IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND STEEL, AND IN FURNACES TO BE USED IN SUCH MANUFACTURE, PARTLY APPLICABLE TO THE SMELTING OF LEAD AND COPPER ORES
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Joseph Henderson at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 19th
July 1870.
I, JOSEPH HENDERSON, of Hazlefield House, Auchencairn, near Castle
Douglas, Scotland, Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND STEEL, AND
IN FURNACES TO BE USED IN SUCH MANUFACTURE, PARTLY APPLICABLE TO THE
SMELTING OF LEAD AND COPPER ORES," to be as follows: -
•
My improvements refer, in the first place, to the puddling furnace,
and are further improvements upon and practical adaptations of the
improvements patented by me 9th March 1869, No. 724; the first being
the use of waste or small coal as a bed of fuel with a flux or compound
blast of air which consumes all ash and cinder, and thus enables the heat
to be kept up night and day without any stoppage.
Second. The welding blooms under the action of the compound flux
blast in the furnace clear of scale.
Third. Discharging heated air into the furnace a little above the
boshes of the hearths as required.

page_text: Fourth. Admitting air which circulates along each roof to the fire
chamber for discharging in a heated state into the rising gases and
there igniting them over the fire bridge, which together with the
compound blast effects complete combustión.
Fifth. Receiving the ore which is ultimately to be fused and con-
verted into steel or puddled iron in the hearths and in the roof above
the hearths with tuyeres fitted for blowing down the compound or flux
blast, mingling with highly heated air on to the molten metal on the
hearths as required.
Sixth. Purifying by its own slag and other fluxes previously refined
and prepared, together with the action of the compound blast as
required.
My improved construction of compound blast furnace consisting of all
requisite details, besides admitting of being more cheaply built than
ordinary blast furnaces possess recommendation in the economy of
working, inasmuch, as very solid fuel and fluxes are required to be
mixed along with the ore in feeding, as the principal quantities of both
fuel and fluxes are absorbed by the forcing blast through the tanks,
boilers, or vessels containing the required hydrocarbons and alkalies,
and from thence are admitted into the furnace with the blast at the
tuyeres.
In smelting furnaces I purpose now to construct blast or smelting
furnaces of larger diameters, but of less vertical height than the ordinary
furnace worked by my compound blast of absorbed fuel and fluxes,
which arrangement allows the escaping gases to give up their heat to
the ore in ascending and permits the roof of the furnace to rest on the
top of the boshes or inclined sides thereof, and I would set the iron
girders in fire-brick arches and have the central division made by the
arched girders and form the hoppers for containing the ore mixed with
a proper proportion of solid fuel and flux.
.
By means of my said improved Invention the sides of the furnace are
kept free from slags caused by imperfect fusion of the materials, and all
gobbing up of furnaces entirely prevented; at any convenient position
between the blast engine and heating stoves I take my blast by means
of suitable pipes provided with valves from off the blast main and
convey it through tanks, boilers, or other vessels made of iron or any
other suitable material containing the fluid naphtha, creosote, coal oil,
petroleum, or any other liquid hydrocarbons for supplying fuel to the

page_text: blast by absorption, and thus by another series of pipes and valves it is.
taken to the tuyercs into the furnace. I also construct another and a
similar series of pipes and valves, tanks, boilers, or other vessels, and
convey the forced blast from the same main through solutions of
nitrates, sodium, potassium, boron, chlorine, or any other suitable alkalies
made soluble in water or otherwise, as may be required according to the
earthy nature and kind of ores to be fluxed and smelted; both of the
above compound blasts are distinct and separate from each other, and
are each conveyed and admitted into the furnace by separate tuyeres as
required, and are both capable of being compressed and put up to any
excess of pressure that may be requisite above the external atmosphere;
this arrangement of compound blast of fuel and. fluxes is applicable to
the iron smelting furnaces of the day, and when once adopted the
furnace manager will be able to produce iron of strong body almost
free from deleterious substances direct from the ore at pleasure, and the
pigs thus produced will be puddled and refined much more economically.
The same process of compound fuel and flux blast with an alteration in
the furnaces in accordance with the requirements of the case is also
applicable to the smelting of lead and copper ores.