IMPROVEMENTS IN STEERING-QUADRANTS OR TILLERS
Year: 1882

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Joseph Cook, the younger, of Washington in the County
of Durham Steel Manufacturer and William Prosser of Newcastle upon Tyne
in County of same name Iron Merchant for an invention of IMPROVEMENTS
IN STEERING-QUADRANTS OR TILLERS
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Joseph Cook and William
Prosser at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 30th May 1882.
JOSEPH COOK the younger of Washington in the County of Durham, Steel
Manufacturer, and WILLIAM PROSSER of Newcastle upon Tyne in County of same
name, Iron Merchant, "IMPROVEMENTS IN STEERING QUADRANTS OR TILLERS
"
Our invention relates to improvements in the construction and mode of
manufacture of steering quadrants or tillers for steamships sailing ships or
other vessels.
The quadrant tillers hitherto and at present in use, for the purpose of equalising
the effect of the steering chains upon the rudder, have been and are made of
forged malleable iron involving great expense in their manufacture from their
being made in separate parts, welded together and the sector (forming the guide
for the steering chains) having afterwards to be (as is usual) secured to the ends
of the radial arms by bolts or otherwise.
According to our invention we propose to make the whole quadrant consisting
of a boss or centre (to key or rudder head) the radial arms and the sector (with
guides for the steering chains) in one solid casting of crucible or other cast steel
or other similar material such as malleable cast iron of suitable quality to ensure
tensional and transverse strength. This we effect by moulding the quadrant from
a pattern designed so as to dispose the material in the casting to give the greatest
possible strength and to obviate unequal strains caused by contraction in cooling.
The casting, when taken from the moulds, is placed in an annealing furnace for
a sufficient time to give it toughness and is then ready for being fitted to the
rudder head in the usual way.
By this mode of construction the strength of the quadrant may be greatly
increased without increasing its weight as the arms and sector may be made of
any section to give the greatest strength where it is required.

page_text: These forms are illustrated as combining strength with such a distribution of
material as to prevent undue contraction in the casting and offering facilities for
the process of annealing-Many other forms may be adopted but in all cases we
make them, according to our patent, of one solid casting without welding or bolting
one part to the other.
Having now fully described our invention we claim as novel and secured to us
by Letters Patent.
The construction of steering quadrants or tillers in which the "boss" or centre,
the radial arms and the sector with guides for the steering chains are formed in one
casting and subsequently annealed substantially as above described
In witness whereof I the said Joseph Cook on behalf of myself and the
Baid William Prosser have hereunto set my hand and seal this twenty
ninth day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand eight
hundred and eighty two
Witness:
T. J. DANSON F. Inst. P. A.
Consulting Engineer & Patent Agent
Newcastle on Tyne
JOSEPH COOK Jr. (LS.)