year: 1856

page_text: application for Letters Patent was not given within the time prescribed
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Siegerich Christopher Kreeft at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
17th May 1856.-A communication.
I, 'SIEGERICH CHRISTOPHER KREEFT, of Fenchurch Street, in the City of
London, Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND STEEL, to be as follows:-
This Invention of improvements in the manufacture of iron and steel has
for its object to produce steel and wrought iron of good quality direct from
cast iron, without the necessity of re-melting and puddling the same, thereby
dispensing with certain of the intermediate operations, and effecting a con-
siderable economy in the yield of the iron or steel from a certain quantity of
crude, pig, or cast iron.
In carrying out the Invention, iron may be run from the blast furnace into
moulds, so as to form it into bars or plates of suitable and convenient dimen-
sions, as to length and thickness, to be operated upon in the subsequent
processes. Of course, if it be required to operate upon crude pig iron, it must
be first melted in order to bring it into the required form and shape to be
operated upon by the improved process. The cast iron having been obtained
in the form desired, either by running direct from the blast furnace or by
melting the crude pig iron, as above mentioned, the cast-iron bars or plates

page_text: are to be placed in a farnace, similar to that used in the cementation of steel,
and to these cast-iron bars or plates is added some chemical re-agent or
material containing oxygen, and which may be readily given off by heating the
material. The most convenient manner of adding the chemical re-agent is by
arranging the cast-iron bars or plates and the chemical materials in alternate
layers. The materials that may be employed are the different kinds of
oxide of iron, manganese, or metallic or alkaline salts containing oxygen.
The iron and the chemical materials are then licated to redness, and oxygen
will be given off and will unite with the carbon contained in the cast iron,
which will, after being submitted to this process for some time, be gradually
decarbonized.
In place of employing oxygenating materials, as above mentioned, materials
not liable to be decomposed by heat may be employed, such, for instance, as
crushed quartz or broken fire-brick. These materials are to be reduced to a
uniform size, and sifted through a sieve for the purpose of arriving at that
result. The cast-iron bars or plates are laid upon a bed of this coarse sand,
as it may be termed, and then another layer of bars, and afterwards more sand,
and so on until the vessel in which they are placed in the furnace is charged
full; then, upon heating the mass as before explained, and allowing the access
of atmospheric air, the oxygen, of the air will combine with the carbon con-
tained in the iron, which will be thereby decarbonized. It has been found, by
experience, that some days must elapse before the decarbonization of the iron
is completely effected, and therefore provision must be made to be able to
withdraw some of the bars to see, from time to time, how the process is going
It has been ascertained that from ten to twelve days are required to
convert the cast iron into steel, but this will of course vary with the quality of
the metal and the nature of the decarbonizing materials employed. By con-
tinuing the decarbonization still farther, the cast iron will be reduced to
wrought-iron bars, which may be worked into any form required by the
ordinary processes of haminiering or rolling.