IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION OF ŇAME, DOOR, WINDOW, AND LETTER PLATES, AND OTHER LIKE PLATES CONTAINING INSCRIPTIONS AND DESIGNS
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Dryhurst and William McGee at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 28th September 1878.
JOHN DRYHURST, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Stamp and Door
Plate Manufacturer, and WILLIAM MCGEE, of Birmingham aforesaid, Mechanical
Engineer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION OF ŇAME, DOOR, WINDOW, AND
LETTER PLATES, AND OTHER LIKE PLATES CONTAINING INSCRIPTIONS AND DESIGNS."
Our Invention consists of the process or combination of processes herein-after
described for the production of name, door, window, and letter plates, and other like
plates containing inscriptions and designs, whereby the lettering, inscription, or
design upon the plate is made permanent, and is not affected by the atmosphere or
by the materials which are usually employed in cleaning metallic door and other
plates.
For convenience of description we will describe our Invention as applied to the
production of a name plate. We take a brass (or other metallic) plate and cut or
pierce openings in it, having the shape or outline of the letters of the name plate to
be produced, the openings or piercings described passing completely through the
plate or from one side to the opposite side. We prefer to form the said openings or
piercings in the plate by the process called saw piercing, but we do not confine
ourselves thereto.
From this pierced or perforated plate we produce a name plate in the following
manner:-
We take a vulcanite compound consisting essentially of india-rubber and sulphur,
and heat the same until it has acquired the consistency of dough. This plastic
mass is made into a thin sheet of a size sufficient to cover the perforated parts or
piercings in the plate. Having laid the front of the plate on a flat surface the
plastic sheet of vulcanite compound is placed on the back of the plate and over the
said perforations or piercings therein, and the whole is put into a press and sub-
jected to pressure whereby the plastic vulcanite compound is forced into and made
to completely fill up the perforations or piercings in the plate, a thin film of the
filling-in material being left at the back of the plate. The plate while still under
Price 2d1

page_text: pressure is heated for about an hour at a temperature of about 300 degrees
Fahrenheit, in the manner commonly practised in the ordinary vulcanizing process.
There is thus produced a name plate the letters of which are black in colour, very
hard, susceptible of taking a high polish, and are practically imperishable.
By adding the required pigment or colouring matter to the vulcanite compound
the desired coloured letters may be produced on the plate instead of black letters.
Instead of using vulcanite for the filling-in material or compound as described,
ebonite or lionite, or other analogous material or compound may be employed in
place of vulcanite.
The application of our Invention to the production of door, window, and other
like plates differs in no essential respect from its application to the production of a
name plate herein-before described.