AN IMPROVEMENT OR IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF UPHOLSTERY NAILS."
Year: 1880

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Pitt, of Tarrington, in the County of Hereford,
Gentleman, for an Invention of "AN IMPROVEMENT OR IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
MANUFACTURE OF UPHOLSTERY NAILS."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Pitt at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 7th August 1880.
"AN
WILLIAM PITT, of Tarrington, in the County of Hereford, Gentleman.
IMPROVEMENT OR IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTUre of UpholsTERY NAILS."
My Invention has reference to nails having short bodies and broad mushroom or
dome shaped heads, either plain or ornamented, which nails are commonly used for
fastening the leather or other material of the backs and seats of chairs and sofas
to the wooden framing, and are also used for other like purposes, such for example,
as fixing the hide or leather to travelling trunks. The said nails are called in
commerce upholstery nails.
In the ordinary methods of manufacture upholstery nails are either made in one
piece by the method of casting, or the head and body are made separately, and
connected by brazing and soldering. When made by the former method, they are
rough and unsightly; when made by the latter method the heads are liable to
detachment from the bodies.
My Invention consists in manufacturing upholstery nails by the method or
combination of processes hereinafter described, by which method of manufacture
the head and body of the nail are made from one piece of metal, and the body
possesses the smoothness of which the cast nail is deficient, and there is no liability
of the separation of the head from the body.
In making upholstery nails according to my Invention, I employ brass or other
ductile metallic wire, and by means of dies and pressure I form nails from the said
wire, having bodies of the required size and shape, and flat heads. By subsequently
operating on these flat headed nails by dies and pressure, I give the required
mushroom or dome shape to the heads, and at the same time produce on the heads
any desired ornament.
The dies and presses with which I carry my Invention into effect differ in no
essential respect from the dies and presses used for other like purposes, the essence
of my Invention consisting in the combination of processes herein before described
whereby upholstery nails are manufactured, having all the advantages of
upholstery nails made by the ordinary methods of manufacture without their
disadvantages.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed
by the said William Pitt in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 20th
January 1881.
WILLIAM PITT, of Tarrington, in the County of Hereford, Gentleman. "AN
IMPROVEMENT OR IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF UPHOLSTERY NAILS."
My Invention has reference to nails having short bodies and broad mushroom or
dome shaped heads, either plain or ornamental, which nails are commonly used for
fastening the leather or other material of the backs and seats of chairs and sofas to
the wooden framing, and are also used for other like purposes, such for example, as
fixing the hide or leather to travelling trunks. The said nails are called in commerce 1
upholstery nails.
In the ordinary methods of manufacture, upholstery nails are either made in one
piece by the method of casting, or the head and body are made separately and
connected by brazing or soldering.
When made by the former method they are rough and unsightly; when made by
the latter method the heads are liable to detachment from the bodies.
My Invention consists in manufacturing upholstery nails by the method or
combination of processes herein after described, by which method of manufacture
the head and body of the nail are made from one piece of metal, and the body
possesses the smoothness of which the cast nail is deficient, and there is no liability
of the separation of the head from the body.
In making upholstery nails according to my Invention, I employ brass or other
ductile metallic wire, and by means of dies and pressure I form nails from the said
wire, having bodies of the required size and shape, and flat heads. By subsequently
operating on these flat headed nails by dies and pressure, I give the required
mushroom or dome shape to the heads, and at the saine time produce on the heads
any desired ornament.
By my Invention upholstery nails are manufactured having all the advantages
of upholstery nails made by the ordinary methods of manufacture without their
disadvantages.
I will now proceed to describe with reference to the accompanying Drawing the
manner in which my Invention may be performed.
I take a coil of brass wire or wire of other ductile metal or alloy, and feed the
said wire into a machine, similar to the machines commonly employed for forming
flat headed nails from wire. The wire I employ may either be cylindrical, as
represented in Figure 1, or the wire may be angular or of other figure in cross
section. Two dies closing upon the portion of wire fed into the machine grip
the wire, thereby fashioning the body and forming the point and cutting off the
partially made nail from the length or coil of wire. Each time the wire is fed into
the machine it is advanced so far between the gripping dies described that a
sufficient length protrudes from the said dics to form the head of the nail by the
process commonly called "upsetting." After the gripping dies have closed upon
the wire, and while the wire is still firmly held in the said dies, a heading punch
advances in the line of the partially formed nail, and crushing or upsetting the
protruding metal forces it into a circular recess in the front of the gripping
dies, thereby forming a flat circular head on the partly formed nail. A partly
formed nail in the stage of manufacture last described is represented in section,
elevation, and plan in Figure 2, where the flat circular head or disc is marked
a, and the shaped body or stem is marked b.
The disc or flat circular head a has sufficient metal in it for the formation of the
mushroom or dome shaped head of the nail. The formation of the flat head a on
the stem b of the nail may be effected at two or more operations instead of at one

page_text: operation as described. In converting the flat headed nail, Figure 2, into a finished
nail, I place it in the lower or fixed die of a pair of dies worked in a press or
machine, and by the descent of the upper or moveable die, the metal of the disc or
head a is reduced in thickness, and at the same time expanded and fashioned
or cupped into the mushroom or dome shaped head of the nail, as represented in
section, elevation, and plan in Figure 3.
An upholstery nail is thereby produced, in which the head a is solid to the
body b; that is, the head and body are made from one piece of metal.
The fashioning of the mushroom or dome shaped head of the nail, Figure 3, from
the flat disc or head, Figure 2, may be effected by the use of two or more pairs of
dies, but I prefer to effect the spreading out of the metal of the flat head, and the
cupping of the head by one operation effected in one pair of dies.
When nails with ornamental heads are to be produced, the die by which the
convex side of the head is shaped, is engraved with the desired pattern; or when
necessary to produce the required ornamental configuration, both dies may be
engraved or suitably fashioned.
The machinery, dies, and presses which I use in carrying my Invention into
effect, differ in no essential respect from the machinery, dies, and presses used for
other like purposes, and I therefore do not consider it necessary either to describe
or represent the same.
Having now described the nature of my Invention, and the manner in which
the same is to be performed, I wish it to be understood that I claim as my
Invention, the improvement or improvements in the manufacture of upholstery
nails, herein before described and illustrated in the accompanying Drawing, that is
to say, manufacturing upholstery nails in which the head and body of the nail are
made from one piece of ductile metal or alloy by the process or combination of
processes, substantially as described and illustrated.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Pitt, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and eighty one.
Witness,
ROBERT MORLEY,
Tenby,
South Wales.
WILLIAM PITT. (L.S.)