AN IMPROVED METHOD OF WELDING STEEL
Year: 1887

page_text: Date of Application. 8th Nov., 1887
Specification Accepted, 20th Dec., 1887
1, WILLIAM BULLUS MIDDLETON, of the city of Lancaster, County of Lancaster,
State of Pennsylvania, United States of America, Manufacturer, do hereby declare
the nature of my invention for AN IMPROVED METHOD OF WELDING STEEL, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement :—
The perfect welding together of pieces of steel, as is well known, has, until within
a few years past, been considered almost impossible, and, in fact up to the present time,
no method of welding together pieces of this metal has been devised which has been
wholly successful or fruitful of commercially valuable results.
It has been said that the facility with which steel may be welded to steel diminishes
as the metal approximates to cast iron with respect to the proportion of carbon, or
that, in other words, the facility of welding pieces of this metal increases as the metal
approximates to wrought iron with respect to the absence of carbon. The theory,
with others, that the steel to be welded, on being exposed to the necessary welding
heat, becomes "burnt" or partially oxidized, has been urged as a reason to account
for the difficulty of welding together pieces of this metal; the absence of a satis-
factory method of welding has resulted in the waste of a great quantity of" Bessemer
and other scrap steel which otherwise could and would have been employed for a great
variety of purposes in the useful arts.
I have discovered that pieces of steel may, at a proper welding heat, be perfectly,
cheaply, and easily welded together after the pieces to be welded have been coated or
treated with a solution of silicate of soda, or other solution in which silica is
contained.
In the practice of my invention I have obtained highly satisfactory results by
applying a solution of silicate of soda to the pieces of steel to be welded by dipping
said pieces in said solution, or by pouring it upon them, bunching together the pieces
to be welded and heating them to an ordinary welding heat, and then passing them
through welding rolls of ordinary and well known construction. I do not confine
myself to the use of a solution of silicate of soda as a solution of other silicates or of

page_text: silica, or of a silica bearing material may be employed for the purpose. The applica-
tion of the solution to the pieces of steel to be welded may be made in any convenient
or desired manner.
I do not confine myself to the application of the solution to the pieces of steel to be
welded at any particular time before their passage through the welding rolls, nor do
I confine myself to the use of rolls to effectuate the welding operation as this step
may be accomplished by the use of hammers, stamps, or other mehanical devices
suitable for the welding together of metals.
I am aware that various methods of welding pieces of steel together have been
proposed in which oxide of zinc, sand, fluor spar, silica, alum, and other substances,
in a dry and powdered form, have been named as welding fluxes. To these I make
no claim. In each of these methods it has been proposed to deposit the powdered
flux upon the pieces of steel to be welded before introducing them to the heating
furnace, or to blow the powdered flux into the furnace during the operation of heating
said pieces. The result of each of the methods nained has been unsatisfactory, and
the weld faulty and imperfect, for the reason that it has been impossible to evenly and
perfectly apply the powdered flux to all parts of the surfaces to be welded, or to, in
the handling of the pieces of metal, retain the flux upon said surfaces. By my
invention a method of fluxing is provided in which every part of the pieces of steel
to be welded is completely coated with flux. Further, in the practice of my invention,
the method of the application of the flux to the metal to be welded is simple, easy,
and economical, and the result obtained is successful and valuable.
of my
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature
said
invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare what I
claim is:
The method of fluxing, and welding together, pieces of Bessemer or other steel,
which consists in treating them with a solution of silicate of soda, or solution of other
silicate, or solution of silica, and then, at a welding heat, subjecting said pieces to a
welding pressure in rolls, under the hammer, or otherwise, as specified.
Dated this 5th day of October 1887.
WILLIAM BULLUS MIDDLETON.