A NEW METHOD OF MANU- FACTURING GUN SKELPS
Year: 1811

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,
JOHN BRADLEY, of Coalburn Hill, in that part of the Parish of Old-
swinford that lies in the County of Stafford, Ironmaster, do send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-fourth
day of April now last past, did give and grant unto me, the said John
Bradley,, my executors, -administrators, and assigns, His special licence,
full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said John Bradley,
my executors, administrators, and assigns; should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town
of Berwick upon Tweed, my Invention of "A NEW METHOD OF MANU-
FACTURING GUN SKELPS;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained
a proviso, obliging me, the said John Bradley, under my hand and seal
to cause a particular description of the nature of my said Invention,
and of the manner in which the same is to be performed, to be inrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within two calendar months
next and immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters

page_text: Patent, as in and by the same, relation being thereunto had, may more
fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the
said John Bradley, do hereby declare that my said Invention is de-
cribed in manner following, that is to say:
The principle of my Invention consists in the manufacturing of iron
skelps (for the making of barrels for fire-arms) wholly and entirely by
rollers instead of by forge hammers, which is the present general mode
of manufacturing them; and for this purpose I take a pair of rollers of
about fifteen inches diameter, which have been previously drilled and
turned with the number of grooves (viz', four) requisite for manufac-
turing the sort of skelps required, and fixed them in such a frame as is
generally used in the working of rollers. Then I take a bar of iron
cut to the proper weight, well known to the manufacturers of these
articles (four ounces being allowed for waste), as wide as the breach
end of the skelp required, which I heat in air furnace to what is called
a good welding heat (which is much hotter than the degree of heat, com-
monly termed a red heat, generally used in making skelps in any other
mode), and put it in the first.instance through a groove in the roller
three quarters of an inch wide, but which is at its entrance four inches
in depth or heighth, from which it gradually lessens to the orifice where
the iron leaves the rollers to two inches and a half, so that by this its
first passage through the rollers the iron is made twelve inches long
and four inches wide at the breach, from which it gradually diminishes
to two inches and a half at the muzzle. In other words, the groove is
cut or hollowed out in such a manner as to give out or produce the
bar or piece of iron four inches wide at one end, and by a gradual
diminution two inches and a half at the other. The bar or piece
of iron must now, at the same heat, be passed successively through
three other grooves formed similar to each other in principle, but
cut in such manner as after being passed through each of them
gradually to bring the skelp to its proper form and size. These
grooves are turned and chipped in such a manner as to make the bar
or piece of iron, after it has passed through them, and is become a
skelp, four inches and one eighth wide at the breech, and three eighths

page_text: of an inch thick, and three inches and one eighth wide, and barely
three sixteenths of an inch thick at the other end. The edges are
made thinner than the middle, which is left, as the welders term it,
thick on the back, and being in every respect of the proper dimension
for finished skelps, they are thus produced by the rollers only, without
the aid of hammers, shears, cutters, or any other machinery or imple-
ment whatsoever. The advantages of this method of manufacturing
skelps are, that the barrels made from them turn very sound and
clear, and are free from grays or flaws; when welded they grind and
bore much clearer than hammered ones, the pure metallic particles
being compressed by the rollers both edgeways and flatways at the
same time where more closely together, nor are the skelps liable to
reins or flaws as those are which are edged up in a less hot state under
a forge hammer; and owing, as I conceive, to the rapidity with which
skelps made in this mode, are rolled under a high degree of heat by
which the fibres of the iron are closely united and not reined and beat
hollow, as is the case with hammered ones. Barrels from these skelps
will stand a much stronger proof than those made from forged ones.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Bradley, have hereunto set
my hand and scal, this Twenty-first day of June, One thousand