CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN REFINING STEEL
Year: 1850

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, EWALD
RIEPE, of Finsbury Square, in the City of London, Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Fifth day of December,
One thousand eight hundred and fifty, in the fourteenth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said.
Ewald Riepe, my exors, adñiors, and assigns, Her especial license, full power,
sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Ewald Riepe, my exors, adñiors,
and assigns, or such others as I, the said Ewald Riepe, my exors, admňors, or
assigns, should at any time agree with and no others, from time to time and at
all times during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of
Berwick-upon-Tweed, the Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN REFINING
STEEL" (being a communication from a foreigner residing abroad); in which
said Letters Patent is contained a proviso, that I, the said Ewald Riepe, shall
cause a particular description of the nature of the said Invention, and in what.
manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument in writing, under my.
band and seal, to be inrolled in Her Majesty's High Court of Chancery
within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said

page_text: in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being there-
unto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Ewald Riepe, do hereby declare that the nature of the said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, are fully described and ascertained
in and by the present Specification thereof, that is to say:-
I take bars or lumps of raw or crude steel (particularly puddled steel), and,
in order to the refining of them, place them in a furnace or other heating
chamber out of the reach of any injurious action upon them by the atmo-
spheric air, and then subject them for a time to a temperature not exceeding
the melting point of steel. I use for the purpose a welding furnace, such as
is ordinarily employed in puddling iron, only that the bed is lowered and the
grate brought from two to four feet below the level of the fire bridge, and the
ash-pit is provided with an iron door, by which it may be entirely closed when
required. When the furnace is in full heat, I place the bars or lumps of raw
or crude steel on the bed of the furnace, but at distances apart so that they
may nowhere touch each other; and during the whole of the refining process,
I keep the fireplace fully charged with coals or other fuel. Then, in order to
exclude as much as may be the access of oxygen, I carefully lute any crevices
there may be in the working door or elsewhere with wet clay, and so regulate
the draft of the furnace by means of the ash-pit, door and flue damper, closing
them more or less or altogether, as may be requisite, that the heat shall never
attain to the melting point of steel. A sufficient practical test of this is
furnished by the colour of the flame, which is, with this view, carefully watched
through an eyehole in the working door. As long as it keeps of a dull or
hardly red colour, the heat will not be in excess of what is required.. I usually
put from nine hundred to one thousand pounds of raw or crude steel, in bars
of three inches by one and a half inches, into a furnace of the ordinary size,
and continue the operation for about four hours. By this method of operation
carburetted hydrogen and oxide of carbon are developed in the furnace in
abundance, while the oxygen of the atmospheric air is entirely prevented from
acting on the steel, and the product is steel of a very fine uniform grain.
And having now described the nature, of the, said Invention, and in what
Janner the same is to be performed, I declare that I do not restrict myself
to the use of any particular form of furnace, nor to the subjection of the crude
or raw steel to the refining process in any particular quantities or of any
particular sizes. But that what I claim is, the, refining of raw, or crude steel
(particularly puddled steel) by placing it in a furnace or other heating chamber
out of the reach of any injurious action upon it by the atmospheric air, and

page_text: Enrolled the Fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and fifty-one.