AN IMPROVEMENT IN COATING WROUGHT IRON
Year: 1855

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Edmund Morewood and George Rogers, of Enfield,
in the County of Middlesex, for the Invention of "AN IMPROVEMENT IN
COATING WROUGHT IRON."
Sealed the 27th July 1855, and dated the 18th May 1855.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Edmund Morewood and
George Rogers at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their
Petition, on the 18th May 1855.
We, EDMUND MOREWOOD and GEORGE ROGERS, of Enfield, in the County of
Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the Invention for "AN IMPROVE-
MENT IN COATING WROUGHT IRON " to be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is principally to prepare sheet iron, though it is
applicable to other articles of wrought iron. And the Invention consists of
subjecting sheets or other articles of wrought iron first to solutions of tin,
in order to obtain depositions therefrom, whether by the aid of a galvanic
battery or not, and then further coating such sheets or articles of wrought iron
with varnish or japan, or with solutions of or melted resinous, gummy, oily,
or greasy, or bituminous matters, preferring such varnishes or matters as will
aid in soldering, such as resins and gums dissolved in wood or coal naptha, or
alcohol, or wood spirit; the object being more or less to protect by the second
coating (by a water or moisture repellent varnish or coating) the comparatively
thin coating of tin derived from a solution.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Edmund Morewood and George Rogers in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 17th November 1855.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, EDMUND
MOREWOOD and GEORGE ROGERS, of Enfield, in the County of Middlesex, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Eighteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, in the eighteenth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto us, the said
Edmund Morewood and George Rogers, Her special licence that we, the
said Edmund Morewood and George Rogers, our executors, administrators,
and assigns, or such others as we, the said Edmund Morewood and George
Rogers, our exccutors, 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 "AN IMPROVEMENT IN COATING
WROUGHT IRON," upon the condition (amongst others) that we, the said Edmund
Morewood and George Rogers, by an instrument in writing under our hands
and seals, or under the hand and seal of one of us, 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 we, the said Edmund Morewood and George
Rogers, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascer-
tained in and by the following statement thereof, that is to say:-
The object of this Invention is principally to prepare sheet iron, though it
is applicable to other articles of wrought iron. And the Invention consists
of subjecting sheets or other articles of wrought iron first to solutions of
tin, in order to obtain depositions therefrom, whether by the aid of a galvanic
battery or not, and then further coating such sheets or articles of wrought iron
with varnish or japan, or with solutions of or melted resinous, gummy, oily, or
greasy, or bituminous matters, preferring such varnishes or matters as will aid
in soldering, such as resins and guns dissolved in wood or coal naptha, or
alcohol, or wood spirit; the object being more or less to protect by the second

page_text: coating (by a water or moisture repellant varnish or coating) the comparatively
thin coating of tin derived from a solution.
Having thus stated the nature of our said Invention, we will proceed to
describe more fully the manner of performing the same.
In the manufacture of japanners' ware, painted work, and for a great variety
of purposes, very large quantities of tin plate, also of sheets of iron coated
with alloys of tin, also of galvanized sheets of iron, are used, and in the coating
of such plates and sheets and also other forms of wrought iron it has been
usual to dip the iron into the melted coating metal, by which the iron has
become coated with a comparatively larger proportion of tin or of its alloy or
with zinc than is practically required when for japanned ware, painted work,
and a great variety of other purposes. Hence, in such manufactures the cost
is increased by the use of a larger quantity of the coating metal than is
necessary, and the iron by being dipped into the melted metal is more or less
injured in its toughness, and is rendered less flat and even on its surfaces. In
some cases it has been the practice previous to dipping sheets, plates, and
other forms of wrought iron into tin or zinc melted, to deposit upon them (the
articles to be coated) a thin coating of tin from a solution of that metal,
and we find that such deposited coating of tin on wrought iron is sufficient
when protected, as herein described, for japan ware, painted work, and for a
variety of other purposes.
Our Invention consists in obtaining to sheets or plates or other forms of
wrought iron a coating of tin from a solution, as is well understood, in omitting
the dipping in melted tin or its alloy or zinc, and in afterwards applying a non-
metallic coating or coatings of a material or compound which is repellant of
moisture, and which may be used at so low a temperature as to leave the iron
as nearly as possible with its original form and toughness. We prefer for
such coating or coatings a resinous or such like matter as will not interfere
with or will rather aid the process of soldering the iron when it may be
desired to do so; by which means we obtain a manufacture of tinned wrought
iron in sheets, plates, and other forms suitable for a great variety of uses at a
considerably reduced cost.
Sheets, plates, or other forms of wrought iron having been coated by a
deposition of tin from a solution (as is well understood, and which, separately,
is not claimed by us,) are to be washed with water, (for which purpose we
prefer that a stream of running water, either hot or cold, should be used,) in
order to free them as much as possible from the solution of tin or other
matter which they may have taken up.
After having been well washed, we usually take the pieces of wrought iron

page_text: without allowing them to dry or rust, and coat them with varnish or japan, or
with solutions or melted resinous, gummy, oily, or greasy, or bituminous
matters, preferring such varnishes or matters as will aid in soldering, such as
resins dissolved in wood or coal naptha, or alcohol, or wood spirit, and this we
do by preference by immersing the sheets, plates, or articles to be coated
in a mixture of rosin and tallow melted in a suitable pan or vessel. The
preparation we use is about two-thirds rosin and one-third grease or tallow,
and we keep the temperaturo of the mixture about two hundred and forty
degrees of Fahrenheit, or at such a point that on withdrawing the metal from
the hot mixture the moisture will have been boiled off from the surfaces, and
a thin coating of the mixture will be found to cover the metal, which thin
coating we reduce by rubbing the metal in hot bran or sawdust, placed in a pan
and kept heated with boiling water underneath, or by other suitable arrange-
ments; or we sometimes dry the solution-tinned articles in an oven, or over a
coke fire or otherwise, immediately after washing them, and then, instead of
coating them by dipping into the before-mentioned melted mixture of rosin
and grease, we dip them into a solution of rosin and tallow dissolved in coal
naptha, in the proportion of two ounces of tallow and ten ounces of rosin to
one gallon of coal naptha, at the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere, and
after allowing the articles to stand in order to dry, we immerse them in the
solution of shellac and rosin, hereafter mentioned. We take the sheets, plates,
or other articles coated with rosin and tallow, and dip them into a solution of
shellac, or shellac and rosin, in the proportion of three-fourths shellac to one-
fourth rosin dissolved in wood naptha or alcohol, say, about three quarters of
a pound of shellac and one quarter of a pound of rosin in two gallons of wood
spirit or strong alcohol of fifty to sixty degrees above English proof, by which
means we obtain a coating which will be moisture repellant, and which we
believe to be the best for the purposes of our Invention; but other of the
matters above mentioned may be used in a similar manner for the coating in
place of the particular ones above described, or compounds of such other
matters may be employed. When the matters herein described are used
in the state of solution, we prefer to apply them at the ordinary temperature
of the atmosphere, and we consider it desirable not to apply any of the matters
in a fused or melted state, if when fused or melted they are at a higher
temperature than three hundred degrees Fahrenheit. By thus coating sheets,
plates, and other forms of wrought iron with tin from a solution, and afterwards
protecting or preserving the same by a moisture-repellant coating or coatings
of the above-described character, we produce a manufacture of coated sheets,
plates, and other forms of wrought iron highly useful for a great variety of

page_text: purposes, the sheets and plates nearly, if not entirely, retaining their flatness
and the iron its toughness; and the sheets or plates admit of being bended
and shaped, and such coated metal is valuable for a great variety of useful
purposes.
In witness whereof, we, the said Edmund Morewood and George Rogers,
have hereunto set our hands and seals, this Seventeenth day of
November, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and
EDMUND MOREWOOD. (L.S.)
Witness,
JNO. ALCOOK.
GEORGE ROGERS.
(L.B.)