A NEW ARTICLE OF TRADE AND COMMERCE, BEING AN IMPROVEMENT OF COPPER SHEETS OR PLATES AND BRASS SHEETS OR PLATES, BY COVERING AND COMBINING THEM WITH A METALLIC OR SEMI-METALLIC SUBSTANCE, WHICH COVERING WILL PREVENT ALL NOXIOUS EFFECTS FROM THOSE METALS WHEN USED FOR CULINARY PURPOSES OR FOR CONTAINING OR CONVEYING WATER, AND WILL ALSO RENDER THEM MORE USEFUL TO MANUFACTURERS
Year: 1790

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, WILLIAM
COLLINS, of Lambeth, in the County of Surrey, Engine Maker, and CHARLES
WYATT, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Thirty-first day of March, in the thirtieth year of His reign,
give and grant unto us, the said William Collins and Charles Wyatt, His
especial licence, that we, the said William Collins and Charles Wyatt,
during the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully might use,
exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, our Invention of "A NEW ARTICLE OF TRADE AND COMMERCE, BEING AN
IMPROVEMENT OF COPPER SHEETS OR PLATES AND BRASS SHEETS OR PLATES, BY
COVERING AND COMBINING THEM WITH A METALLIC OR SEMI-METALLIC SUBSTANCE,
WHICH COVERING WILL PREVENT ALL NOXIOUS EFFECTS FROM THOSE METALS WHEN
USED FOR CULINARY PURPOSES OR FOR CONTAINING OR CONVEYING WATER, AND WILL
ALSO RENDER THEM MORE USEFUL TO MANUFACTURERS;" in which said Letters Patent
there is contained a proviso, obliging us, the said William Collins and Charles
Wyatt, under our hands and seals, to cause a particular description of the
nature of our said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one calendar
month from the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the samo
(relation being thereunto had) will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, the said
William Collins and Charles Wyatt, do hereby declare that our said Invention
is described in manner following (that is to say):--
We declare our Invention or improvement of copper sheets or plates, brass
sheets or plates, or sheets or plates of any other metal of which copper is the
basis, to be forming and combining, by means of heat, a covering or coat on
their surface, and augmenting indefinitely their thickness by an accumulation
of lead, tin, or a mixture of those metals, in any proportion, as also lead, tin,
or mixtures of those metals, or either of them; with any other-metal or semi-
metal, also with zink or any other semi-metal alone, proper for preventing tho
noxious effects arising from the use of the said sheets uncovered, and thereby
causing the sheets or plates so covered to become a new article of trade and
commerce, and, in a variety of cases, a useful substitute for lead, iron, or uncoated
copper, brass, or mixed mettle sheets or plates. This metallic coating may bo
combined with the copper or brass sheets by various methods, at the discretion
of the operator. Our general principles of working are these:-The sheets
or plates to be coated must be made perfectly clean by pickling, scouring, or
such other methods as are usually practised by workmen for that
purpose.
A vessel of iron or other proper material must be provided, and the coating
matter melted therein in quantity sufficient to enable the operator either to
immerse the sheets completely or to pass tliem gradually through the melted
matter, as may be found most convenient; aniinál fat, or any other matter
having the property of preventing the calcination of the coating substanco or of
reviving its calx, may be kept constantly thereon or added occasionally. Tho
nature of the coating matter and the number of coatings must at all times bo
regulated by the purposes to which the finished work is to be applied. In'sumd
cases' load alone is used; in others, tin alone; in others, lead first, and tin or
lead and tin afterwards; and in others, again, a mixture of both at every
operation. Thus, for some purposes, ciglit parts lead and one of tin forin the
first coat, and equal parts of each the second, and so on. Semi-inctals also
occasionally form a part of the composition, either to increasó its hardness or
its fusibility. Lend requires more heat than tin to attach it to the surfaco of
the sheet; any mixtures, therefore, of these two require more or less heat as
those mixtures approach nearer to the component "metals. To produce
successive accumulation of metal on the surfaces, the 'sheets must be repenteilly
immersed in the same or a more fusible coating matter, observing that 'the heat
thereof be diminished at every immersion. Sal-ammoniac, or other' fluxes; miny
be used when the sheets do not receive the coating with ease and expedition.
It is proper to prove whether the coating matter be fit receivé slicets' by

page_text: dipping in it a small piece of clean copper. The sheets may be partially
covered by previously defending, with whiting and water or other proper
matter, those parts which are to remain uncovered. When the sheets are to
be immersed totally, the best method is to dip them edgeways, the vessel being
provided long and narrow; if they are to be passed through the melted matter,
the vessel may be shallow and circular at the bottom, and the sheets may be
previously bent nearly to the form of the vessel. If it be intended to place the
sheets in a trough on a table or in moulds, the melted matter must then be
poured on them.
In witness whereof, we, the said William Collins and Charles Wyatt,
have hereunto set our hands and seals, the Twenty-second day of
April, One thousand seven hundred and ninety.
WILL. COLLINS. (Ls.)
CHAS WYATT.
(L.S.)
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the said Twenty-second day of
April, in the year above written, the aforesaid Charles Wyatt, and on the
Twenty-sixth day of the same month of April, the aforesaid William Collins,
severally came before our Lord the King in His Chancery, and severally
acknowledged the Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein
contained, in form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was
stampt according to the tenor of the Statute in that case made and provided.
Inrolled the Twenty-seventh day of April, in the year above mentioned.