A NEW METHOD OF MAKING AND DRAWING IRON AND OTHER METALS BY A NEW KIND OF WOOD BELLOWS FOR PRODUCING BLAST TO HEAT OR MELT THE METALS, AND A NEW METHOD OF FORGE HARNESS, BY WHICH THE IRON AND OTHER METALS, WHEN HEATED, IS DRAWN OUT
Year: 1762

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES
KNIGHT, of Brindgwood, in the County of Hereford, Esquire, send greeting.
WHEREAS I, the said James Knight, did, by my Petition, humbly repre-
sent unto His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, that I
was the sole and only Inventor of "A NEW METHOD OF MAKING AND DRAWING
IRON AND OTHER METALS BY A NEW KIND OF WOOD BELLOWS FOR PRODUCING
BLAST TO HEAT OR MELT THE METALS, AND A NEW METHOD OF FORGE HARNESS,
BY WHICH THE IRON AND OTHER METALS, WHEN HEATED, IS DRAWN OUT,"
which said Invention I had, with great labour, industry, application, and at a
considerable expence, brought to perfection, so as to be of general utility and
benefit to His said Majesty's subjects, and therefore I did most humbly pray
His said Majesty that He would be graciously pleased to grant unto me, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, His Royal Letters Patent under His
Great Seal of Great Britain, for the sole use and benefit of my said Invention
within that part of His Kingdom of Great Britain called England, His
Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also in His
Colonies and Plantations abroad, for the term of fourteen years, according to
the Statute in that case made and provided; His said Majesty, being willing
to give encouragement to all arts and inventions which may be for the publick
good, was graciously pleased to condescend to my request, and therefore His
said Majesty, by His Royal Letters Patent, bearing date at Westminster, the
Thirteenth day of December, in the third year of His reign, of His especial

page_text: grace, certain knowledge, and meer motion, for Him, His heirs, and suc-
cessors, did give and grant unto me, the said James Knight, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, Ilis especial licence, full power, sole priviledge and
authority, that I, the said James Knight, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, and every of us, by myself and ourselves, or by mine and our deputy
or deputies, servants or agents, or such others as I, the said James Knight, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term of years
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend my
said Invention within that part of His said Majesty's Kingdom of Great
Britain called England, the Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, and also in His Plantations abroad, in such manner as to me, the said
James Knight, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or any of us, should
in our discretions seem meet, and that I, the said James Knight, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, should and lawfully might have and enjoy the
whole profit, benefit, commodity, and advantage from time to time coming,
growing, accrewing, and arising by reason of the said Invention for and during
the term of years therein mentioned, to have, hold, exercise, and enjoy the
said licence, powers, priviledges, and advantages therein-before granted, or
mentioned to be granted, unto me, the said James Knight, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, for and during and unto the full end and term of
fourteen years from the date of the said Letters Patent next and immediately
ensuing, and fully to be compleat and ended, according to the Statute in such
case made and provided; in which said Letters Patent is contained a
proviso, that if I, the said James Knight, should not particularly describe and
ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, and cause
the same to be inrolled in His said Majesty's High Court of Chancery within
four kalendar months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters
Patent, that then the said Letters Patent, and all liberties and advantages
whatsoever thereby granted, should utterly cease, determine, and become void,
anything therein-before contained to the contrary thereof in anywise notwith-
standing, as in and by the said Letters Patent (relation being thereunto bad)
appears.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said James Knight, in compliance with the
said proviso, do hereby describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed, as follows (that is to say) :-
The crude or pig iron is first made from the oar by an equable, constant
stream of air, thro' one, two, or more pipes, into a furnace of the usual kind,

page_text: but considerably larger. This stream of air is produced by an engine which is
here called a new kind of wood bellows, whose construction is as follows:-
These bellows consist of two or more cubical vessels of wood or iron, made
heavy enough to descend and drive out the air by their own weight, the pistons
being supported by frames resting on the ground, and made air-tight by rods
of deal, iron, or brass, pressed down to the pistons by hooks or stays, which
suffer the rods to be moved under them by springs pressing them against the
sides of the vessels, and there being sliding peices in the corners, the pistons
extend or contract, conforming themselves to the sections of the vessels, and
the grease working into the joints, the pistons are perfectly close, so as to lose
no air, and when the vessels are greased the friction is very little. These
vessels are suspended by chains, which work on the circular heads of levers
described from the centers on which the levers turn. There are other circular
heads similar to the former, moving on axises opposite the former, fixed in
the same horizontal plane. There are grooves in all the heads, and two
opposite heads working together over cach vessel, their grooves at the point
of contact form a box, in which a peice of timber called a tongue works, whose
horizontal section is nearly a rhombus. This tongue, being framed to the
vessels, prevents their turning aside when they are almost suspended on the air
in driving it out. The vessels hang each on one of the circular heads, and the
head opposite hangs by chains to the tongue which works in the groove
between them. These vessels may be worked by cranks, cogs, or other
contrivances, so as to drive the air thro' one, two, or more pipes, there being
valves in the pistons to open and receive the air when the vessels rise, which
shut when they descend, and the air is driven out again thro' pipes which are
also fixed in the pistons.
The new method of forge harness consists of a screw engine or slitting
press, a cast-iron helve and cast-iron anvil block, with the hanners and
anvils corresponding, and a new kind of cogs and shammel plates, for working
forge bellows or other engines.
The screw engine or slitting press consists of a large screw, a very heavy
fly by which the screw is to be worked and the body or chest of the engine
in which the cutters are to be fixed. The cutters must be first so fixed as to
form a box, into which a loop or ball of hot iron (made from the pig iron in
the usual manner) must be let down, and the fly, being put in motion by
a water wheel, must afterwards be made to take hold of the screw, and
discharge it's motion in compressing the ball of iron into a flat cake. The
screw must then be drawn back, and the cutters so ordered, that on a second
discharge of the fly they may be driven between each other, and slit the ball

page_text: or cake into cilindrical pieces, called bloons, ready for being drawn into bars
by the cast-iron helves, &c. whose description here follows:-
The cast-iron helve moves on an axis behind, and has a cilindrical head
before, into which the hammer, having a taper shank, fastens itself by the
reaction of every blow, or is cast with the helve in the same peice. The helve
has a part projects before its cilindrical head, to which a bray or shoe of
malleable iron is screwed, which also has a taper part, by which it is kept fast
by the repeated blows of the cogs which project the hammer.
The iron anvil block is a very large cilinder of cast iron, into which a small
anvil with a taper shank fastens itself by the continual action of the hammer
upon it, in the same manner as the hammer into the helve, without any labour
of the workmen, which, in the old method, is very great. This kind of helve
and hammer descends to its anvil by the power of gravity only, without any
beam or spring to return it.
The new kind of cogs are cast of exceeding hard iron, that they mayn't wear
out of shape, and the curve lines that bound their surfaces are so constructed
by geometry that they may sink the bellows with an equable motion, that the
air may be driven out of the bellows in every part of the stroke with the same
velocity. These cogs are made broad, and worked on brass shammel plates,
brass having this peculiar property, that it will not wear hard cast iron which
works upon it, and the cogs are ground to prevent their cutting the brass.
The blooms are heated in a common chaffery by such blasts as before
described, and drawn into bars by this engine; but for drawing or rolling into
plate, or drawing or slitting into rods, the following new kind of furnace is
made use of. This furnace works only by draft, and has a slide plate under it's
bars, which prevents the air from scaling the heat of iron, which is placed
above the slide on a body of coaks. There is a flew in it's draft, and the air
only suffered to come under the bars through a slit within the work, which is
stopped with coaks occasionally.
In witness whercof, I, the said James Knight, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Twenty-third day of March, in the third year
of the reign of His Majesty King George the Third, and in the year of
our Lord One thousand seven hundred and sixty-three.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the Twenty-third day of March, in
the third year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Third, the said
James Knight came before our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and
acknowledged the Writing aforesaid, and every matter and thing therein con-
tained, in form above said. And the said Writing was stamped according to
the Statute made in the sixth year of the reign of the late King William and
Queen Mary, and so forth.
Inrolled the Twenty-third day of March, in the third year of the reign of
His Majesty King George the Third, 1763.