CERTAIN IMPROVE- MENTS IN TREATING HEATED STRIP IRON FOR FACILITATING ITS CONVERSION INTO TUBES, WHETHER OPEN-JOINTED OR WELDED, AND IN APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREFOR. " PROVISIONAL SPECIATION
Year: 1875

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Rowland William Brownhill, Chairman of the
Birchills Hall Iron Company, Limited, and William Brownhill,
junior, Managing Director of the said Company, both of Walsall,
in the County of Stafford, for the Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVE-
MENTS IN TREATING HEATED STRIP IRON FOR FACILITATING ITS CONVERSION
INTO TUBES, WHETHER OPEN-JOINTED OR WELDED, AND IN APPARATUS EMPLOYED
THEREFOR.
"
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Rowland William
Brownhill and William Brownhill at the Office of the Com-
missioners of Patents, with their Petition, on the 11th November
1875.
We, ROWLAND WILLIAM BROWNHILL, Chairman of the Birchills
Hall Iron Company, Limited, and WILLIAM BROWNHILL, junior,
Managing Director of the said Company, both of Walsall, in the County
of Stafford, do hereby declare the nature of our said Invention for

page_text: "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING HEATED STRIP IRON FOR FACILITATING ITS
CONVERSION INTO TUBES, WHETHER OPEN-JOINTED OR WELDED, AND IN APPARATUS
EMPLOYED THEREFOR," to be as follows (that is to say):
:―
Our improvements consist when making open or welded jointed tube
from the pile or bloom of iron after the strip has passed through the
finishing rolls (that have been employed in reducing it to the width and
thickness required, whilst the said strip is yet hot and advancing from
such finishing rolls) in bringing into operation a compound apparatus
consisting of a lever with presser and counter die that depresses the
forward end of such strips, simultaneously with its advancing motion
a second lever fitted with lateral squeezers and shapers, prior to the
forward end of the strip entering a bell-mouthed die, from which the
now bent-up strip still advances in a tubular shape until it is caught
by its contact with the surfaces of two circular grooved rolls, such as
arc commonly used in rolling round merchant iron, which process will
deliver the said strip into a close jointed but unwelded perfect tube from
end to end when simply open-jointed tubes are required. But if the
tube so formed is required welded, we at once advance it with the heat
it then contains to a furnace to have its joint again brought to a
welding heat to be welded by any of the known processes now in use,
cither with or without a mandril, the use of which being principally
required when lap welded tube is being made, as internal pressure is
not essential when the tubes are of the kind technically known as jump
joint welded.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, 2
filed by the said Rowland William Brownhill and William
Brownhill in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 11th May 1876.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, ROWLAND
WILLIAM BROWNHILL, Chairman of the Birchill Hall Iron Company,
Limited, and William BROWNHILL, junior, Managing Director of the 3
said Company, both of Walsall, in the County of Stafford, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the. Eleventh day of November, in the.

page_text: year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-five, in the
thirty-ninth year of Her reign, did for Herself, Her heirs and suc-
cessors, give and grant unto us, the said Rowland William Brownhill
and William Brownhill, junior, Her special license, that we, the said
Rowland William Brownhill and William Brownhill, junior, our exc-
cutors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as we, the said
Rowland William Brownhill and William Brownhill, junior, our exc-
cutors, 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 for "CERtain Im-
PROVEMENTS IN TREATING HEATED STRIP IRON FOR FACILITATING ITS CONVERSION
INTO TUBES, WHETHER OPEN-JOINTED OR WELDED," upon the condition
(amongst others) that we, the said Rowland William Brownhill and
William Brownhill, junior, our exccutors or administrators, by an
instrument in writing under our, or their, or one of their hands and
seals, 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 Scal Patent Office within
six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said
Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that wc, the said Rowland William Brownhill and
William Brownhill, junior, do hereby declare the nature of our said
• Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be
particularly described and ascertained in and by the following state-
ment, reference being had to the accompanying Drawings, and to the
letters and figures marked thereon (that is to say) :—·
Our improvements consist when making open or welded jointed tube
from the pile or bloom of iron after the strip has been broken down and
passed through the finishing groove of the rolls (that have been employed
in reducing it to the width and thickness required, whilst the said strip
is yet hot and advancing from such finishing rolls) in bringing into
operation a compound apparatus consisting of a lever with presser and
counter dic that depresses the forward end of such strips, and simul-
taneously with its advancing motion a second combination of levers

page_text: fitted with lateral squeezers and shapers operates on the forward end of
the strip prior to its forward end entering a bell-mouthed die, from
which the strip is bent up into a tubular shape and advanced until it is
caught by its contact with the surfaces of grooved rolls, such as are
commonly used in rolling round merchant iron, which process will
deliver the said strip into a close-jointed but unwelded perfect tube,
from end to end, from the bloom or pile when simply open-jointed tubes
are required. But if the tube (so formed) is required welded we at
once advance it with the heat it then contains to a furnace to be again
brought to a welding heat to have its joint welded by any of the known
processes now in use, as preliminary explained in Patent No. 3368,
which said Patent, with the subsequent one No. 3577, also No. 3853,
all of One thousand eight hundred and seventy-five, and relate to the
rolling of strip iron and converting it (while in a heated state from
the rolls) into tubes; and these several Patents are by assignment and
agreement the sole property of the Birchills Hall Iron Company, situated
at Birchills, near Walsall, in the County of Stafford.
The said three Patents herein mentioned, as well as these Presents,
might have formed one comprehensive Patent, but from the fact that
cach experiment had to be made in the open works of the Company,
in the presence of a large number of employees, on whom the Company
had no control after they had left the works at the end of their periodical
·labour, so it became necessary to protect cach successful experiment as
soon as made. And the subject of our Invention in this section of the
improvements in the manufacture of tubes, like the former (herein
referred to), and as the title of this our Patent expresses, is to facilitate
the operation of converting a bloom or pile of iron or steel drawn at a
white heat from the mill furnace to be rolled out, and the operation
continued while the heat is in the metal from the said bloom or pile
to the finished tube, as will be understood by referring to the former
Patents herein mentioned, as also to the Drawings hereunto annnexed,
which we will now describe.
DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS.

page_text: said die being (by preference) formed of cast iron, and sufficiently
raised that the centre of the hollow groove marked A, A, shall be con-
centric with the semicircular grooves of rolls, through which the strip
is to pass to give it the tubular or finished form. B, B, is a lever working
on a fulcrum at C, and on which lever is attached or formed with it the
counter die marked D and D', so that by raising the counter die by the
lever and the strip of heated iron being passed over the bottom
groove A, A, and under the counter die D, and D₁ and resting on the
bed E, E, it is evident that pressure on the lever will press the strip
down in the bottom groove, as shown at Fig. 2; the sectional form of
the forward end of the strip is defined at a, a. The forward end of the
strip being thus treated is passed. forward into and through a bell-
mouthed die until taken up by the revolving action of grooved rolls
suitably placed for receiving the skelp thus formed, and by their action
converting and rolling it out an open-jointed tube. But for adding
additional pressure to the tube under operation by suitably decreasing
the size of the semicircular grooves in the rolls we make that part of
the counter die marked D¹ to taper towards its outer end, and, by
applying lateral squeezers kept in extension by spiral springs, as shown
in dotted lines at Fig. 3, which simply represents the reverse end of
Fig. 1 to that represented at Fig. 2, the taper end of the counter die
being also marked D', the strip of iron being inserted on the bed E, E,
of the die, and pushed forward to its end under the counter die, and the
counter die being pressed down by the lever, the end of the strip will
assume a U shape, as exhibited at a, a, Fig. 2, and b, b, Fig. 3, and by
the operator pulling together the levers of the lateral squeezers F, F,
the extreme forward end of the strip will be wrapped around the'taper
end of the counter die D¹, which so diminishes its circumference that
when the strip is pushed or passed forward through the bell-mouthed
die it will be more readily seized by the action of the revolving rolls
and drawn rapidly through, forming a finished close-jointed but unwelded

page_text: lateral rolls suitably grooved or shaped for pressing together the edges
.of the strip, or in other words to convert the U shape form imparted
to the fore end of the strip into a circular form; or a lever may be used,
the said lever having a V shaped recess formed on its under side, that
when pressed down on the extreme forward bent-up end of the strip it
will impart a pear-shape form to the forward end of the strip, as shown
at Fig. 4, and from this treatment the strip is passed forward and
through the bell-mouthed die to the rolls, as before stated..
In the Specification No. 3853, a bell-mouthed die is described with a
.fixed internal deflected tongue, which we found highly efficient from
the edges of the strip abutting against it causing the finished tube to
be straight and regular in its make, the joint being straight from end to
end; but as such a fixed deflected tongue would be incompatible with
the use of lateral squeezers or small grooved rolls, as the closed forward
end of the strip would not enter the die, to obviate which we purpose
so fashioning the bell-mouthed die as to provide lugs forming the hinge
for a detachable tongue, which falls down from the exterior to the
interior through a slot in the crown of the bell-mouthed die for that
purpose, by which means the tongue can be lifted up out of the dic
for entering the strip and then let down to guide the strip through the
die. The means for applying the die to the housings of the rolls may
be adapted accordingly.
Having thus described this section of improvements appertaining to
the manufacture of open-jointed or welded iron or steel tubes, as also
the manner in which this portion of the operation is carried into effect,
we desire it to be understood that we do not bind ourselves to the exact
shape of the appliances herein described and exhibited, as the same may
be varied without departing from the spirit and object of our Invention,
but what we claim and desire to protect under these our in part recited
Letters Patent is, the intermediate operation and appliances herein
described and set forth when making tubes direct from the bloom or
pile from the mill furnace (that is to say) the receiving of the strips
from the rolls, and shaping the forward end of such hot strips pre-
paratory to the said hot strips passing through a bell-mouthed die and
finishing rolls to convert the said strip into an open-jointed tube, the

page_text: aid intermediate process being taken in connection with the former
Patents herein-before referred to.
In witness whereof, we, the said Rowland William Brownhill and
William Brownhill, junior, have bereunto set our hands and seals,
this Ninth day of May, One thousand eight hundred and seventy-
iv
Witness.
WILLIAM BROWNHILL, JUNIOR.
(L.S.)
GEORGE GRIFFIN,
Clerk to M'. J. S. Cockings,
Patent Agent,
Birmingham.