MAKING A MACHINE FOR MANUFACTURING THIMBLES FOR THE SAILS OF SHIP3 AND VESSELS, AND FOR ALL SORTS OF RIGGING, AND OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1808

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, IIENRY
VAN WART, of Liverpool, in the County: Palatine of Lancaster, Merchant,
send greetin.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third. did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing dato at Westminster, the Thirty-first day of
October, in the forty-ninth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the
said Henry Van Wart, my executors, administrators, and assigns, His especial
licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Henry Van
Wart, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should and lawfully might,
during the term of years therein expressed, make, use, exercise, and vend,
within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, a method
communicated to me by a certain foreigner of "MAKING A MACHINE FOR
MANUFACTURING THIMBLES FOR THE SAILS OF SHIP3 AND VESSELS, AND FOR ALL
SORTS OF RIGGING, AND OTHER PURPOSES," communicated to me by Isaiah
Jennings, a citizen of the United States of America; in which said. Letters
Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging me, tho said Henry Van Wart,
by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular
description of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one
calendar month after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by
the same, relation being thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Henry Van Wart, do declare that the said Invention is described in manner
following (that is to say):-
The machine is supported by a platform which rests upon four legs. The
platform is six feet in length and two in breadth, but it may be varied in these
respects. The height from the floor upon which the machine stands is about
four feet, though the legs may be longer or shorter. At a convenient point
in the platform there is erected a standard perpendicular to its plane,.and at a
right angle with the standard there is continued an arm. This arm about its
middle is firmly supported by a prop. There is a knob at the extremity of the
arm with a perpendicular mortice that contains a moveable sheave or wheel,
over which passes a chain or cord connecting the handle of the hammer with
the foot-piece or treadle. Immediately under the face or striking part of the
hammer is fixed a solid kind of anvil (called a stake or back horn) composed
of wrought iron. The hammer itself is connected by a moveable joint with a
short standard, and is also connected at its other extremity with the treadle by
means of the chain or cord. The weight of its face or striking part is increased
to any degree by a mass of iron or other substance with which the hammer is
loaded. For common working, this weight amounts to about thirty pounds,
but it may be increased or diminished. It may be here necessary to mention
that the thimbles are metallic rings convexed within and concave without.
They are thus constructed for the purpose of having ropes bent and spliced
around them, that they may thereby aid in preventing the wear and tear of
canvas and cordage in sails. The formation of these concave convex rings in
the common way of hammering-by-hand-has-been-found-laborious.and difficult.
My machine is intended to facilitate this operation, and to give those rings or
thimbles their proper form by a new and peculiar process. To accomplish this
end the face of the hammer is of a circular figure, corresponding to the cir-
cular figure of the anvil or back horn below, according to the size of the
thimble: To form one of these concave convex rings a piece of flat rolled
iron is heated in the forge, and held by the tongs between the face of the
hammer and that of the back horn. There it is beaten by repeated strokes of
the hammer, worked by the treadle, until in the course of one revolution, as
the operator: turns it; the thimble is firmly welded and fitly shaped. By this
method of working, these thimbles, so difficult to manufacture in the old way,
may be formed in a workmanlike manner nearly eight times as fast. To keep
the hammer steady in its place two guides are erected, one on each side; which,
while they permit the freest motion up and down, prevent all deviation from
side to side "To aid the operation, and quicken the motion of the hammer

page_text: there is a sufficient spring to act upon the back of the lever. This large spring
is backed by another and smaller spring acting upon it. The small spring acts
by stiffening the larger one, and it may be omitted if the operator please. The
effect of the one or of both of them, and also of the weight, is the same as striking
with the common sledge-hammer.
Such is my Invention, and I claim the benefit and application of it to every
mode of forming thimbles and other similar work by its instrumentality,
whether the machine the machine be worked by the foot of the operator
upon a treadle, by his hand through a winch, by a wheel turned by human
labor, or by any mechanism set in motion by water or by any other power.
In witness whereof, I, the said Henry Van Wart, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Seventh day of November, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and eight.