CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION OF IRON FOR THE BETTER MANUFACTURE OF CHAINS AND CHAIN CABLES
Year: 1823

page_text: ACRAMAN & PIPER'S SPECIFICATION.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, we,
DANIEL WADE ACAMAN, of the City of Bristol, Iron Manufacturer, and
WILLIAM PIPER, of the Cookley Ironworks, near Kidderminster, in the
County of Worcester, Iron Manufacturer, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of His United Kingdom, bearing
date at Westminster, the Twelfth day of April, 1823, in the fourth year of
His reign, give and grant unto us, the said Daniel Wade Araman and
William Piper, our exors, adññiors, and assigns, His especial licence, full
power, sole privilege and authority, that we, the said Daniel Wade Acraman
and William Piper, our exors, adiñors, and assigns, during the term of years
therein mentioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, our Inven-
tion of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION OF IRON FOR THE BETTER
MANUFACTURE OF CHAINS AND CHAIN CABLES;" in which said Letters Patent
there is contained a proviso, that if we, the said Daniel Wade Acraman and
William Piper, shall not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of our
said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an
instrument in writing under our hands and seals, or under the hand and seal
of one of us, and cause the same to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court
of Chancery. within two calendar months next and immediately after the date
of the said Letters Patent, that then the said Letters Patent, and all liberties
and advantages whatsoever thereby granted, shall utterly cease, determine,
and become void, as in and by the same, 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
Daniel Wade Acraman and William Piper, do hereby declare that the nature
of our said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed,
are particularly described and ascertained in and by the Drawing hereunto
annexed, and the following description thereof (that is to say):-
Our Improvements in the Preparation of Iron for the better Manufacture
of Chains and Chain Cables consists in the peculiar manner of preparing bars
for the more eligible formation of links; which bars, when so prepared or
formed, are to be cut into suitable lengths, and finished into links, by weld-
ing, as herein-after described. These improvements apply to two different
constructions of links. The first, a link with a stay, which, together, are
formed of one entire picce; the second, a link into which a stay is to be
inserted at the time of welding.
On the first plan the bar of iron should be brought into the form shewn at
Fig. 1 in the Drawing, which is a front view of the breadth way of the bar;
and Fig. 2 is a section of the same cut across endwise. This form may be
produced either by rolling, hammering, or stamping; and after that is per-
formed, we cut out certain portions of the thin part of the bar, as shown at
Fig. 3, leaving certain portions a, a, a, of the thin part of the bar as stays.
This operation may be performed by various modes, as by stamping, &c., the
process of which we do not claim. The perforated bar is now to be cut into
suitable lengths for forming distinct lincks, which may be done either in the
direction across the bar shewn by the dotted lines b, b, or obliquely, as the
dotted lines c, c, or d, d, in Fig. 3. The bar being now separated into pieces
similar to that shewn at Fig. 4, the ends are to be welded together, as seen
at the lower part of Fig. 5; and on the upper end of the link being welded
in the same way, the link will be complete, and of the form shewn at Fig. 6.
This link, with its stay, being formed of one entire piece of metal, will be
found better calculated to sustain any degree of tension or force, in whatever
direction that force may be exerted, than any other construction of link here-
tofore made.
The second part of our improvements apply to that description of link into
which a stay is to be introduced at the time of welding. For the construc
tion of this kind of link, we prepare bars or rods of iron with ribs, and a
groove formed on their side, as shewn at Fig. 7, and also in section at Fig. 8.
Bars thus formed, either by rolling or otherwise, are to be cut into suitable
lengths, and welded together into links, as shewn at Fig. 9, when a stay is to
be introduced in the middle of the link as a, which we recommend to be formed
as represented at Fig. 10, and shewn in section at Fig. 11. The groove pro
duced between the ribs upon the bar, and turned within -the link, is intended

page_text: to receive the beveled edges or ends of the stay, Figures 10 and 11. When the
link is formed by welding into a ring, the stay is to be introduced, the ends
falling into the groove. The sides of the link are then to be beaten together,
in order to fasten the stay, and the ribs round the interior of the link are
afterwards to be worked into the groove, in order to secure the stay firmly in
its situation, and to render the link perfectly smooth.
We wish it to be clearly understood, that in this our Specification we do
not claim the stay crossing the link as a new Invention, nor the particular
form which we have given to that stay. But we rest our claim of originality,―
First, in the construction of a link, the stay of which is formed of the same
entire undivided substance of metal as the link produced by a particular mode
of preparing iron, as above stated.
And secondly, in a mode of fastening a distinct separate stay into a link, by
means of a groove, with ribs, formed by the preparation of the iron, as above
described.
In witness whereof, we, the said Daniel Wade Acraman and William
Piper, have hereunto respectively set our hands and seals, this Third
day of June, One thousand eight hundred and twenty-three.