A NOVEL SYSTEM OF FASTENING OR CLOSING FOR METAL BOXES, AND FOR THE CAPS, CAPSULES, OR COVERS OF GLASS OR OTHER VESSELS INTENDED TO HOLD PROVISIONS, AND THEREFORE REQUIRING TO BE HERMETICALLY CLOSED
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Antoine Montoriol and Pierre
Prosper Tarride at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 29th
May 1880.
ANTOINE MONTORIOL and PIERRE PROSPER TARRIDE, Engineers, of Paris, in
France. "A NOVEL SYSTEM OF FASTENING OR CLOSING FOR METAL BOXES, AND
FOR THE CAPS, CAPSULES, OR COVERS OF GLASS OR OTHER VESSELS INTENDED
TO HOLD PROVISIONS, AND THEREFORE REQUIRING TO BE HERMETICALLY CLOSED."
This Invention relates to an improved method of fastening or closing metal boxes
or cases, applicable also to the capsule-lids, covers, or caps of glass and other vessels
intended to hold preserved provisions, such as jams, fruits, vegetables, fish, and
other provisions requiring for their preservation a hermetical closing.
Hitherto, the various systems of boxes for preserved provisions require for their
opening and the extraction of their contents the use of a particular knife, pen knife,
or other cutting instrument, the employment of which is inconvenient, and often
even dangerous, for not only does this operation notch and spoil the knives, pen-
knives, chisels, scissors, or other cutting instruments, but it often happens that the
instrument breaks or slips and wounds the hand holding the box.
Our object has been to do away with the use of cutting instruments, and to
establish a construction of box, the opening of which will be effected by a simple
manual exertion. In this we have succeeded, and our boxes while affording a proper
degree of strength and a perfect hermetical closing, open in a second by pulling
outward by means of a finger passed through a loop or ring of iron wire, a plate
which at the time of manufacturing the box has been cut out, then replaced and
soldered either by immersion in a bath of tin or by means of the soldering
iron.
This section of the plates or discs forming the top of the boxes being capable of
taking any form, square, round, oval, sinuous, or other, its application is easy to all
shapes of boxes without distinction. The square and the cylindrical shape are the
most generally used, the other shapes being little employed, but we nevertheless
reserve the right to apply our system to every form of box.
From the disc or plate forming the top of the box (accordingly as the box is
square or cylindrical), we cut by a cutting punch or machine, or in any convenient
way, another plate, which after the cutting out, remains attached by two small
uncut parts to the plate or disc from which it has been cut; after this section has

page_text: been made, the plate or the disc is placed under a rolling mill or other suitable
machine or apparatus which causes the part cut out to resume its original position,
bringing the two edges of this section quite close together, and leaving of this section
only a single line; by passing a soldering iron with a slight quantity of solder over
the whole line of cut, or better still, by plunging the plate or the disc into a bath
of tin, the solution of continuity disappears, and the plate again become entire, is
capable of receiving by painting, by printing, or otherwise, every drawing, design,
decoration, inscription, or indications which may be deemed desirable.
A piece of tinned iron wire entered into the box at the point formed by the cut
section is brought back underneath towards the centre, and fixed under the plate
by solder. The outer part of this iron wire is arranged in a loop or ring, and serves
to tear open the cut part when it is desired to open the box.
We may also place above the ordinary top another lid, the hinge of which is fixed
to one of the sides of the box. This lid is intended to preserve the contents of the
box from dust and the evaporising action of the atmosphere. This lid may also be
applied to other forms of boxes when they are to inclose substances, the consumption
or use of which is to take place at different times.
The boxes are filled by the bottom, which permits giving to the top part all the
elegance and cleanliness desirable.
To open the boxes, it is only necessary to pass a finger in the wire loop or ring,
and to pull hard; the line where the top plate has been cut and refastened being
formed but of a very slight thickness of tin, tears with facility, and this part being
torn, the box remains with an opening having for limit the extent or contour of the
cut.
The loop may be replaced by a claw or hook fixed or hinged. We prefer iron
wire from its cheapness, but we reserve the right for expensive boxes of substituting
a riband, band, or clasp of any suitable material, fixed or moveable.