IMPROVE- MENTS IN THE LINING OR FETTLING FOR PUDDLING FURNACES AND CONTAINING VESSELS IN WHICH PIG OR CRUDE IRON IS CONVERTED INTO WROUGHT IRON OR STEEL
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Player at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 3rd November
1866.
I, JOHN PLAYER, Engineer, of Norton, near Stockton-on-Tees, in the County,
of Durham, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE LINING OR FETTLING FOR PUDDLING FURNACES AND CONTAINING
VESSELS IN WHICH PIG OR CRUDE IRON IS CONVERTED INTO WROUGHT IRON OR STEEL,"
to be as follows:-
It has been the practice to use in furnaces in which iron is puddled or
converted from cast or crude into wrought iron, cast iron bottoms on which
rich oxide of iron has been melted, and to preserve the sides of such furnaces
from the action of the fluid metal, slag, iron ore, or other substance.
containing oxide of iron has been used. Some furnaces or containing vessels.
have been occasionally used, which to agitate. the iron put in them to be
converted into wrought iron or steel have had rotating, oscillating, gyrating,
or other motions given to them, and such furnaces or vessels have been lined
or fettled with ganister, quartz, iron ore, slag, and other substances. Con-
verting vessels in which pig iron is converted into steel or malleable iron by
the action of jets of atmospheric air have also been lined with ganister and
other substances difficult to melt.
Now this Invention consists in the lining or "fettling" of the above-named
furnaces or vessels with wrought-iron bars or pieces cut or formed in such
shapes as may be found most suitable. For a common puddling furnace hearth
I by preference place strips of puddle bars or other wrought iron about 3"*"*

page_text: wide by "or" thick on edge side by side over the whole cast iron bottom of the
furnace touching or nearly touching each other, each bar may have holes formed
in it, through which bolts of iron should be thrust, with a cotter or nut at each
end, by this or it may be by other suitable means the flat bars may be kept
side by side in their proper places, the flat bars on edge may be placed
lengthwise across the furnace from the working door to the back or otherwise.
When the bottom has been thus prepared the furnace should be worked
in the usual way, the same arrangement is employed for furnaces with moveable
bottoms.
For a rotating furnace or containing vessel I by preference use puddled
bars of about 8" wide, and " thick; these should be cut to suitable lengths
so that three or four lengths are equal to the length of the barrel of the
furnaces, these bars may be rolled with projections on one side, and may have
pieces of iron welded on at right angles to the length. In the casing or
outer cylinder suitable holes are punched all round, into these holes are fixed
the projections on the flat bars, so that each bar may be rivetted or fixed
with cotters to the inside of the cylinder, other bars resting on edge are
fixed in the same manner to the end or ends of the cylinder or casing, the
flat sides of each bar touching or nearly touching the next to it, by this
means the cylinder is lined with a lining of wrought-iron bars on edge. The
space between the exterior part of the flat bars next to the cylinder may be
filled up by pouring fine powdered oxide of iron mixed with water between
them, or oxide of iron in a dry state. When the furnace is first put to
work scrap iron should be first melted in it, and the surface covered with
a good glaze or enamel. The interior of converters for steel or iron
where streams of air are used may be similarly lined as last above described.