IMPROVEMENTS IN COATING METAL PLATES WITH TIN OR TERNE METAL
Year: 1873

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Edmund Morewood, late of Rock Cottage, Briton
Ferry, in the County of Glamorgan, now of Llanelly, Carmarthen-
shire, and John Henry Rogers, of Llangennech Park, near Llanelly,
in the County of Carmarthen, Tinplate Manufacturers, for the
Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN COATING METAL PLATES WITH TIN OR
TERNE METAL."
Sealed the 16th June 1874, and dated the 24th December 1873.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Henry Morewood and
John Henry Rogers at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with their Petition, on the 24th December 1873.
WO, EDMUND MOREWOOD, late of Rock Cottage, Briton Ferry, in the
County of Glamorgan, now of Llanelly, Carmarthenshire, and JOHN
HENRY ROGERS, of Llangennech Park, near Llanelly, in the County of
Carmarthen, Tinplate Manufacturers, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN COATING METAL PLATES WITH TIN
OR TERNE METAL," to be as follows:
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page_text: metal plates undergoing the process are together at one time under such
flux or melted coating metal and longer than is desirable, and several
are withdrawn together. Thus they bring forward on their surfaco
much of the metallic impurity called scruff, which is afterwards removed
by what is termed brushing over before the process is completed.
In order to avoid the loss of coating metal consequent upon this mode
of working we arrange the grease pot in which the metal plates are
immersed (before they enter the coating metal pot) with pins or
divisions, so that such plates are separate and apart whilst remaining
therein or pass singly through it, and are removed therefrom separately
to the first coating metal pot.
We further form and arrange such grease pot so that the unsuitable
frothy porous grease resulting from the introduction of wet plates can
readily pass away or overflow into a vessel or channel where it can right
itself and return, or can be easily exchanged for suitable grease. In:
such grease pot we prepare the surface of the plates or pieces of metal
so that they readily take an immediate but more or less imperfect and
unsound coating by a rapid immersion separately into the melted coating
metal. This somewhat unsound coating we set right by afterwards
passing between one or more pair of rollers kept well coated with melted:
coating metal suitable for making a sound coating out of that given by
the first hasty dip.
We arrange the pot in which we give the hasty immersion with a
partition so that there is a flux of grease or fatty matter on the entrance
side, whilst the exit side is kept as clear and free from grease as con-
veniently may be. The partition dips so far under the coating metal
that it hinders the escapo of the grease from the entrance to the exit
side of the pot, whilst the plate can readily pass under it by a suitable
moving finger or guide. There is also an overflow arrangement on the
ontrance side of this dipping pot so that the grease brought over by the a
plates from the preparatory grease pot can flow back again. We cause
one or more of the pairs of rollers to revolve in contact with grease.
When we use more than one pair the second or the last pair of rollers ·
is coated with melted coating metal of such quality as will be suitable
for giving finish, color, and surface to the plates.
Between the first hasty coating and the travel through the finishing
pair of coated rollers we cause the plates to undergo an immersion in a
1

page_text: flux of grease or fatty matter. By this process we are enabled to give
an equally good coating with an expenditure of less coating metal than
in the ordinary way.
In our Provisional Specification No. 3125, dated the 24th day of
September, 1873, we describe a mode of coating by passing plates or
pieces of metal between rollers kept well coated with melted coating
metal by a suitable feeding arrangement. But when coating upon iron,
the character or surface of which is of such a nature as not to take the
coating with sufficient readiness, we find it well to combine a rapid
immersion after a suitable preparation in grease with the travel through
coating rollers.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Edmund Morewood and John Henry Rogers in the
Great Seal Patent Office on the 24th June 1874.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, EDMUND
MOREWOOD, late of Rock Cottage, Briton Ferry, in the County of
Glamorgan, now of Llanelly, Carmarthenshire, and JOHN HENRY ROGERS,
of Llangennech Park, near Llanelly, in the County of Carmarthen,
Tinplate Manufacturers, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-fourth day of December, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-three,
in the thirty-seventh year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs
and successors, give and grant unto us, the said Edmund Morewood
and John Henry Rogers, Her special license, that we, the said Edmund
Morewood and John Henry Rogers, our executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as we, the said Henry Morewood and John Henry
Rogers, our 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
"IMPROVEMENTS IN COATING METAL PLATES WITH TIN OR TERNE METAL,” upon
the condition (amongst others) that wc, the said Edmund Morcwood

page_text: and John Henry Rogers, our executors or administrators, by an instru-
ment in writing under our or their hands and seals, or under the hand
and seal of one of us or them, 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 Scal Patent
Office within six calendar months next and immediately after the date
of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Edmund Morewood on behalf
of myself and the said John Henry Rogers, 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 state-
ment thereof, that is to say:-
In the Specification of Edmund Morewood's Patent, No. 1780, of
June, 1870, I describe passing wet plates of iron through a flux box con-
taining hot grease kept in a condition suitable for causing the plates to
take the coating metal very readily by means of a circulating arrange-
ment. The circulation was effected by pumping or lifting mechanism.
But in order to dispense with the pumping or lifting arrangement and
to lessen the space occupied, we according to the present Invention so
arrange the overflow and inflow that the frothy porous grease arising on
the immersion of wet or damp plates shall pass into an outer vessel, and
after righting itself have the opportunity of returning by gravity in a
heavier and more solid state at a lower level. The solid or non-porous
grease in consequence of its specific gravity being greater than that of
the upper and frothy portion of the grease will flow back to the greaso
pot or vessel into or through which the plates are introduced. We keep
this preparatory grease pot at about the temperature of the coating
metal, and we employ it to heat and grease the black plates prior to
coating in a coating pot, in which we give a hasty immersion. The
coating pot we use for this purpose contains six rollers, say three pairs.
The upper part of the pot contains grease, and we have coating metal
in the bottom of the pot say to within 5 or 6 inches of the bottom of
the lower rollers revolving in contact with grease, and so deep as to take
the plato to be coated overhead in the coating metal. This wo call the
amphibious pot, it being a pot partly for coating and partly for
improving the hasty coating by subsequently passing out through the
pairs of rollors in the same pot. This amphibious pot has an overflow
channel or arrangement through or by which the grease brought over

page_text: with cach plate flows back again into the preparatory grease pot when it
rises above the desired level.
"
1
In this amphibious pot we have a division so as to separate the
entrance from the exit side to enable us to have fresher grease on
the exit than on the entrance side. Sometimes we use little or no
grease on the cxit side, and wo cause the plates to rise up between
rollers revolving in troughs and supplied with grease or with coating
metal. The troughs protect the plates passing up between them from
the air. When we use grease on the surface of the coating. metal
on the exit side of the amphibious pot or vessel we confine or limit the
quantity of grease in contact with the surface of the coating metal by
placing it in a box similar in character to a flux box, the sides acting in
fact as partitions, and as the plates rise up from the coating metal they
pass up through the opening at the bottom of such flux box, which
opening dips into the coating metal, and rising through the grease they
'pass up between the metal coated rollers.
On the Sheet of Drawings hereunto annexed Figure 1 is a vertical
section and Figure 2 a horizontal section of a detached preparatory inner
grease pot with overflow and return arrangement and grated sides, so as
to keep up circulation into and from the outer grease pot. A is the
preparatory inner grease pot into which the wet black plates are intro-
duced between the pins a¹ to be heated and greased preparatory to
tinning. The froth arising flows over the top into the outer grease.
pot B, and after righting itself and becoming more heavy flows. back
again in a suitable condition through holes O, O; into the inner grease.
pot.
Figure 3 is a vertical section, and shews what we call the amphibious
coating grease pot. It is heated by fire in the usual way. A, A, is the
overflow channel by which the grease brought over from the preparatory
grease, pot flows back from the entrance sido of the amphibious pot to
such preparatory grease pot; B, B, are carrying rollers. through which
the plate is passed from the grease chamber C, O, into the coating
metal D, D, from whence it is passed by finger E' against the guide E,
and then is raised by the lifting bar G between the troughs H, H, con-
taining fresh and good quality coating metal or grease, into and through
the nip of the finishing rollers I, I; K is a partition which dipping two
inches into the coating metal confines the grease C, C, to the entrance..

page_text: -
'
The troughs H, H; also form other partitions. The rollers B, B, and I, I,
are kept rotating by steam or other power. Ex is a projection on the
finger E', which when the finger is raised by the lifting lever acts
against a fixed projection, and so throws the finger forward.
Figure 4 also represents an amphibious coating and grease pot with 5
the addition of a lower pair of rollers K; K, on the exit side, such exit
rollers being placed in a flux box, which forms a partition by which the
grease contained in it is separated from that on the entrance side C; and
it also forms a clear space of surface coating metal, from which the
scruff may be withdrawn by suitablo arrangements, as herein-after 1
described. The rollers I, I, on the exit side are sometimes fed with
coating metal from a reservoir vessel, or the troughs H, H, may bo
so fed.
After withdrawing the plates from this amphibious pot we prefer to
pass the plates into a finishing roller grease: pot, in which we give them 1
a suitable finish, as is well understood. But any second coating metal
pot is unnecessary. We keep the surface of the melted coating metal
on the exit side of the pot or vessel as clear as may be from scruff and
dirt by means of an instrument shaped liko a small spade with a long
handle so bent as to pass through a hole in the wall of the pot and under 2
an intervening partition, seo Figure 5, and the scruff or dirt is with-
drawn from the surface of the coating metal by passing such spade
under the intervening partition. The scruff and dirt being drawn
smartly by means of the spade towards the lip or partition of the
scruffing hole will pass beneath it out of the pot.
•
2
Wo claim the arrangement of an inner grease pot or vessel within an
outer one, such inner grease pot or vessel having sides or bottom open
substantially as described, so that the frothy porous grease overflowing
into the outer, vessel in consequence of the introduction of damp or wet
plates may flow or gravitato back into the inner grease pot when it has 3
become more solid and consequently heavier from the settling, righting,.
or separation of the froth.
• We also claim the process substantially as described of coating metal
plates with tin or terne metal by passing the black plates separately:
through hot grease, which is confined to the entrance side of tho pot, 3
then hastily and separately through molten coating metal, and after-

page_text: wards without immerging into the air between improving rollers having
coating metal on their surfaces.
We also claim the use of what we call the amphibious roller grease
pot substantially as described.
We also claim the arrangement of scruffing holes substantially as
described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Edmund Morewood, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-third day of June,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and
seventy-four.