Improvements in the Manufacture of Metallic Jointless Rims for the Wheels of Bicycles, Tricycles, and other Velocipedes and Wheel Carriages.
Year: 1897

page_text: Date of Application, 17th Feb., 1897
Complete Specification Left, 2nd Nov., 1897-Accepted, 4th Dec., 1897
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in the Manufacture of Metallic Jointless Rims for the
Wheels of Bicycles, Tricycles, and other Velocipedes and Wheel
Carriages.
I, THOMAS HENRY WOOLLEN of No. 6 Hampton Road Handsworth in the
County of Stafford, Managing Director of The New Jointless Rim Limited do
hereby declare the nature of this Invention to be as follows:-
My invention consists of the process or combination of processes hereinafter
described by the use of which jointless rims are made without the production
of the waste which is produced in the ordinary method of manufacture.
When I wish to make a rim without a flange I take a
sheet steel or iron the ends of which are rounded and by means of pressing or
strip preferably of thin
stamping tools or otherwise, I depress the middle of the said strip leaving the
ends unacted upon. There is thus produced a long shallow trough or dish having
vertical or nearly vertical sides. I cut out by a stamp or press or otherwise
the bottom of the said trough or dish and there is thereby formed a long endless
band from which a circular jointless hoop is produced. The said hoop is_con-
verted into a concave wheel rim by a troughing operation performed by rolls or
otherwise.
When I wish to make a rim having flanges at its edges I operate upon the
sheet metal blank by means of a pair of dies so that a narrow strip all round the
edge of the blank is preserved in the plane of the original blank while the other
portion is depressed into the form of a long trough or dish. I next make a
circular hole near each end of the trough and make an incision or slot along the
middle of the bottom of the trough the said slot terminating in the circular
holes. There is thus formed an endless band having a flange at one of its edges
from which band I form a circular jointless hoop having a flange at one of its
edges, the flange at the other edge being produced by rolling or spinning from
the cylindrical part of the hoop. The said flanged hoop is by rolling or spinning
or otherwise converted into the finished wheel rim.
Although I have only described my invention in connection with the manu-
facture of rims of iron and steel yet I wish it to be understood that the said rims
may be made of other malleable and ductile metals and metallic alloys.
Dated this seventeenth day of February 1897.
W. T. WHITEMAN,
Agent for the Applicant.

page_text: and 10 is opened out and introduced between a set of three plain rolls d, e, f
represented in Figure 11 and the inner roll e being made to rotate the band is
drawn between the rolls by the action of which a circular figure is given to
the band as represented in the said Figure 11 and section of the same Figure 12.
By a subsequent operation in which preferably three shaping rolls are em-
ployed, the acting surface of the inner roll having a figure the counterpart of
the inner or convex face of the rim to be made and the acting surfaces of the
outer rolls having a figure the counterpart of the outer or concave face of the
rim to be made, a solid or single rim of the kind represented in elevation in
Figure 13 and section in Figure 14 is produced. Or the said rim Figures 13
and 14 may be produced directly from the band Figures 7 and 8 or from the
band Figures 9 and 10 by employing shaping rolls instead of plain rolls in the
stage of the manufacture represented by Figure 11.
I do not however limit myself to the method of shaping or converting the
circular hoops produced from the junctionless bands Figures 7 and 8 and
Figures 9 and 10 into finished wheel rims nor to the sectional figure of the
rims to be made but I prefer to operate upon the said hoops in either of the
ways described, represented and claimed in the specification of Letters Patent
granted to Charles Henry Pugh dated and numbered respectively 13th June 1891
No. 10076; 5th December 1891 No. 21284 and 31st July 1893 No. 14660 for the
manufacture of metallic jointless rims for wheels.
Although I have only described my invention in connection with the manu-
facture of rims of iron and steel yet I wish it to be understood that the said rims
may be made of other malleable and ductile metals and metallic alloys.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my invention
and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that I claim as my
invention:
Manufacturing from a flat strip of thin sheet ductile metal or metallic alloy a
long narrow trough or dish either flanged or flangeless the bottom of which
dish is removed or cut out either by the first or a subsequent pressing operation
and converting the jointless flanged or flangeless metallic band thus obtained into
a circular flanged or flangeless hoop for the production of a wheel rim substan-
tially as herein before described and illustrated in the accompanying Drawings.
Dated the Twenty-third day of October 1897.
THOMAS HENRY WOOLLEN.