A NEW OR IMPROVED PROCESS OR METHOD OF COATING OR COVERING IRON AND STEEL WITH COPPER OR COPPER ALLOYS
Year: 1866

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, of the Firm of
Robertson, Brooman, and Company, of 166, Fleet Street, in the City of
London, Patent Agents, for the Invention of "A NEW OR IMPROVED
PROCESS OR METHOD OF COATING OR COVERING IRON AND STEEL WITH COPPER
OR COPPER ALLOYS."-A communication from abroad by Mayeul Bernabé,
of Paris, France.
Sealed the 10th May 1867, and dated the 20th November 1866.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Clinton Edgcumbe
Brooman at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 20th November 1866.
J, CLINTON EDGCUMBE-BROOMAN, of the Firm of Robertson, Brooman, and
Company, of 166, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent Agents, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "A NEW OR IMPROVED
PROCESS OR METHOD OF COATING OR COVERING IRON AND STEEL WITH COPPER OR
COPPER ALLOYS," to be as follows:-
a
This process or method is based upon the employment of electro-metallurgy
applied to cover iron and steel with a coating or covering of copper or copper
alloys, such as brass or bronze. The Invention is applicable to the coating.
or covering of armour plates, rollers-for cotton and other printing, boiler tubes
and plates, engine fittings, gates, church fittings, lamp posts, and all ironwork
in general, and by it I am enabled to employ iron coated with copper for
many purposes for which solid copper has hitherto been employed.

page_text: The first operation is the cleaning or scouring, when necessary. The iron
or steel articles are immersed in a vessel containing a suitable acid liquid.
The second operation is the coating with copper or copper alloy by gal-
vanism. The cleaned or scoured articles are placed in a bath made alkaline
by cyanide of potassium. The vessel containing the bath is, by preference,
In the interior is a plate of copper or copper alloy facing, and of
the same dimension as the iron or steel article to be coated or covered. The
two conducting wires of a galvanic pile are placed one in connection with the
copper or alloy and the other with the iron or steel article, and an electric
current is thereby established which causes a deposit of copper or copper alloy
upon the iron or steel article; in a few hours the layer deposited is sufficiently
thick to insulate or separate the iron.
The third operation consists in strengthening or increasing the first layer of
copper or alloy which covers the iron or steel article by submitting the article
to a second galvanic coppering. For this purpose the article already coated
with copper or copper alloy is immersed in an acid bath of sulphate of copper,
a plate of copper or copper alloy of the same dimensions being placed opposite
the iron or steel article. The bath is contained in a wooden vessel, and is
also traversed by an electric current from a pile. The iron or steel articles
should be left in this bath for from one to two days or more, according to the
thickness of coating or covering required.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 20th May 1867.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CLINTON
EDGOUMBE BROOMAN, of the Firm of Robertson, Brooman, and Company, of
166, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent Agents, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twentieth day of November, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, in the thirtieth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, Her special licence that I, the said Clinton
Edgcumbe Brooman, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, 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 therein expressed, should and

page_text: lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Inven-
tion for "A NEW OR IMPROVED PROCESS OR METHOD OF COATING OR COVERING IRON
AND STEEL WITH COPPER OR COPPER ALLOYS," (communicated to me from abroad
by Mayeul Bernabé, of Paris, France, upon the condition (amongst others) that
I, the said Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, my executors or administrators, by
an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals,
should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and
in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed
in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement thereof, that is to say:-
This process or method is based upon the employment of electro-metallurgy
applied to cover iron and steel with a coating or covering of copper or copper
alloys, such as brass and bronze. The Invention is applicable to the coating or
covering of armour plates, rollers for cotton, and other printing, boiler tubes
and plates, engine fittings, gates, church fittings, lamp posts, and all iron and
steel work in general, and by it I am enabled to employ iron or steel coated
with copper for many purposes for which solid copper has hitherto been
employed. The effect when so produced is by a peculiar action of neutralization
of the electric currents to render the articles quite inoxidizable. The process
is applied directly upon the bare iron or steel, no previous operations being
necessary. The process comprises three operations, and three water-tight
vessels of suitable size for the immersion of the articles to be coated are all
that is required; these vessels may be of wood when the articles to be coated
are of small size, they should be of masonry (Portland cement and bricks)
when the articles are more than about three feet long and five inches wide.
The first operation is the cleaning or scouring. The iron or steel article to
be coated is immersed in a vessel containing water acidulated with sulphuric
acid to 2 degrees Beaumé in which it remains for about six hours. The article is
then taken out, rinsed with fresh water, and rubbed with sand and water rendered
slightly alkaline with carbonate of soda to neutralize any little acid which may
remain in the pores of the iron; this accomplished, the article is again rinsed
with fresh water.
The second operation is as follows:-The article to be coated is placed into
an alkaline bath formed by cyanide of potassium in the proportions of about 6

page_text: ounces of cyanide of potassium to 1 pints of water, and about 11 ounces of
carbonate of copper. Facing the piece of iron or steel called "catode" and
on each side of it is placed a plate of copper called "anode"; these two plates
ought as 'much as possible to present a surface equal to that of the article to
be coated. As the bath ought not to be worked until it is completely saturated
with copper the desired saturation can be obtained without waiting for the
destruction of the anodes to give it the necessary strength by dissolving a sufficient
quantity of carbonate of copper in the bath. For this purpose some sulphate
of copper is dissolved in as little water as possible, and in another vessel some
carbonate of soda; when these two bodies are dissolved the carbonate of soda
is emptied into the solution of sulphate of copper, and thus a double decom-
position is obtained giving carbonate of copper and sulphate of soda; the
mixture is then passed through a filter, at the bottom of which the sulphate
of soda is precipitated together with the excess water; the carbonate of
copper is then collected, washed, and next dissolved in the cyanide of potassium.
The baths of brass and bronze are obtained in the same manner, substituting
for one part of the copper such proportions of zinc or tin as will give the desired
result according to the shade to be obtained. The anodes are immersed in
the bath with the aid of brass hooks suspended from a brass rod traversing the
vessel, upon the sides of which it rests. The hooks and rods can be made of any
metal which is a conductor of electricity, but brass being the best conductor and
the easiest to keep in a permanent working state is preferable; the hooks which
support the anodes must not touch the bath. One or more brass slips holding the
catode reach out of the bath to be joined to the positive conducting wire of
an electric battery or pile working for this first bath. This battery, the
number of elements of which varies according to the intensity required to be
given to the electric current is preferably that of Bunsen modified by Archaud
with the object of obtaining the strongest or greatest amount of electricity.
The negative conducting wire is fixed to the rods supporting the anodes.
Description of the Pile.-A cylinder of zinc is placed in a china or earthen
vessel containing water slightly acidulated with sulphuric acid; in the middle
of the cylinder is placed a porous vessel; in this porous vessel is a piece of
graphite rather higher than the height of the vessel; in this vessel nitric
acid is placed, a rod or piece of copper is rivetted upon the upper part of the
zinc cylinder; a similar rod or piece is fixed on the extremity of the graphite.
A battery is set in motion by joining the two poles by small copper conductors.
A brass wire is fixed at the end of the series by a pressure screw upon the
appendix of the zine cylinder, and then conducted to the clip of the catode
to which it is attached. by a pressure screw. A brass wire is also fixed to the

page_text: appendix of the graphite, and thus establishes a current to the rod. from which
the anodes are suspended; thus the cyanide of potassium "attacks the copper,
dissolves it, and by the effect of the pile carries it in a metallic state on to
the catode. The bath is kept up thus, and "the copper of the anodes. being
dissolved becomes deposited gradually upon the catode; five minutes in this
bath after the current has commenced to act are sufficient to entirely cover
the piece of iron or steel (catode) with a coating of copper sufficient to entirely
isolate it. In this operation the iron or steel being preserved from oxidation
by the bath, which has an alkaline character, receives the copper in a metallic
state into all its pores.
The third operation consists in submitting the iron or steel to treatment in
a second bath; this bath is formed of sulphate of copper dissolved in water,
as much as the water.can dissolve. The piece: to be coated already isolated
by a first coating is immersed in this bath, and in forty-eight hours receives a.
coating of about a millimetre or 5th of an inch over all its surface.
The electric current is obtained for this second bath by means of a direct
pile formed of diaphragms or porous vases into which are placed plates of zinc,
which as in the first bath should force the piece to be coated and present
a surface equal to that piece. The pieces of zinc should have been'
previously cleaned in acidulated water and amalgamated with mercury and a
little hydrochloric acid. In the diaphragms is placed a certain quantity of
water acidulated with sulphuric acid which attacks the zinc and slowly
dissolves it. At the end of each of the pieces of zinc immersed into the
diaphragms pieces or rods of copper are fixed united with the rod of the same
metal crossing the vessel, and to which are attached the clip which as in
the first bath holds the iron (catode), forming thus itself another pole of the
pile. This second bath must be kept up at a proper degree of saturation.
For this purpose a portion of the liquid in the bath may be taken out, but in
such a manner as not to interrupt the current. This liquid is poured into a
vessel and heated, and in it is placed a certain quantity of sulphate of copper
which by the heat is dissolved with greater rapidity; this solution. obtained,
the saturated liquid is poured into the bath; this operation must be repeated
as often as the state of the bath or the degree of saturation requires it. The
iron or steel article on being taken out of this second bath is washed in fresh
water, and the process is then terminated. To facilitate saturation a certain
quantity of sulphate of copper in bags can be left in the bath. It is thus
dissolved and keeps the bath permanently in a state of saturation. The Bunsen
pile and anodes can be employed for the second as well as for the first bath.
For the second bath and for coating some articles diaphragms of sail cloth or
:

page_text: canvas and porous earthen cells are used. When an article has been already
submitted to the first bath and is being coated in the second the currents
which are used for the second bath can be utilized to produce by their trans-
mission the reproduction on a new article immersed in the first bath, and so
on for the continuation of the operations. By this simplification a saving
is effected of one or even several galvanic piles, while the two baths are acting
simultaneously.
And having now described the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed I declare that I claim, the coating or
covering of iron and steel with copper or copper alloys, substantially by the
means and in manner herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twentieth day of May, One thousand eight
hundred and sixty-seven.