IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND STEEL
Year: 1860

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Jacob Geoghegan Willans, of 2, Clarance Place,
Belfast, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON
AND STEEL."
Scaled the 18th January 1861, and dated the 31st August 1860.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Jacob Geoghegan Willans
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 31st August 1860.
I, JACOB GEOGHEGAN WILLANS, of 2, Clarence Place, Belfast, do hereby
declare the nature of the Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE
OF IRON AND STEEL," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists, first, in the casting pig or cast iron from the blast
furnace in which it is produced from the ore, in pig beds formed with other
material than the sand commonly used, such material being either iron ore,
furnace slag, iron cinder, or other irony substance, aluminous material, such
as baked clay, shale, or slate minerals containing less than half their weight
of sand or silica in a free state, sand covered with or manipulated with any
of the above, or a mixture of any of the above substances. The material required
to be crushed or ground into a granular sand-like form for use in like manner
as sand is now applied at iron blast furnaces. by which means the loss of iron
in remelting, frequently caused by silicious sand of which the pig bed is
commonly formed adhering to the cast iron, is diminished.

page_text: Second, the mixing of bogstuff or peat in the undried state with
puddled or other kind of steel (not being pig or cast iron) in a granulated
or divided state; also the moulding of the mixture preparatory to its being
calcined for remelting, refining, or further carbonizing.
Third, the mixing any kind of iron or steel in a granulated or divided state
with coking coal or with coal tar, or coal tar pitch, or with any resinous or
bituminous substance (with or without peat or other carbonaceous matter
intermixed), either separately or mixed in such manner and proportions that
when calcined for remelting, refining, or carbonizing, the metallic particles
will be (more or less), fastened together by the coking properties of the
carbonaceous matter made use of, so that if desired they may be remelted by
the action of a blast with or without the combustion of other fuel added along
therewith in the forge fire or furnace.
Also the moulding any of the above metallic and carbonaceous mixtures
preparatory to their being heated or coked.
Fourth, the removal of carbon from pig or cast iron by blowing carbonic
acid gas (obtained from limestone or after combustion of carbon or other
artificial means) through the said metal in a molten state, or by applying
the said gas with or without air or steam intermixed to the pig or cast
iron in a granulated or divided state at a heat insufficient to render the same
fluid.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Jacob Geoghegan Willans, in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 28th February 1861.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JACOB
GEOGHEGAN WILLANS, of 2. Clarence Place. Belfast, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Thirty-first day of August, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty, in the twenty-fourth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors. give and grant unto me,
the said Jacob Geoghegan Willans, Her special licence that I, the said Jacob
Geoghegan Willans, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said Jacob Geoghegan Willans, 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

page_text: one
Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND STEEL," upon the condition
(amongst others) that I, the said Jacob Geoghegan Willans, my executors
or administrators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or
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 Jacob Geoghegan Willans, 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:-
In carrying out my Invention, I crush or grind iron ore by stampers, rollers,
or other mechanical means, according to the friability of the ore, and I prefer
that it shall be in the uncalcined state and of an aluminous nature, similar
to that found near Templepatrick County Antrim. When brought into a
granular sand-like state, I apply the same as sand is commonly used for the
formation of moulding beds at the base of furnaces in which iron ores are
smelted, into which the molten iron is run in the usual manuer, whereby in
the remelting of the pig less loss of iron will be sustained than if common
sand as heretofore was made use of.
Having obtained a Patent, No. 1120, May 4th, 1859, which includes the
mixing with granulated or divided cast iron bogstuff, or peat in the undried
state (which signifies that which contains the moisture it was dug with, or so
much thereof as would render it unfit for ordinary fuel,) I have since discovered
that iron in a more advanced state of manufacture and in a state of fine
division, whether steel or malleable granules or particles, may advantageously
be mixed with undried bogstuff or peat, if it be desired to add carbon thereto.
When operating upon iron reduced in the puddling furnace from cast iron
to the state of puddled steel, or more or less malleable particles. it is to be
withdrawn in any convenient manner from the furnace without balling, in
portions by preference not exceeding 50lbs. in weight, which when cooled to a
dull red color are to be thrown into a tank abundantly supplied with cold
water. When cold the metallic lumps are to be pulverized by stampers, rollers;
or other means, to the size of peas or less, I intermix therewith 3 to 4 times
their weight of undried bogstuff or peat at that degree of moisture as to shew
little wet on pressure in the hand, and I temper up the mixture as clay is done
in the manufacture of bricks or mortar for building purposes, which I mould
into the form of bricks by preference 7 inches × 3 inches × 3 inches, and dry

page_text: the same in a covered chamber or building, through which currents of air
heated to a temperature not exceeding 180 degrees are transmitted in any
convenient manner. I prefer to use a blowing machine for driving air through
pipes or covered channels opening into the drying chambers, and to have an
air heating apparatus similar to those in use at iron works for hot blast, and
to begin the drying at about 70 degrees increasing gradually so as to finish at
about 150 degrees Fahrenheit. But instead of blowing all the air through
the hot air apparatus, I prefer to have the current of air which enters the
drying chamber previously compounded of or formed by a mixture of hot
air at or above 300 degrees and of air at the atmospheric temperature
admitted together in the pipe or channel outside the chamber, the volume
of each being under control, so that the proportions may be varied at will,
and in consequence the temperature of the mixed currents of air also, as may
be desired at any stage of the drying process.
When dried the compound
bricks may be calcined at a good red heat in a chamber or vessel, admitting
the escape of volatile matter, but not allowing such access of air as would
consume the carbon required. By which more or less carbon will be
added to the metallic particles, depending upon the length of time they
be subjected to the process. I prefer the use of clay retoris similar to
those of gas works, and to which a tar condenser is attached, for the pur-
pose of collecting volatile products, in which the aforesaid peat and metallic
compounds may be calcined at a bright red heat, but not at a sufficiently
high temperature to melt them. When judged by experience or with-
drawal of samples that the metallic particles will, on being melted, possess
sufficient carbon, they are withdrawn into vessels capable of being covered
so as to exclude air, similar to those sometimes used for cooling animal and
vegetable charcoal. When cold, more or less of the charred peat may, (if
desired,) be removed by crushing and sifting, applying at same time a strong
current of air to blow it off, and the metallic particles may be melted down in
crucibles, as usual in the manufacture of cast steel.
Instead of puddled steel or iron in a divided state, wrought iron, such as
turnings or other minute fragments, also iron reduced into a
more or less
malleable or steely state from cast iron by blowing air through it whilst in a
fluid state, may (if finely granulated or divided) have carbon added thereto
by mixing it with undried bogstuff or peat, and treating the mixture as above
described.
The proportions of the bogstuff or peat herein named and the results from
their use refer to the average of such quality, of brown-coloured bog as contains
a small percentage of ashes (less than 3 per cent. air dried weight) and free

page_text: from injurious constituents. Any bogstuff containing sand should be rejected.
I also intimately intermix with granulated or divided pig or cast iron (prefering
granules not exceeding ths of an inch in thickness), an equal weight of good
quality average coking coal crushed to a state of dust, and I subject the mix-
ture to a red heat, by preference in a retort, heated externally for such length
of time as may be necessary to drive off the volatile matter of the coal, when
by means of the coking of the coal the metallic particles will be more or less
fastened together; I then withdraw the mixture of coke and metal with as
little crushing or possible, and I afterwards transfer it to a small cupola fur-
nace by preference not exceeding 4 feet in height, to which a blast of air is
applied, charging it when in a state of ignition with the coke mixture and an
equal bulk of other fuel, such as good coke in alternate layers about 3 inches
thick, taking care that the volume of the blast be not so great as to burn the
iron. When the divided state of the metal will admit of impurities being
removed by the action of air along with carbon upon it. The resulting product
to be treated as is usual with iron reduced to a similar state.
My Invention further relates to the removal of carbon from molten iron
containing it, by the application of carbonic acid gas, which is to be effected
by blowing it through the metal whilst fluid, in like manner as air is done in
the process which has been practised in Sheffield, and known as the Bessemer
process. I prefer to have the air pump supplied by a pipe in communication
with the atmosphere by one aperture, and by another aperture with a flue or
chamber in which carbonic acid gas is to be obtained, each aperture being
entirely or more or less closeable at will.
1 prefer to generate the carbonic acid gas by the combustion of dry charcoal
in a fire by means of common air, admitting as much further air at the top of
the fire as may be necessary to convert any carbonic oxide which may be
generated into carbonic acid gas, and to have a covered flue leading from the
fire towards a chimney, causing the necessary draught, into which flue the
above feed pipe is inserted. As soon as the molten metal, (still containing an
excess of carbon.) be judged to be sufficiently deprived of its earthy contents,
which may be estimated by the quantity of slag or cinder blown off, the
aperture of the pipe communicating with the atmosphere (as above described)
is to be more or less closed, and that connecting with the flue opened as far
as may be required to supply the same volume of gaseous matter as before
when the carbonic acid gas will absorb carbon from the molten iron producing
carbonic oxide gas.
During the time of its application I prefer that as much common air be
admitted along therewith, as by its greater oxidizing tendency on the iron will

page_text: keep up a high temperature, so as to retain the perfect fluidity of the metal.
When it be judged by the withdrawal of samples, or known experience of the
color of the flame, length of time, or other tests, that the required amount of
carbon has been removed, the molten iron is to be poured into moulds for
after treatment, as usual with iron in a similar state of carbonization or
malleability.
I would state that I do not confine myself to the exact details herein
described, nor do I claim the covering of moulds in sand with iron ore, or
blowing of air through molten iron; but I do claim,-
First, the casting of iron from the furnace in which it was produced from
ore in indentations formed in a bed of crushed iron ore.
Second, the mixing of undried bogstuff or peat with granulated or divided
steel or iron, such as herein described for supplying carbon thereto when heated.
Third, the subjecting of coking coal mixed with granulated or divided pig
or cast iron to the action of coking, so as to obtain coke compounded with
iron.
Fourth, the blowing of carbonic acid gas, as herein explained, through molten
iron in order to remove carbon therefrom.
In witness whereof, I, the said Jacob Geoghegan Willans, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-seventh day of February, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-one.
J. G. WILLANS. (L.S.)