AN AMEROVED & BOCESS FOR DE-CUTTING OR RE-FORMING THE FACES OF FILES
Year: 1854

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Tony Petitjean, of No. 45, Upper John Street,
Fitzroy Square, in the County of Middlesex, for the Invention of "AN
AMEROVED & BOCESS FOR DE-CUTTING OR RE-FORMING THE FACES OF FILES.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Tony Petitjean at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
8th September 1854.
I, TONY PETITJEAN, of No. 45, Upper John Street, Fitzroy Square, in the
County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"AN IMPROVED PROCESS FOR RE-CUTTING OR RE-FORMING THE FACES OF FILES," to
be as follows; and consists in the new application of a recently discovered
action of electricity on certain conditions and forms of the metals to the
re-formation or the renovation of the mechanical tool or instrument of the
industrial arts, known and designated "the file," when worn by use, by
restoring to its serrated face, when so deteriorated, its original efficiency of
cutting or abrading action; and I effect the same in practise in manner
following:-To restore the cutting faces of files worn by use, I submit them to
the action of the positive pole of a galvanic battery in a bath of a pure solution
of irou, and the electrical action above referred to then operates upon the

page_text: instruments so immersed and exposed to such action. The course of its
operation is thus: The receding intervals of the worn files, already hollowed
from their general surface, become deepened by the galvanic action, and after
a short interval their salient or cutting edges resume their original relative
projection and sharpness, and the perfect abrading action of the files is restored.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Tony Petitjean in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
8th March 1855.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, TONY
PETITJEAN, of No. 45, Upper John Street, Fitzroy Square, in the County of
Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS Пer most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Eighth day of March, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, in the eighteenth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Tony Petitjean, Her special licence that I, the said Tony Petitjean, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Tony
Petitjean, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree
with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the
term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention of "AN IMPROVED PROCESS FOR
RE-CUTTING OR RE-FORMING THE FACES OF FILES," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said Tony Petitjean, by an instrument in writing under
my hand and seal, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the
said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause
the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months
next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW. KNOW YE, that I, the said Tony Petitjean, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement (that is to say):-
My method of re-cutting files rests entirely on the fact that the dissolving
action of the positive pole of a galvanic battery first takes place in the hollows.
When an object full of asperities or points is put in contact with the negative

page_text: pole, this quality is at its maximum sensibility. The manner in which I
operate is as follows:-I use a large cylindrical vessel completely lined inside
with a kind of metallic brush formed of thin short wires, all communicating at
the back. This brush serves as a negative pole. One or several wires soldered
to the back of the brush serve as conductors, and come in contact with the
negative pole when the battery is in action.
In the interior of the cylinder, at the distance of about six or eight inches
from the metallic brush lining, are suspended wire circles, against which the
files to be renovated are placed, and dipped in a bath or solution of iron at the
bottom of the cylinder. It is necessary that the distance between the poles
be not too small, so that the differences produced by the length of the points
of the metallic brush and the depth of the ridges of the files do not interfero
with the peculiar galvanic action above mentioned, for the electrical action
is sharper when the distance between the poles is shortened. To one of the
circles formed by the wires (the top one) are soldered the wires which are to
communicate with the positive pole of the battery. The files laid against the
wire circles thus receive the electric fluid. The electric current should be very
strong, else the temper of the files might soften.
CLAIMS.
First, the herein-described mode of acting on the hollows of files by the
positive pole.
Second, the employment of a metallic brush acting as a negative pole, for
the purpose herein described.
Third, the connection between the surfaces of the negative and positive
poles, so as to prevent the temper of the files from softening.
In witness whereof, I, the said Tony Petitjean, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Eighth day of March, in the year of our Lord 1855.
T. PETITJEAN. (L.S.)
T. PETITJEAN. (L.S.)