IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND MANUFACTURE OF WIREWORK FOR, NETTING, FENCES, AND OTHER PURPOSES, AND IN MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCES FOR, MAKING THE SAME
Year: 1871

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Gabriel Raphael Hugon at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 19th May 1871. - A communication from abroad by Jules.
Jubelin, 33, Rue de Longchamp, Paris.
I, GABRIEL RAPHAEL HUGON, of No. 73, Great Tower Street, in the
City of London, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention.
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND MANUFACTURE OF WIREWORK FOR,
NETTING, FENCES, AND OTHER PURPOSES, AND IN MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCES FOR,
MAKING THE SAME," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists, first, in the form given to the wire preparatory
to using it for the manufacture of wire netting; and, secondly, in the
tools and apparatus made use of to produce lengths of wire in the
required form.
1st. The form to be given to the wire is the spiral or corkscrew shape,
circular or flatted, in lengths suitable for the netting or other fabric to
be produced, with a pitch of spiral and thickness of wire adapted to the
size of the meshes and the strength of the wire fabric intended to be

page_text: produced. The wire may be of iron, steel, copper, brass, or any other
suitable metal, according to the use to which the wirework has to be
applied, and it may be twisted into the spiral form either in great
lengths, which may afterwards be cut to the lengths required for the
netting or other fabric to be made, or such required lengths may be
previously cut and separately twisted into the spiral form. A number of
spiral wires being thus prepared for any given width of netting, one of
these lengths of wire in the spiral form is fastened in a fixed position
(horizontal by preference) at several points, so as to keep it in a straight
line and sufficiently rigid to bear the strain produced in the course of
manufacture. In and out and through each of the spiral twists of the
first wire fixed as above described the second wire is passed by inserting
one of the ends of the latter into one end of the former, and turning it
round and round either by hand or with the aid of any rotary mechanism,
so that the two spiral wires shall become linked together. The con-
tinuation of the work consists in passing a third spiral wire in like
manner through and through the spiral twists of the second wire, and so
on successively with any number of twisted wires one after the other
until a netted web of any desired length and width is produced. The
two ends of every two adjoining wires are hooked or twisted together to
bind and keep them together in their places respectively as parts of
the netted fabric.
2nd. Various mechanical contrivances, of which some are well known,
may be applied to twist the wire into the continuous spiral form
required, whether circular or flattened. The following is a description
of a compound tool or apparatus which may be advantageously used for
the purpose in question. It consists of an iron, or steel, or any other
suitable metal tube of which the internal diameter corresponds to the
pitch of the spiral twist intended to be produced, and the outer diameter
is so much greater than the internal diameter as to give strength and
solidity to the tube sufficient to bear the strain of the work the tube may
be subjected to. The length of this tube, which may be made of any
other suitable material, may be from nine to eighteen inches, more or
less according to the diameter of the twist and the thickness of the spiral
wire to be produced. Into and through the thickness of the metal of
this tube, beginning at one end and finishing at the other end, a spiral
groove or slit corresponding in width to the diameter or thickness of the
wire to be twisted with each particular tube is to be cut, so as to shew

page_text: when finished a spiral opening or slit from one end to the other of the
metal of the tube.
In order to produce spiral wire required with each tube prepared as
above described, if the spiral curve is to be round a round rod of iron, or
if a flattened twist has to be produced a flat rod of iron, about an eighth
of an inch in thickness, the diameter of the round rod and that of the
flat rod being something less than the internal diameter of the tube is
inserted into the tube, and the wire is twisted round such round or flat
rod through the spiral slit in the metal of the tube. Thus arranged the
tube being securely held in a fixed position, and one end of the said rod
of iron (round or flat) being connected to some mechanical contrivance
whereby a rotary motion can be imparted to the rod at the end where
one end of the wire is wound round the rod, the other or loose end of
the wire being wound over a bobbin or cylinder, the rotary action
imparted to the rod of iron will whilst in motion continuously impart
the spiral form, round or flattened, to the wire, which may be easily
drawn off from the cylinder or bobbin, and delivered in the proper stato
for use.