IMPROVED GIRDERS AND OTHER BRIDGING MEMBERS."
Year: 1874

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Philip Brannon, of 54, Parliament Street, in the
ว
County of Middlesex, for the Invention of "IMPROVED GIRDERS AND
OTHER BRIDGING MEMBERS."

page_text: Patent for the same, and have made solemn Declaration that that I am
the first and true Inventor thereof.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Philip Brannon, do hereby declare
that the following Complete Specification, under my hand and seal, fully
describes and ascertains the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, in and by the following statement
(that is to say) :-
My Invention has reference to the construction of girders and other
bridging members by the employment of arches in combination with
tie rods, or webbings of wood and textile materials acting in tension
only, and thereby used with greater effect and economy than in the
ordinary modes, at the same time being protected from decaying influ-
ences and from liability to taking fire, and consists in forming upon my
improved principle any girder, bressummer, lintel joist, and the like, of
a single or compound wooden board or plank as a vertical web flitch
or lattice called the web, having affixed to or formed within the tails or
ends thereof solid blockings, either with shoulders on the internal flanks
raking to the radius of any arch to spring therefrom and called the
skewback or skewback blockings, or with the ends formed by blocking
into dovetails fixed into a plating or continuous skewback, and in
forming archings to bear on the said skewbacks in compression.
And in exercising the said Invention I form the web either of one
board or as a compound laminated web of two or more thin boards, or
of the same with textile fabrics intervening between them, or of
lengths of scale board, veneers, alternating with textile fabrics in like
manner, such laminations being firmly united by marine glue or any
resinous or other insoluble and adhesive substance or compound com-
bined under pressure.
:
I also employ for light girders a web of latticework with the meeting
ends and intersections joined in manner last explained, and it is
sometimes advantageous to have two or three webs with intervening
archings, or by multiplying the webs in the position of joists and
attaching the same to a wooden continuous skewback for covering any
open space or apartment and sustaining a fireproof floor above and fire-
proof ceiling below. The skewbacks are formed by blockings with the 3

page_text: grain, preferably vertical or transverse to that of the web, and aro at
first attached to the web tails by the strongest marine glue or other
adhesive as above described, under pressure and afterwards spiked or
bolted through. When the webs are compound having dovetailed ends
these are formed by the dovetail blocks being placed between the thin
planks or vencers, and if textile webbings are introduced they are also
tucked under or between or turned round such blocks.
The compression portions or archings are formed of bricks, tiles,
or concrete, by ordinary methods or of condensed sheets of stone felting
or stone felt, as otherwise described by me in my former Patents, October
12th 1871, and April 10th 1874.
In order to protect the combustible portions of materials employed
from the action of fire and decay I surround them with a casing or
body of cement, plaster, or concrete, and secure the attachment of
the same to the wooden surfaces with screws, nails, hooks, and wires,
but best by the fire casings provided in my said two former Patents.
Having now fully described and ascertained the nature of this my
said Invention, I would have it understood that I do not confine
myself to the precise details herein above given, nor do I claim the
exclusive use of the several materials and processes referred to except
when used in and for the purposes of my said Invention, which I hereby
declare to consist,―
Firstly. In employing for the formation of girders or joistings wooden
webs in combination with wooden skewback blockings attached to their
tailing ends, or employing like webs with dovetail formed ends joined to
and holding continuous skewbacks, such skewbacks in either case to
receive the thrust of the archings constructed therewith, and to bring
the said webs wholly into tension.
Secondly. In forming the webs of single or compound or laminated
planks or thin boards or scaleboards combined with textile fabrics
brought into strain by dovetail ends with tapering blocks or wedges
secured between the laminations in manner herein described.
Thirdly, and lastly. In employing any number of the said webs at

page_text: so as to cover any open space and sustain any fireproof ceiling below
and floor above as otherwise in use.
In witness whereof, I, the said Philip Brannon, have hercunto set
my hand and seal, this Tenth day of April, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-four.
:
Witness,
B. F. WEATHERDON,
Law Chambers,
Chancery Lane.
PHILIP BRANNON. (L.S.)