IMPROVEMENTS IN THE METHOD OF AND IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF APPLIANCES FOR VENEERING OR FACING WALLS OR BUILDINGS
Year: 1882

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Thomas Brindle, of Southport, in the County of Lancaster,
for an Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE METHOD OF AND IN THE
CONSTRUCTION OF APPLIANCES FOR VENEERING OR FACING WALLS OR
BUILDINGS."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Thomas Brindle at the
Office of the Cominissioners of Patents on the 9th February 1882.
THOMAS BRINDLE of Southport in the County of Lancaster.
"IMPROVEMENTS
IN THE METHOD OF AND IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF APPLIANCES, FOR VENEERING
OR FACING WALLS OR BUILDINGS."
This Invention is designed to enable one to give to old brick or other walls or
buildings the appearance of ashlar or other forms of masonry, by covering them
with stone or ornamental slabs.
It consists in taking out the front four and a half or nine inch of a course of
bricks at intervals and replacing them with shoddies having dovetailed faces.
These shoddies dove-tail into or between the slabs.
The slabs may be polished or worked in any required manner. One way of
doing this is to tool or work both sides of a block double the thickness of the
slabs required and then saw it in two. The slabs can be dovetailed into the
shoddies in any convenient manner or even well filled with parallel sides. The
following are a few modes of arranging them.
1st. The shoddies can have simple dovetail ends slid into dovetail grooves in
the backs of the slabs.
2nd. The shoddies can have rough ends with dovetail grooves and into theso
dovetailed grooves, the slabs can slide-the rough course of shoddies will then
contrast well with the smooth or polished slabs.
3rd. The slabs can themselves be grooved to suit projections or tongues in the
shoddies.
4th. There can be two or more courses of slabs between the rows of shoddies
tongued and ground into each other and the shoddies.
The shoddies are preferably fixed into the wall with cement and the slabs
cemented also to the shoddies and wall but with using ordinary mortar they are for
nearly all purposes permanently secure and they can even be wedged in without
cement or mortar at all.
The slabs and the shoddies can be of stone, metal, earthenware, concrete, brick,
slag, glass or other building material but for most purposes natural stone is to be
preferred.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed
by the said Thomas Brindle in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
9th August 1882.
THOMAS BRINDLE of Southport in the County of Lancaster.
"IMPROVEMENTS
IN THE METHOD OF AND IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF APPLIANCES FOR VENEERING
OR FACING WALLS OR BUILDINGS."
This Invention is designed to enable one to give to old brick or other walls or
buildings the appearance of ashlar or other forms of masonry, by covering them
with stone or ornamental slabs.
It is best described by aid of the accompanying Drawings in which like letters
refer to like parts in each Figure. Fig. 1 being a section, and Fig. 2 an elevation of
a portion of a wall embodying my improvements. Figs. 3, 4, and 5, views of
modifications.
In these A represents an ordinary brick wall. At intervals suitable distances
apart on the face of this wall I take out one or more lines or courses of brick say
four and a half or nine inches deep to allow of a series of shoddies binders or
pieces B being inserted. The faces of these shoddies project out a short distance
from the face of the wall and are either formed in one with the slabs as in Fig. 5
or are so shaped as to form either (a) a recess or cavity into which the edges of
the stone or ornamental slabs C fit or (b) a dovetail or tongue to fit into a recess or
cavity formed in the stone or ornamental slabs.
In either case a joint of the dovetail-kind is formed-and-by-this-means-the-stone-
or ornamental slabs C are retained in position against the bricks A.
Fig 1 shows the recess or cavity on the shoddies or pieces B, Figs. 3 and 4 the
recess or cavity in the stone or ornamental slabs C, and Fig. 5 the binder formed in
one piece with the slab.
If a dovetailed groove be cut out of an ordinary slab the latter is very apt to
crack during the cutting. To prevent this as much as possible I prefer to make
the slabs originally of double the required thickness and cut the grooves out on
both sides, and at such an angle that they shall not run one on on top of the other.
In equare slabs for instance the grooves will be cut at right angles to each other.
I then saw the slab in two; by this process I get double or much more the
thickness to resist fracture while the slab is being grooved, than where the slabs
are grooved after being rawn to their required thickness.
There can be two or more courses of slabs between the rows of shoddies tongued
and grooved into each other and the shoddies.
The shoddies are preferably fixed into the wall with cement and the slabs
cemented also to the shoddies and wall but with using ordinary mortar they are
for nearly all purposes permanently secure and they may even be wedged in
without cement or mortar at all.
The slabs and the shoddies can be of stone, metal, earthenware, concrete, brick,
slag, glass or other building material but for most purposes natural stone is to be
preferred.
In order not to endanger the safety of the building I remove the bricks a few
at a time inserting shoddies immediately and before extracting a fresh set of
bricks.
Having now described my Invention and the best mode known to me of
carrying it into effect I wish it to be understood that I make no claim for facing
walls with slabs in the abstract and I am well aware that concrete walls have been
proposed to be built up with ornamental slabs on the exterior to some extent tied

page_text: into the concrete afterwards filled in, but that what I believe to be new and desire
to protect under the hereinbefore in part recited Letters Patent is
1st. The method of vencering or facing walls or buildings which consists in
cutting out courses or parts of courses from the walls and inserting shoddies,
binders, or pieces which hold the slubs in position substantially as described.
2nd. The appliances for binding the slabs to the surface of walls substantially as
herein described.
In witness whereof I the said Thomas Brindle have hereunto set my hand
and seal this 28th day of July in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and eighty two.
THOMAS BRINDLE. (L.S.)