IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF METAL PLATES, TYRES, BARS, RODS, AND THE LIKE
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Frederick Reynolds at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 13th August 1881.
FREDERICK REYNOLDS, of King's Norton, in the County of Worcester.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF METAL PLATES, TYRES, BARS, RODS,
AND THE LIKE
"
The object of this Invention is to produce rods, sheets, etcetera, of combined steel
and iron, or hard steel and mild steel, so as to utilize both the tough but soft
qualities of the iron or mild steel together with the hard but brittle qualities of the
steel proper, and I wish to observe that I am quite aware that there is nothing
new in the principle of combining iron and steel for these purposes, and that my
Invention consists only in the special way of doing this.
For instance, tyre hoops for wheels are commonly made of, say, two layers, the
outside one of steel and the inside one of iron, but this arrangement causes a great
difficulty in making the holes for the rivets, because the tyre being shrunk on the
steel becomes too hard for the drill, and if drilled before shrinking on almost
certainly the holes will not coincide, and the difficulty is only increased. Now
I get over this difficulty by laying the steel and iron together in a direction at
right angles to that usually adopted, so that in the tyre hoop above mentioned
there would be, say, in the centre of the breadth of the tyre, a breadth of soft iron
through which the rivet holes can easily be bored, and on each side of it there would be
a breadth of hard steel. Of course I do not bind myself to use three breadths only,
as I may employ any suitable or convenient number. A similar plan would be
adopted for plates, for instance, and they would have this great merit, that if one
of the hard steel portions was cracked or broken, the crack would probably only
extend up to the first intersecting piece or layer of iron or mild steel, instead of
spoiling the whole plate. Instead of employing only long strips of the hard and
soft metals alternately, they can if desired be arranged in squares, like a chess-
board, or of irregular shapes and sizes.
Bars may sometimes be formed with a central strip of iron, a strip of hard steel
on each side, and a backing of soft iron behind, the soft iron in this case being in
section of an inverted shape, and the hard steel occupying the spaces on each
side of the stem.

page_text: Rods or rounds can sometimes be made with a section of soft metal in the form
of a cross with arms of equal length and the spaces filled up with hard steel; this
form would give great strength for axles and the like.
For railway tyres I may take a tyre of ordinary form and place round it a ring
constructed according to my Invention, and shrink it on and rivet it also, but if t
made in the solid and without weld and spun out, the disc or blank would require
to be formed in layers, one on top of the other, so placed that when the tyre was
completed the edge of each layer would appear upon the tread of the tyre.
The junction of the iron and steel, or of the hard and mild steel, is affected by
fusion or lamination or in one of the usual methods, and afterwards the combined
metal may be hammered, rolled, or both.