AN IMPROVED PROCESS OF REMOVING GREASE IN THE MANUFACTURE OF TIN PLATES OR TERNE PLATES, AND IMPROVED APPARATUS IN CONNECTION THEREWITH
Year: 1875

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Emile Trottier at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 10th
February 1875.
I, EMILE TROTTIER, one of the Firm of Trottier, Brothers, and Co.,
Ironmaster, of Hennebont, Department of Morbihan, and Republic of
France, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "AN
IMPROVED PROCESS OF REMOVING GREASE IN THE MANUFACTURE OF TIN PLATES OR
TERNE PLATES, AND IMPROVED APPARATUS IN CONNECTION THEREWITH," to be as
follows:-
Amongst the operations in the manufacture of tin and terne plates,
one, the removal of the grease, presented certain difficulties. It is well
known that to tin the sheet iron which is to constitute the tin plate it is
plunged into a boiler containing tin in fusion covered by a bath of grease
preventing its oxydation. In withdrawing the sheet from this bath it
naturally coats itself, firstly, with tin, and then with grease, from which
latter it must be freed by a special operation. This operation has
hitherto been effected by hand, the sheet being plunged several times
into flour, which freed it from the grease with which it was covered.
To secure perfect removal of the grease it was necessary to repeat this

page_text: operation several times, the cost of tinning being thus increased.
Further, by so much handling the sheet was often bent and stained.
I have succeeded in inventing a machine which will at the same time
remove the grease and polish the tin plate. This machine thus affords
an important saving in this manufacture by considerably increasing the
production; it further permits the sheets to preserve perfectly plane
surfaces.
This apparatus, as shown in the accompanying Sheet of Drawing, is
composed of a rectangular case or box A divided into two compart-
ments A and A¹. In one of these two compartments is arranged a series
of four rollers a, a¹, and b, b', superposed two and two, and placed on
each side of the brush cylinders B, B', also superposed. The rollers are
of wood, or of leather, or of wood covered with leather, so as to produce
a pressure and adhesion on the sheets to be interposed between them.
With this object they are placed in a same plane, their axis being
transversally to the case. Suitably placed springs preserve a continuous
pressure. The brushing cylinders are furnished with flexible bristles,
and placed between the four rollers in such a manner that the point of
contact of the four rollers is a same horizontal plane, but that the
bristles or hairs of the brush entangle with each other when the machine
turns empty. In the plane of contact of the generating lines of the
brushing cylinders is a guide composed of two plates of steel, opening to
a bell mouth on the side towards the brushes. This guide is firmly fixed
to the sides of the case front and back of the apparatus. This arrange-
ment of rollers receives a rotary motion in opposite directions to each
other as regards the upper and lower cylinders, so as to draw the sheet
rectilinearly as in a flatting mill. The rollers all turn with equal speed,
but that of the brushes is much greater. The compartment A¹ is filled
with flour up to the lower part of the brushes.
The apparatus working as described, if a sheet of metal be placed in
the slit C of the outside of the case, this sheet will be slowly drawn
forward by the two cylinders a, a¹, and will come between the brushes,
by the much more rapid rotation of which the sheet will be well wiped
in every part, and the flour be kept in constant agitation. Before
passing over the space separating the brushes from the last rollers b, b',
the sheet meets the bell mouth of the guide, enters it, and passes to
contact with the two rollers which uphold it%3B but the sheet would

page_text: certainly be bent or chipped at the edges by the pressure of the corners of
the brush when quitting the rollers a, a¹, if it did not meet with the
support of the guide, which upholding it near the centre of action lessens
its flexibility and protects it at the back against the rapid movement of
the brushes.
The sheet on issuing from this apparatus is completely freed from
grease, but it is still sprinkled with flour; it then passes into another
apparatus in every respect similar to that which I have above described,
with this difference, that the brushes are replaced by rollers covered with
skins or leather which serve to dust the metal sheet.
The lower part of the compartment A¹ serves as reservoir to the flour,
which is brought to it from the compartment A by the endless cloth E.
The flour which piles up within it is drawn out by an archimedian screw
or other elevator, which lifts and pours it into a hopper G placed above
the brushes. Within this hopper is an agitator receiving its motion from
the moving surface of the brushes.