An Improved Wire Rope or Cable.
Year: 1895

page_text: Date of Application, 24th Sept., 1895-Accepted, 26th Oct., 1895
...COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
An Improved Wire Rope or Cable.
We PERCY CHARLES WILLIAM SHAW of Strathfield near Sydney in the
EDWARD
Colony of New South Wales, Civil Engineer, and THOMAS
WOODHAMS NOYES of Nos. 12 and 14 O'Connell Street in the City of Sydney
and said Colony of new South Wales, Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of
this invention and in what manner the same is to be performed to be particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following statement:-
Wire ropes or cables have hitherto been formed of a number of strands built up
of circular wires and in their use particularly in transmitting power by means of
grips it has been found that when new they are extremely destructive to the face
of the grip due to the filing or frictional action of the circular wires of the strands
which have comparatively little surface to contact with said grip. As the strands
wear away the contact surface becomes larger and the wear upon the grip face less
until the wires are worn to or nearly to their centre and thus present their full
diameter as contact surface. As the strands wear away still the contact surface
becomes less until the rope or cable is quite worn away.
Now this invention has been specially devised in order to obviate the evils of
such unequal wear as that hereinbefore referred to and to provide an improved wire
rope or cable whose component strands will ever present outwardly a comparatively
large contact and wearing surface which throughout the life of the rope or cable will
not extravagantly vary though it will be always diminishing.
"
This improved wire rope or cable consists of any number of peculiarly con-
structed strands twisted or "laid" as ordinarily around a flexible or semi-flexible
core the characteristics of said strands consisting in their construction of wire of
peculiar cross section hereinafter called 'keystone wire which approaches to
the cross section of the keystone of an arch or which might be described as the
frustum of a sector but which would be more correctly explained by terming it as
of the form of a sector of a circle from which an inner isosceles triangle had been
These
removed and the base thus made left flat or made concave or convex.
keystone wires are placed together and twisted or laid around a suitable circular
core of metal or flexible or semi-flexible material so that at any point they will in
cross section present the appearance of a divided but continuous ring surrounding
or bounding a regular equilateral central figure in which is contained the central
core having flexibility of movement therein.
But in order that this invention may be clearly understood reference will now be
made to the drawings herewith in which Figures 1 and 2 show respectively a
length view and an end of preferable construction of this improved wire rope or
cable while Figures 3 and 4 show in cross section respectively a "six on one" and
seven on one" wire cable.
a
Each strand A is made up of a central circular core a on which are twisted or
"laid "the keystone wires B having square bases 6 radial sides and convex
outer ends. Each keystone wire is of such a size that six of them or any
other preferred number of them will make up the solid strand as clearly shown in
Figures 2, 3 and 4 of the drawings and will leave a central space for the core a so
that the bases will be tangentially set on said core which is preferably solid and
circular. These keystone wires B are twisted or "laid " on the core a in the
ordinary manner of building up wire rope and by known machinery for such
RUSA

page_text: The strands A being thus constructed they are twisted or laid around a core C
of say hemp or metal or the like in any desired number as six as shown in Figures 1,
2 and 3 or seven as shown in Figure 4 and this twisting or
out in the ordinary manner and with ordinary machinery for the purpose.
laying" is carried
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed we declare that what we
claim is :-
:-
First. An improved wire rope or cable made up of a core and a number of
strands consisting of keystone wires twisted or laid around a circular core
substantially as herein described and explained.
Second. In wire ropes or cables, strands consisting of keystone wires forming a
ring of metal around a space containing a central wire substantially as herein
described and explained and as illustrated in the drawing.
Dated this Nineteenth day of August One thousand eight hundred and
ninater five
Witness-
FRED WALSH.
PERCY C. W. SHAW.
THOMAS E. W. NOYES.