AN IMPROVED MODE OF MANUFACTURING STEEL
Year: 1854

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Samuel Lucas, of Dronfield Foundry, near Sheffield,
in the County of York, Steel Converter, for the Invention of "AN
IMPROVED MODE OF MANUFACTURING STEEL."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Samuel Lucas at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 7th
August 1854.
I, SAMUEL LUCAS, of Dronfield Foundry, near Sheffield, in the County of
York, Steel Converter, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"AN IMPROVED MODE OF MANUFACTURING STEEL" to be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is to convert bar iron into bar steel, and also to
convert into cast steel iron direct from the ore, and likewise the scale from
smiths' work, by a cheaper and more efficient means than has heretofore been
adopted for the manufacture of steel. In carrying out this manufacture, I
pile up bar iron in layers in a converting furnace, and separate the layers
from each other by an intermediate layer of broken ore, manganese, and char-
coal mixed together. 1 use either vegetable or animal charcoal, or materials
that may, during the process of manufacture, be converted into charcoal.
When the converting furnace is thus charged, I heat it in the usual way, and
keep up the heat until the desired change in the iron is obtained. I then allow

page_text: the furnace to cool. When cold, the bar iron will be found to be converted
into steel, and will be ready for use. The converted ore or scale when removed
is to be melted in pots, either alone or in combination with scraps of iron or
steel, according to the quality of metal desired. Instead of converting the
iron in the ore into steel in the presence of bar iron (which process I prefer
because the product of bar steel is thereby improved), I may in some cases
find it advantageous to treat the ore alone in the manner above set forth.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Samuel Lucas in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 6th
February 1855.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, SAMUEL
LUCAS, of Dronfield Foundry, near Sheffield, in the County of York, Steel
Converter, send grecting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Seventh day of August, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, in the eighteenth year of Ier reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Samuel Lucas, Her special license that I, the said Samuel Lucas, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Samuel
Lucas, 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 lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "AN IMPROVED MODE OF MANU-
FACTURING STEEL," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Samuel
Lucas, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, should par-
ticularly 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 imme-
diately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Samuel Lucas, do hereby declare the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement (that is to say) :-
The main object of this Invention is to convert bar iron into bar steel in
the presence of iron ore, which ore will at the same time be itself converted

page_text: into steel. The result of this improved process will be that steel may be
manufactured by a cheaper and more efficient means than has heretofore been
adopted for that purpose.
In carrying out my Invention, I pile up bar iron in layers in a converting
furnace, and separate the layers from each other by an intermediate layer of a
compound of ingredients, consisting of broken iron ore, (or, as a substitute for
the ore, iron or steel scale, or iron or steel filings or turnings, or other iron in
a state of oxide,) manganese, and charcoal, all of which ingredients are to be
mixed together in the following proportions:-The iron ore should be broken
into small pieces, about the size of a walnut, and to any given quantity thereof
add an equal quantity by measure of animal or vegetable charcoal, or other
material which during the process of converting the iron will become charcoal.
To those ingredients I add half a pound of
manganese for every hundred-
weight of iron ore, using more or less manganese, according to the degree of
hardness I wish to obtain in the steel. These materials are to be mixed well
together; and when charging the converting furnace, I first place on the floor
a layer of charcoal, then a layer of the above mixture of iron ore or scale,
manganese, and charcoal, then a thin layer of charcoal, and on this I place a
layer of bar iron, after that another layer of charcoal, and then a layer of the
mixed ingredients above mentioned, then another thin layer of charcoal, and
after that a second layer of bar iron, and so on, until the furnace is charged,
taking care to keep the iron ore or scale from coming into actual contact with
the bar iron, as, should such be the case, there would be great liability of the
lumps of ore adhering to the bars of iron. It is for this reason that I interpose
a layer of charcoal between the ore and the bar iron. When the converting
furnace has been thus charged, I heat it in the usual way and keep the
heat to the degree known as a melting heat, until the desired change in the
iron is obtained. The contents of the furnace are then allowed to cool in
the ordinary way before being drawn, and when cold the bar iron will be found
to be converted into steel, and will be ready for any of the uses to which it
may be applied, and the iron ore, or iron or steel scale that has been used in
the process of converting the bar iron into steel, will also have become con-
verted into steel, and when removed from the furnace it may be melted in pots,
either alone or in combination with scraps of iron or steel, according to the
quality of steel desired, or it may be made at once into bar steel.
Of course,
when the converted ore is melted in pots to make cast steel, the impuritics
contained in the ore become separated from the metal, and being lighter than
the latter will float on the top, and can either be removed or the steel poured
out of the pots, leaving the impurities behind.

page_text: I would observe that I sometimes propose to use oxidized iron filings or
turnings, or other oxidized iron, in place of or in combination with the iron
ore mixed with the charcoal and manganese.
Instead of converting the iron in the ore into steel in the presence of bar
iron (which process I. prefer, because the product of bar steel is thereby im-
proued), I may in some cases find it advantageous to treat the ore in the
manner above set forth without the bar iron.
When the ore is thus treated, either with or without oxidized scrap iron, or
iron filings or turnings, as above mentioned, it should be mixed with charcoal
and manganese in suitable proportions, according to the quality of steel or
degree of hardness required; and when the conversion has been effected, and
the materials removed from the furnace, the charcoal may be washed out and
the ore and other metallic portions melted down in pots, for the purpose of
removing the impurities therefrom; or the converted ore may be at once made
into bar steel, as before mentioned. :
Having now described my Invention of "An Improved Mode of Manu-
facturing Steel," 1 claim, as the Invention secured to me by Letters Patent as
aforesaid, the use and application to the manufacture of steel, of iron ore or
other oxide of iron, such as iron or steel scale, or oxidized iron or steel filings
or turnings, as above described.
I also claim obtaining steel direct from iron ore by treating it in the manner
above explained, or by any modification of that process.
In witness whereof, I, the said Samuel Lucas, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Sixth day of February, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-five.
Witness,
J. W. MOFFATT,
66, Chancery Lane.
SAM LUCAS. (L.S.)