IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF AND IN ORNAMENTING METALLIO FENDERS
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert Roberts at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 17th June 1880.
ROBERT ROBERTS, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Manufacturer.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF AND IN ORNAMENTING METALLIO
FENDERS."
In manufacturing metallic fenders according to my Invention, I construct the
front and sides of the fender of a series of detached panels or portions, which I
afterwards connect together, the manufacture and connecting of the said panels or
portions and the completion of the fender being effected in the manner herein after
explained.
My Invention is applicable principally to such metallic fenders as are made
mainly of cast iron.
I make the said detached panels. or portions of cast iron, the casting of the said
panels or portions being conducted by preference in chill or metallic moulds. In
making the said cast iron panels or portions, I place in the mould in which the
casting is about to be effected, two or more short pieces of wrought iron bars or
strips of small diameter; the said bars when two are employed being placed at
opposite points of the mould. Part of each of the said narrow strips is placed
within the mould, and part protrudes from the mould. The ends of the rods or
strips which were placed within the mould becomo firmly embedded by the
casting process in the panel or portion produced; those ends of the rods or strips
external to the mould projecting from the edge of the casting.
In making the said panels or portions into a fender, they are placed together
with the fender bottom in juxta position on a frame or support, having upon it a
series of ornamental chill moulds, the said chill moulds being situated near the
points where the edges of the panels or portions are presented to each other. By
pouring melted cast iron into the chill moulds, ornamental cast junction pieces are
formed, in which the wrought iron projecting portions of the bars or strips of the
panels or portions are embedded, and the whole of the said panels or portions,
together with the fender bottom and junction pieces, form one structure. The steel
top of the fender is made of semi-tubular steel strips, having two parallel internal
flanges. By the compression of these flanges upon the top of the fender, and the
insertion of the ends of the strips in recesses in the corner pillars, the steel top is
firmly secured to the front and sides of the fender.

page_text: My improvements in ornamenting metallic fonders consist in the methods heroin
after described, in combining with the cast iron portions of the fender panels or plates
of tin plate, on which a crystalline structure has been developed by the action of
acid, and which have been varnished with a colourless or coloured varnish. In
some cases.I make the panels of the fender with an openwork or perforated 5
design, in which case I employ the said crystallized plates as a backing to tho
design.
In other cases I make the castings of a frame like figure, and fix the crystallized
plates in the frames. In either case the crystallized plate is fixed in its place by
means of wrought iron pins cast in the open work panel or frame. These pins by 1
being bent down upon the edges of the plates after they have been inserted in or
behind the casting, secure the said plates firmly in their places.