IMPROVEMENTS IN SAFETY PINS
Year: 1884

page_text: I HENRY HARRIS LAKE of the firm of Haseltine Lake & Co Patent Agents
Southampton Buildings in the County of Middlesex do hereby declare the nature
of said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN SAFETY PINS" and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement :-
This Invention is in the nature of an improvement in the construction of safety
pins and consists in a safety pin with all its several parts made from a single piece
of wire, the shield being formed in the manner hereinafter particularly described.
In the accompanying Drawing
Figure 1 represents the folds in the wire for making the old form of shield.
Figure 2 the first fold.
Figure 3 the second fold.
Figure 4 the third fold and
Figure 5 the final folding of my present form of shield.
Figure 6 represents a completed pin.
Similar letters of reference indicate like parts in the several Figures.
This Invention is designed as an improvement in the safety pins heretofore made
by the communicator of this Invention and in which all the several parts of the
pin, to wit the sharpened and unsharpened members, the spring and shield were
made from one and the same piece of wire and integral with it. Such a safety pin
possesses many advantages over the old form of pin in which the shield is formed
from a separate piece of folded sheet metal and afterwards secured to the wire of
the pin, for in the former pin, the shield, as before stated, formed part of the same
wire from which was constructed the other parts of the pin, but it has been found
in practice that in order to bend the wire to make the shield it either had to be
annealed, or a large percentage of the pins would break in folding if unannealed,
and if the wire was annealed it was then rendered too ductile for the purposes of a
shield and it would then strain out of shape, therefore to make the shield from hard
or unannealed wire and at the same time avoid breaking the wire in the process of
folding, I construct my shield according to the present Invention by first bending
the end of the wire A with one turn as in Figure 2, a second turn as in Figure 3,
a third turn as in Figure 4, and finally double over all the turned or folded portions
P
Similar letters of reference indicate like parts in the several Figures.
This Invention is designed as an improvement in the safety pins heretofore made
by the communicator of this Invention and in which all the several parts of the
pin, to wit the sharpened and unsharpened members, the spring and shield were
made from one and the same piece of wire and integral with it. Such a safety pin
possesses many advantages over the old form of pin in which the shield is formed
from a separate piece of folded sheet metal and afterwards secured to the wire of
the pin, for in the former pin, the shield, as before stated, formed part of the same
wire from which was constructed the other parts of the pin, but it has been found
in practice that in order to bend the wire to make the shield it either had to be
annealed, or a large percentage of the pins would break in folding if unannealed,
and if the wire was annealed it was then rendered too ductile for the purposes of a
shield and it would then strain out of shape, therefore to make the shield from hard
or unannealed wire and at the same time avoid breaking the wire in the process of
folding, I construct my shield according to the present Invention by first bending
the end of the wire A with one turn as in Figure 2, a second turn as in Figure 3,
a third turn as in Figure 4, and finally double over all the turned or folded portions

page_text: as in Figure 5 completing the shield B (see Figure 6) with a central bar a. It will
be observed that all of the several folds above described are open folds, that is to
say, none of them are short turns bringing the folded parts of the wire in close
contact which would tend to break it, and it will be further observed that there are
fewer folds or turns than in the old form of shield such as is shewn in Figure 1,
consequently the metal is more easily and rapidly bent and not so apt to be broken,
as before stated. In making the foregoing shield it is wholly unnecessary to anneal
the wire, therefore the shield will not be strained out of place. I am aware that
wire shields have been made and patented, which have but two folls or turns of the
wire but these last mentioned shields are ineffectual for the reason that they formed
a mere frame that did not properly protect the point of the pin, whereas by my
present Invention the point of the pin is guarded by the central bar a.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is
A safety pin with its shield made integral with the wire of the pin and consisting
of three parallel folds of wire doubled over and forming the shield B with a central
bar a.
HASELTINE, LAKE & Co.,
For the Applicant.