IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HORSE-SHOE NAILS, AND IN MACHINERY EMPLOYED IN SUCH MANUFACTURE
Year: 1869

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Robert Lake, of the "International
Patent Office," No. 8, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane,
in the County of Middlesex, Consulting Engineer, for the Inven-
tion of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HORSE-SHOE NAILS, AND
IN MACHINERY EMPLOYED IN SUCH MANUFACTURE."-A communication
from abroad by Arlon Man Polsey and Silas Edwin Chase, both of
Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
Sealed the 25th May 1869, and dated the 29th March 1869.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION filed by the said William Robert Lake
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition and
Declaration, on the 29th March 1869, pursuant to the 9th Section
of the Patent Law Amendment Act, 1852.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
ROBERT LAKE, of the "International Patent Office," No. 8, Southampton
Buildings, Chancery Lane, in the County of Middlesex, Consulting
Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS I am in possession of an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HORSE-SHOE NAILS, AND IN MACHINERY EMPLOYED IN
SUCH MANUFACTURE," and have petitioned Her Majesty to grant unto me,

page_text: my executors, administrators, and assigns, Her Royal Letters Patent for
the same, and have made solemn Declaration that it has been communi-
cated to me from abroad by Arlon Man Polsey and Silas Edwin Chase,
both of Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said William Robert Lake, do hereby
declare that the following Complete Specification, under my hand and
seal, fully describes and ascertains the nature of the said Invention, and
in what manner the same is to be performed, in and by the following
statement, reference being had to the accompanying Sheet of Drawings
forming a part of this Specification:-
This Invention relates to a process or a series of operations by which
nails are produced, which are peculiarly well adapted for securing shoes
to the hoofs of horses and other animals. The said nails being uniform
in size, smooth, tough, rigid, finely pointed, slim, and rightly curved,
thereby rendering it easy to drive them through hoofs with the minimum
of force and with little annoyance to an animal, the pointing and
curvature being such that with the exercise of ordinary care on the part
of the shoer, the nails are certain to come out of the hoof at the proper
place above the shoe to be cut off and clinched without danger of
touching or entering the "quick" or sensitive part of the hoof.
The said process consists, first, in reducing in grooved rolls soft tough
wrought iron from the form of bars into strips of any desired length or
width, so that the iron after coming from the said grooved rolls, has the
appearance and form shown in edge view and plan in Figures 1 and 2;
next I submit the material formed as shown in the said Figures to the
action of punching dies, the resultant being blanks like those repre-
sented in Figures 3 and 4, and scrap or waste metal, as shown in Figure 5.
The blanks are then submitted to the action of a rolling machine, which
will be herein-after described, and which in its detail of arrangement is
a part of this Invention, by which machine the shanks of the blanks
are elongated till they are like the representations shown in Figures
6 and 7; then the elongated blanks are compressed at the point by a
punch or plunger acting against a solid hed so as to bevel the point
ends across, which results in spreading the points laterally, as seen in
Figure 8, and in giving a longitudinal curvature to the shank, as seen in
Figure 9, the elongated blanks curved and with their point ends bevelled
and spread as described are then presented over an open die made in

page_text: a hard steel bed corresponding to the form which the finished nail is to
have when viewed flatwise, and a die or punch corresponding in form
is then brought down on any elongated blank which may be presented
over the open die, the result is that the punch forces the elongated blank
through the open die, removing from the point end the superfluous
metal in the form of a chip seen in Figures 10 and 11, and straightening
any small lateral crooks which may have existed in the shank of the
elongated blank, the result being a finished nail like that shown in
Figures 12 and 13, which may be tumbled with others in a rotating
barrel, to remove any slight roughness from the corners or angles.
While I have described as a part of this Invention the whole process
by which finished nails are produced from merchant iron, a part of the
said process separately considered is also a portion of this Invention,
such part consisting in the before described operation of compressing
the end of the elongated blank to thin and bevel it, and of removing
the surplus material by driving the blank through an open die by a
solid punch, and this part of the said Invention may or may not include
giving any desirable curvature to the elongated blank, at the same time
the end is thinned to a bevel by compression.
The machine in which the punched blanks, Figures 3 and 4, are
clongated has a peculiarity which forms part of this Invention, or this
part of the said Invention may be said to relate to a machine having
a series of pairs of revolving dies, in which series the parts which
operate on the metal to be wrought overhang their bearings, the pairs
of dies in the series being arranged so that each pair is at right angles
to its preceding and succeeding pair or to either, and so closely together
that each pair delivers the nail blank to the succeeding pair without
allowing the blank to fall from one to another pair, the pairs being
provided with die grooves shaped so as to receive the heads of nail
blanks without operating thereon to materially change their form, the
said grooves being also shaped to operate on the shanks of such blanks
to elongate them by each pair of dies in rotating.
I am aware that it is not broadly novel to overhang rolling dies in a
right angular arrangement of pairs, but where such dies have been over-
hung they have not been so arranged as to deliver the article wrought
thereby directly to the next pair, so that one pair seizes the article
before the previous pair releases it, the old arrangement operating to
drop the article through space from one pair of rolling dies into the

page_text: gripe of the next pair, this rendering the operation of the rolling dies on
the work uncertain both in the time of operating and in the location
of the operation.
The overhung arrangement of the rolls is preferable to an arrange-
ment between bearings as it facilitates inspection of the condition of
the rolling dies and of their method of operation.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Robert Lake, have here-
unto set my hand and scal, this Twenty-ninth day of March,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-
nine.
WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE. (L.S.)
Witness,
THO. N. PALMER,
Clerk to Mess. Haseltine, Lake, & Co.,
8, Southampton Buildings,
W.C.