CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURING OF SPOONS, FORKS, AND OTHER ARTICLES OF IRON, SILVER, OR OTHER SUITABLE METAL, BY THE APPLICATION OF CERTAIN MACHINERY HITHERTO UNUSED FOR THAT PURPOSE, AND IMPROVEMENTS; IN THE SAID MACHINERY
Year: 1819

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME,. I, SAMUEL
HAYCRAFT, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Spoon Manufacturer,
send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Fourth day of March,
in the fifty-ninth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said Samuel
Haycraft, my exors, admors, and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole
privilege and authority, that I, the said Samuel Haycraft, my exors, adiňors,
and assigns, during the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town
of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
MANUFACTURING OF SPOONS, FORKS, AND OTHER ARTICLES OF IRON, SILVER, OR OTHER
SUITABLE METAL, BY THE APPLICATION OF CERTAIN MACHINERY HITHERTO UNUSED
FOR THAT PURPOSE, AND IMPROVEMENTS; IN THE SAID MACHINERY;" in which said
Letters Patent there is contained a proviso that if I, the said Samuel Haycraft,
shall not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument in writing
under my hand and seal, and cause the same to be inrolled in His Majesty's
High Court of Chancery within two calendar months next and immediately
after the date of the said Letters Patent, that then the said Letters Patent

page_text: and all liberties and advantages whatsoever thereby granted, shall utterly cease,
determine, and become void, as in and by the same, relation being thereunto
had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Samuel Haycraft, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described
and ascertained in the following description thereof (that is to say) :-
I shall first describe my processes in manufacturing spoons, ladles, and forks
by the application of certain machinery hitherto unused for that purpose, and
then point out the improvements or advantages arising from the same, and
afterwards the improvements in the machinery.
First, I pass iron, silver, or other suitable metal or mixture of metals
between rollers, which are so constructed as to press the metal into plates
of unequal thicknesses, which unequal thicknesses answer to the unequal
thickness of a spoon, fork, or ladle. I take these metal plates and form
them into flat spoons, &c. by means of a steel matrix and force (commonly
called cutting punches), which I fix in a screw press; the same matrix
and force is forced either to cut the plates in spoons or forks or ladles,
and when the plates are cut are commonly called blanks. I then place
these blanks singly or otherwise between a die and force, fixed in a stamp
or other suitable machine, and by causing the said. die and force to come
in contact the blanks are pressed into rough spoons, &c. These articles
made of iron I now tin or plate with a coat of silver, after which I place each
singly upon the same die (or another die of similar form), and fix another die
over the same. Both dies are finely polished and fixed in.a stamp or other
suitable machine, and the surface of the dies are formed exactly to admit of
the rough spoon between them, and by stamping or pressing the same between
the dies I produce a smoothness and brightness, which operation, when accom-
plished by the usual method, is called planishing. After this the article is
polished by the usual methods and are fit for sale.
Second, I now come to describe the improvements or advantages arising
from this method of manufacturing spoons, &c. First, I produce blanks
at a cheaper rate than by any method before adopted. Second, the blanks
are all precisely of the same size, and so exactly of the same thickness,
that they can be planished by dies instead of the usual methods; this advan-
tage is more particularly derived in these spoons, &c. made of wrought iron,
and which have hitherto been formed by the hammer. Third, the smoothness
and 'finish produced by the planishing dies, as well as their being more exactly
of the same size and form, than by the usual methods now in use. Fourth,

page_text: the articles thus planished are rendered more elastic and tougher by this
method of planishing than by any now in use.
Third part. My improvements in machinery consist in making pairs
of rollers, one or both of which rollers are eliptical or deviating in their
surfaces from a circle, so that metal rolled or pressed between them is forced
into unequal thicknesses to answer to the unequal thicknesses of spoons, &c.;
and likewise in making pairs of steel dies for the purpose of planishing
so formed that the plates of metal so rolled when cut into blanks and pressed
into rough spoons, &c., shall so exactly be admitted between them that the
dies being pressed towards each other shall touch the spoons, &c., on every
part; these blanks being rolled or pressed exactly the same thickness one as
another, the dies, consequently, are capable of planishing and infinite number
of spoons, &c. This process of rolling iron, &c., to answer for spoons, &c., as
well as dies to correspond to answer for the purpose of planishing the spoons,
&c. so made, is entirely new.
In witness whereof, I, the said Samuel Haycraft, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-ninth day of April, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and nineteen.