CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MANUFACTURING SCREW PLATES
Year: 1854

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Gustave Irenée. Sculfort, Manufacturer, of the Town
of Maubeuge, in the French Empire, for the Invention of "CERTAIN
IMPROVEMENTS IN MANUFACTURING SCREW PLATES."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Gustave Irenée Sculfort
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 21st December 1854.
I, GUSTAVE IRENEE SCULFORT, Manufacturer, of the Town of Maubeuge, in
the French Empire, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MANUFACTURING SCREW PLATES" to be as follows:-
My Invention refers to circular screw plates, and its principal features
consist in the following:-I have a common centre for the circular plate
of the screw plate and the opening of the dies, that is to say, I make
the centre of the plate and the centre of the thread coincide. I cut a
diametrical groove through the whole thickness of the circular plate to
allow of the introduction and regulation of the dies, the play of which is
much diminished; I cast on the parallel faces of the circular plate two
concentric discs or plates, having a groove cast on the lower surface of each;
this groove is of the same width, and runs in the same direction as the
diametrical groove of the plate. These two grooved discs or plates screw on to
+

page_text: the circular plate, and serve to maintain and guide the exact course of the dies.
One of the grooved plates may be dispensed with at pleasure, and bevilled
dies used instead, and the plate may have a groove or not; or I can dispense
with the enlargements (on the circular plate) at the parts where the tightening
screws pass, and, when necessary, I use dies of a thickness exceeding that of
the circular plate, by means of grooved plates, of a thickness proportioned to
the excess of the thickness of the dies.
Round the edge of the circular plate I arrange two, three, or more dies,
tightened directly by lateral tightening screws placed in the thickness of the
plate; I employ dies cut directly from steel bars endwise, which thus retain
the strength and resistance of steel; I combine the circular screw plates in
such a manner, that when the plate has no enlargement or boss, its action
may be dispensed with and a turning lathe used instead; and when it has
such enlargement, then only a filing vice or planing machine would be
required.
The handles of the screw plate, whether fixed or not, only require to be
turned in lathe. The grooved [plates as well as the concentric castings on
the surface of the plate are also turned, as also the tightening screws. The
diametrical aperture of the plate and the grooves of the grooved plates are
made by filing or by a planing machine. By this Invention, the
process
finishing by hand is partly avoided, and the plates may be made of cast iron,
malleable or otherwise, instead of wrought iron.
of
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Gustave Irenée Sculfort, in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 19th June 1855.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, GUSTAVE
IRENEE SCULFORT, Manufacturer, of the Town of Maubeuge, in the French
Empire, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-first day of December, 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 Gustave Irenée Sculfort, Her special licence that I, the said Gustave
Irenée Sculfort, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as
I, the said Gustave Irenée Sculfort, my executors, administrators, and assigns,

page_text: 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 for "CERTAIN
IMPROVEMENTS IN MANUFACTURING SCREW PLATES," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said Gustave Irenée Sculfort, 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 Gustave Irenée Sculfort, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement thereof, reference being had to the Drawings hereunto
annexed, that is to say :-
My Invention consists in improved methods of forming the stocks of screw
plates, and in fitting therein two, three, or more dies, held and guided to the
centre in the several methods herein-after described.
Figure 1 is a side view, and Figures 2 and 2 plans, of my improved
circular screw plate, in which the circular stock a has no projections on either
surface, nor any outer socket for the passage of the tightening screws b, b',
thereby allowing of both surfaces being formed and finished by the lathe, and
consequently the process of manufacture is considerably reduced. c, c', are the
two threaded dies, kept in the centre of the screw plate by the diametrical
groove or channel d, in which they are fitted, and which is cut in the circular
disc e. The stock a is so formed and hollowed in the centre as to admit of
two concentric discs e, e¹, (shewn detached in Figure 6), being fitted therein.
They have a central aperture f, to receive the bar or rod to be threaded, and
hold and guide the dies. The position of the discs is shewn in the section,
Figure 3, and in clevation in Figure 1; they are kept in place by the
screws i, i.
Figures 4, 4, and 5 are views of the dies in two and three parts. The
recesses jj, shewn at Figure 4, allow of the metal cut away escaping from
the bar which is being threaded without interfering with the operation.
Figure 7 is a plan, and Fig. 8 a section, of a modification of my improved
screw plate, in which one of the circular discs is dispensed with, and the dies
k, k, are made conical on the outside, as shewn in Figure 10; the edge of the
aperture in the disc e is also bevilled, for the ready admission of the rod to be
threaded; sce the detached views, Figures 9 and 10.

page_text: Figures 11 and 12 shew another arrangement which I have adopted for
screw plates with three dies; the screws 1, 1, ", drive the dies m, m', m", to
the central aperture n in the stock a..
Figures 13 and 14, are plan and section of .another arrangement of a screw
plate with three dies m, m', m", which are accurately guided to the centre by
means of projections o, o¹, o¹¹, on the plate p, which is secured to the screw
plate or stock by screws 7, which take into holes 9, 9', 9".
Figures 15 and 16 are detached views of the plate p...
Figures 17 and 18 represent arrangements in which the progressive thread-
ing of the screws is effected by means of the dies t, t¹.
Figure 19 represents one of the centering, plates v detached.
Figure 20 represents another concentric plate u, which guides the dies and
keeps them well in the centre. .
Figure 18 shews the construction of one of the dies for giving the progres-
sive cut; it is tapered from the bottom to a certain portion of its height, so
that the screw in the die only bites progressively into the rod to be threaded,
and thus little by little prepares the rod for the formation of the perfect
thread.
And having now described the nature of my said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I claim as my
improvements in screw plates is, the combination of a circular screw stock
with two, three, or more dies, held and guided to the centre by the several
methods herein-before described and represented in the Drawings hereunto
annexed.
In witness whereof, I, the said Gustave Irenée Sculfort, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Eleventh day of June, One thousand eight
hundred and fifty-five.