IMPROVEMENTS IN INGOTS, AND METHODS OF CASTING THE SAME, AND IN ARTICLES MADE THEREFROM.
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Henry Johnson at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 19th March 1881. A communication
from abroad by Elbridge Wheeler, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United
States of America.
JOHN HENRY JOHкson, of 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the County of Middlesex,
Gentleman. "IMPROVEMENTS IN INGOTS, AND METHODS OF CASTING THE SAME,
AND IN ARTICLES MADE THEREFROM.". A communication from abroad by
Elbridge Wheeler, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
The object of the Invention is to produce an ingot of different grades of metal
for use in the manufacture of articles of steel or homogeneous iron, or iron and steel
which shall possess the toughness of one grade of metal and the hardness of the
other grade.
In carrying out the Invention, by preference, two Bessemer converters are used,
one for one grade and the other for another grade of metal ; and I prepare a mould
in which is placed a core.
The metal is poured from one converter into the mould, and when that portion
of the metal in contact with the core has become sufficiently hard the core is
removed, the hard skin preventing the fluid metal from flowing into the space left
by the core, into which space is at once poured molten metal of a different grade
from another converter.
This last mass of metal fuses the hard skin left by the withdrawal of the core
from the first mass of metal, and the two metals become united and form a
homogeneous ingot, in which however they occupy distinct positions.
In some cases the ingot is formed by heating a bar of one grade of steel or
homogeneous iron nearly to the point of fusing, placing it in the mould in place of
the core described above, and pouring another grade of metal into the space around
the bar, the heat of this metal being sufficient to fuse the outer portion of the core,
and thus effect a union of the two metals.
If it is desired to prepare an ingot with a soft centre and a hard exterior, the
metal which is poured around the core may be cheap high phospher steel or iron,
while the metal which takes the place of the core is soft iron or steel low in carbon
or homogeneous iron. If, on the other hand, it is desired to prepare an ingot with
a hard centre and a soft tough exterior, the soft metal is poured around the core
and the high phospher, metal is poured into the interior. This latter arrangement

page_text: of the metals in the ingot is especially desirable when it is to be employed in the
making of armour plating. When the ingot is to be worked up into railroad rails,
it is preferable to make it with a hard centre and a soft exterior with a pre-
ponderance of the soft metal on one side, so that when the ingot has been rolled
into rails the head will be of hard metal, while the flange and sides will be soft.
In ordinary rails, on the contrary, the head is almost invariably soft, while the
flange is hard. owing to the rapid cooling of the thin parts, while the head cools
more slowly and is consequently softer.
The ingots cast in the above manner being of malleable metals may be worked
up into almost any and all articles of manufacture, among which I may mention
the following: railroad rails, and all the different kinds of railroad iron, as car
axles, crank pins, nuts, bolts, screws, and nails, connecting rods, frog plates,
coupling links and pins, and locomotive wheel tires, and all kinds of bridge iron;
channel, angle, and frost irons; beams, girders, and the like; also horse shoes,
hoops, bands, wire and chains; also boiler plate and tubes, and gun tubes, and
monitor plate and armour plate, safe plate, fire box plate; and also iron for all
agricultural implements, crow bars, harrow and rake teeth, and the like; and also
all tools, such as sledges, hammers, turning tools, chisels, dies and the like; and
also all kinds of carriage iron, such as axles, tires, brace iron, and so forth.