A METHOD OF CASTING AND MAKING OF COFFIN NAILS AND TACKS OUT OF OR FROM PIG IRON, COMMONLY CALLED CAST METAL, AND OF TINNING THE SAME
Year: 1769

page_text: ASHTON'S SPECIFICATION..
1.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOSEPH
ASHTON, of Birmingham, in the. County of Warwick, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty. King George the Third,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date
at Westminster, the Twenty-seventh day of November, in the tenth year of
His reign, did give and grant unto me, the said Joseph Ashton, His
especial licence, that I, the said Joseph Ashton, during the term of years
therein expressed, should and lawfully might use, exercise, and vend, within
that part of His Kingdom of Great Britain called England, His Dominion
of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "A METHOD
OF CASTING AND MAKING OF COFFIN NAILS AND TACKS OUT OF OR FROM PIG IRON,
COMMONLY CALLED CAST METAL, AND OF TINNING THE SAME;" in which said Letters
Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Joseph Ashton, under
my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of the said
Invention, and how the same is to be performed, to be. inrolled in. His
Majesty's High Court of Chancery within four calendar months after the
date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation being
thereunto had) máy more fully and at-large appear:
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Joseph Ashton, do hereby declare that my said Method of Casting and
Making Coffin Nails and Tacks is to be performed in the manner following
(that is to say) :-

page_text: Melt pig iron, commonly called cast metal, in crucibles, in an air furnace,
and run the metal when so melted into moulds filled with sand or loam,
wherein the impressions of coffin nails and tacks have been first taken off
from leaden or other soft metal patterns, and then heal the same nails and
tacks in a fire made of coke from coal, by a gradual heat for the space of
twelve hours or thereabouts, whereby the same will become tough and
maleable, and fit for use. And as to the tinning of such nails and tacks
when made, my method is as follows:-Put such nails and tacks into a pickle
made by me of an acid spirit, commonly called or known by the name of
mineral acid, mixt with water, which will soften the scurf left on the nails
and tacks after casting and healing, then scour such nails and tacks by
turning them about in a wooden barrel for a sufficient time, which fits them
for tinning, and then put such nails and tacks over the fire in an iron vessel
mixt with tin or pewter, and a sufficient quantity of sal ammoniac, and shake
such vessel about until the tin or pewter-is compleatly spread over such nails
and tacks, and then after burnishing or lackering, or both if thought fit, of
such nails and tacks, the same are compleatly finished.
In testimony whercof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, the
JOSEPH ASHTON. (L.B.)
AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the same Nineteenth day of
February, in the year last mentioned, the aforesaid Joseph Ashton came
before our Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specifi-
cacon, 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 made in the sixth year of the reign of the late King and Queen
William and Mary of England, and so forth.
Trolled the Twenty-sixth day of February, in the year above written.