IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HOOPS USED FOR BARRELS CASKS AND OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Thomas Nash and Geor
Hunt at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 21st
Herbert
il 1882.
THOMAS NASH Mechanical Engineer and CEORGE HERBERT HUNT Brewer both
of Sheffield in the County of York IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF
HOOPS USED FOR BARRELS CASKS AND OTHER PURPOSES
Our invention has for its object improvements in the manufacture of hoops used
for barrels and other purposes by which means we are enabled to produce hoops
in quantities at a much cheaper rate per set of Hoops without the present rivetted
joint. The joint being made in such a manner that the junction shall certainly be
stronger than the other parts of the hoops which will enable us to reduce the
section of such hoops materially and therefore to make them lighter and cheaper
for transit.
According to our invention we take hoop iron as now rolled for barrel hoops
and cut them off to the desired lengths and then pass them through the splaying
machine so as to bring the ends a little apart from each other. We then place the
ends of the hoop in a machine vice or other apparatus having one or two hinged
wings or flaps which turns the two ends of the hoop suddenly round to such a
curve as may be desired to constitute a suitable test upon the metal as to its
quality as regards brittleness and toughness. One end of the hoop would be
turned inwards and the other end outwards. Every hoop which bore this test
properly would then have the two ends looked one to the other the spring of the
hoop having the tendency to draw the two hooks tightly together. While in this
position the hoops would be placed in another machine vice or apparatus over &
gas jet or fire or other heating apparatus where the four thickness or two thickness
or three thicknesses would be raised to a suflicient temperature for welding or nearly
welding, or the two ends might be heated separately and then hooked together.
Two jaws of the machine would then be brought forward the one against the inside
of the hoop and the other against the outside to flatten the junction down and to
secure the ends permanently together. The jaws would be so formed that a little
bend or enlargement would be produced outside at the junction. The uniting or
welding may be so accomplished that the part of the hoop under strain need not
bo greatly raised in temperature.

page_text: When desired the ends may be coiled outwards and inwards so that the junction
may actually be increased to any desired strength by our invention. In cases of
mild steel the ends may be turned as set forth flattened down and used without
being welded.
Attempts have been made before to weld rings up and then to roll them out,
but the uncertainty regarding the strength of the weld was an objection and the
process too expensive-Attempts have also been made to roll hoops from punched
billets but this is a very expensive process. But by our new mode we secure a
hoop of absolutely any desired strength at the junction and thus the ordinary
body part of the metal in the hoop becomes the ineasure of the strength of the
hoop to resist fracture by tension, whereas the junction has hitherto been the
measure of the hoop's strength whether rivetted or welded and rolled or simply
welded.
We should in some cases accomplish the weld by two excentrics and in other
cases by rollers provided with suitable dies to leave the desired amount of metal
at the junction
The two ends of the hoop iron might be first brought together and then the two
bent.together so as to interlap-each-other_and_thus the surfaces would be increased
and reversed to the tensile action which is constantly upon the hoop.
Our invention is equally applicable to the hoops used for casks, bales and boxes
and the buckles of cotton ties may be secured to the ties in the manner cre in
described
-These hoops may also be made from either iron or steel. And by protecting the
same hoops ties and bands from oxidation.