IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HORSE-SHOE AND OTHER NAILS
Year: 1855

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Thomas Hill, of Walsall, Merchant, for the Invention
of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HORSE-SHOE AND OTHER NAILS."
-A communication.
Sealed the 5th June 1855, and dated the 13th April 1855.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Thomas Jill at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 13th
April 1855.
I, THOMAS HILL, of Walsall, Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of the
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HORSE-SHOE AND OTHER
NAILS" to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in the manufacture of horse-
shoe and other nails, by first rolling iron or metal into sheets with projections
on one side thereof, and then cutting the same into nails by punching dies or
cutters. For this purpose two rollers are employed, the one plain and the
other grooved, parallel with the axis, in order to produce projections across the
sheet or plate iron or metal rolled thereby. Fillets, cut transversely from such
sheets or plates, are next fed by rollers or otherwise over a fixed die, with an
opening through it of the form of the intended nail; a scraper and rotatory brush
are used to remove scale and dirt from the die. The face of the cutting punch
is made only half as deep as the projection on the one surface of the plates or

page_text: sheets of iron or other metal, by which means, in the act of cutting out a nail
the head of the nail will be made to come on both sides. The projection on
the one side of the sheets may be produced in the line of the grain of the
metal, but the arrangement above described is preferred. The punch is put
in motion by an eccentric, and the feed rollers are moved by gearing.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Thomas Hill in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
13th October 1855.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAS
HILL, of Walsall, Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Thirteenth day of April, 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 me, the
said Thomas Hill, Her special licence that I, the said Thomas Hill, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Thomas
Hill, my executors, 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 "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE
OF HORSE-SHOE AND OTHER NAILS," a communication from abroad, upon the
condition (amongst others) that I, the said Thomas Hill, by an instrument in
writing under my hand and seal, 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 I, the said Thomas Hill, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement thereof (that is to say) :-
This Invention is particularly intended for the manufacture of cut horse-
shoe nails, but may also be employed for the manufacture of nails for other
purposes. It enables cut nails having their heads projecting on more than two
sides, or on two sides not opposite each other, to be produced without any

page_text: heading operation subsequent to the cutting operation. It consists in pro-
ducing by a rolling operation a plate of iron or other metal into a form to
correspond with the required profile of the longitudinal section of the nail to
be produced, and then cutting up the said plates by means of punches and
dies or cutters whose form corresponds with the required profile of the longi-
tudinal section in a direction perpendicular to the first-named section. In
this way the shape of the nail in one direction is produced by rolling and in
the other by cutting, and any required form may thereby be given to the head.
The nails thus produced, if made of plates of good quality and afterwards
annealed, are sufficiently sound and tough for any purpose, and can be produced
at a cost far below that at which nails of equal quality can be produced in any
other way.
Figure 1 in the Drawing represents a transverse section of a pair of rollers,
by which the plate is rolled out to the proper form, exhibiting also a longitu-
dinal section of the plate as it passes through and leaves the rollers; Figure 2
is a face view of the plate; Figure 3 is a vertical central section of the cutting
machine, by which the rolled strips are cut up into nails; Figure 4 is a hori-
zontal section of the same, taken just above the lower dies; Figure 5 is a face
view of a strip of plate, showing the manner in which it is cut to form the
nails; Figure 6 is an enlarged side view of the punch; Figure 7, an enlarged
sectional view of a strip of a plate from which the nails are cut; Figure 8, a
side view of a nail, showing how the sectional form of the strip is changed by
the cutting operation. Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding
parts in the several Figures. The rollers A, A', shown in Figure 1, resemble
in their general character the rollers commonly employed in rolling metal.
The lower roller A is cylindrical, but the upper roller A¹ is of such a form
circumferentially, that a plate in passing between it and the roller A will have
produced upon it repetitions of the forms a and a¹ in regular succession, the
said forms both corresponding with the desired longitudinal section of the nail
in one direction. The face of the roller is of the same form from end to end,
and therefore the whole width of the plate receives the same form, so that if the
plate is cut transversely in the lines b, b', by shears or other suitable apparatus
it will produce a series of strips, which, by being cut up into pieces by a cutter
or cutters of a proper shape, will produce a nail of any desired form in two
longitudinal sections perpendicular to each other. One of these strips, in
Figure 5, shows the manner in which it is cut to form the nails c, c, a piece
of waste v being left between every two nails.
The machine represented in Figures 3 and 4 for cutting the strips into nails
resembles in its main features a common punching press, containing a fixed

page_text: die e, of the form desired to be produced, and a follower B, carrying a punch f
of a corresponding form. The follower is connected with and operated by an
excentric C on the rotary shaft D, which also carries another excentric E, for
the purpose of operating the feed rollers 9, 9, 9', g', by which after every
operation of the punch the strip is carried straight forward far enough for a
nail to be cut from it, and driven through the die by the succeeding operation
of the punch. On one side of the die e is placed a scraper n (see Figure 4),
connected with an arm i, which receives a lateral motion every time the punch
rises from a cam K on a shaft F, and a spring j connecting with the side frame
G, for the purpose of scraping off all dirt or scales from the face of the die,
and on the other side is a rotating brush 7, for the purpose of sweeping away
any dirt left by the scraper. It will be observed, by referring to the sectional
form of the strip of metal in Figure 7, that the projection n¹ for the head
of the nail is only on the upper side of the strip, but by making the punch
as shewn in Figure 6, with a recess m in its face only half as deep as the
projection n on the strip, the metal will be driven by the punching or cutting
operation to the other side, and leave an equal quantity of metal projecting
above and below; this obviates the necessity of making both rollers of
irregular shape.
Instead of rolling the plates to form the strips in the manner represented in
Figure 1, that is to say, with the part which is to form the points in one con-
nected with the corresponding part of the other, and the parts forming the
heads connected in the same way, they might be formed to connect the point
part of the one with the head part of the next; but to roll it to the form
described requires a roller A¹ of a form more easily constructed, and one that
will wear better, owing to the grooves for the heads requiring to be less regular.
Instead of employing rollers to roll the plates before cutting into strips, the
plates may be first cut into strips, and each strip rolled between rollers acting
upon it longitudinally, or at right angles to the direction of the rollers A, A¹,
to produce the same form as that herein-before described as being given to the
strips. This, though equivalent to the first described method of producing the
strips, would be a slower process, and besides would produce nails of inferior
quality, as the longitudinal direction of the fibre would not be preserved so
perfectly.
Having thus fully described the Invention, I will proceed to point out what
I claim as new therein. I am aware that it is customary to employ rollers to
roll out plates of metal to an endless variety of forms, therefore I do not
claim of itself the rollers A, A. I am also aware that it is customary to use
punch and die to cut metal plates into such forms as may be desirable, and
a

page_text: therefore do not of itself claim the employment of the punch fand die e; but
I do claim producing horse-shoe nails, or other nails having the head projecting
ou more than two sides, or on two sides at right angles to or not opposite each
other, from plate iron or other plate metal, by first rolling out the plate to pro-
duce the profile or longitudinal sectional form which the nail is required to
have in one direction, and then cutting the said plate by a punch and die or
other suitable cutting apparatus to the form of the profile or longitudinal
sectional form which the nail is required to have in a direction perpendicular
to the first-named section, substantially as herein described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Hill, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Second day of October, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-five.
Witness,
C. BROOMHALL, Book-keeper,
Walsall.
THOMAS HILL. (L.S.)