AN IMPROVED MODE OF " EMPLOYING AND COMBINING CERTAIN MATERIALS FOR STRUCTURAL PURPOSES.
Year: 1874

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Philip Brannon, of 54, Parliament Street, in the
County of Middlesex, for the Invention of "AN IMPROVED MODE OF
"
EMPLOYING AND COMBINING CERTAIN MATERIALS FOR STRUCTURAL PURPOSES.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Philip Brannon, do hereby declare
that the following Complete Specification, under my hand and seal,
fully describes and ascertains the nature of the said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, in and by the following
statement (that is to say) :-
My Invention has reference to a mode of combining suitable vegetable
and animal fibre and filiform and cohering substances in union with
concreted and cemented mineral and earthy materials so as to obtain
when the whole is solidly condensed and compressed together a substance
having great tensile and transverse strength, cohesion, and toughness
somewhat analogous to the qualities of wood combined with the hardness
and stiffness of stone, and which combination or substance I therefore
call ligno-lithite or wood-stone, and employ for the formation of walls,
floors, slabs, blocks, sheetings, or separate pieces, or any continuous
structure in and for the construction of permanent buildings and
engineering work, and in the manufacture of fittings and fixtures there-
for, in such manner that any of the said fabrics shall be completed and
finished in one substance in combination with an imbedded sustaining
frame and permeating webbing, and by one continuous operation, and
consists,―
Firstly. In forming the said frame as a stretching frame of wood or
bamboo, with or without trussings and stretching rods, which I call a rigid
or imbed frame, or as a strong selvage strand of cane, rope, or cordage,
or as a border of textile work called a web frame, in either case being
firmly united with and sustaining in tension any open warp, woven,
netted, or other webbing fabric of ropes, cordage, or long fibre, or
open lattice of cane called the permeate webbing or main or soffit
webbing.
Secondly. In disposing short and long fibre according to the special
requirements of the work in combination with the concreting or cemen-
titious materials whilst in a slack, semi-fluid, or grouted condition. I
occasionally employ a short fibre mixture in thick or irregular masses,
sheets, or beds similar to the stone-felt otherwise employed by me.
When disposed in thin layers and closely laminated I describe it under
my present improvements as fibro-lithite or fibre-stone. When in very
thin layers or laminations closely alternating, with long fibre in regular
seams or in irregular disposition so as to be still more analogous to woody
structure I term it lignolite; and when formed entirely or nearly so of

page_text: long fibre seams laid in directions oblique or transverse to each other I
call it fibrolite.
Thirdly. When requisite to modify these arrangements for the purpose
of producing a flexible or elastic stone sheeting, which I call flexo-lithite,
the fibrous mixtures are disposed to meet the alternate tension and com-
pression strains on the opposite sides during flexure by means of long
fibre near each surface in diagonal disposition contrary on the two sides,
or rhombic on each side, combined with a selvage and permeate web of
suitable flexibility and mesh, or two distinct permeate webs are employed,
being laid near the respective faces, and the whole consolidated by rolling
or alternate pressure.
Fourthly. In order to obtain together with the aforesaid structural
similarities to wood that intergranular and adhesive cohesion existing in
quick wood, by which a firm hold therein is given to nails and screws, I
use for the purpose as already otherwise used for various other purposos
solutions of gums and glues, or I partly or entirely replace the water of
gauging with oils or oil, and turpentine or resins, caoutchouc, gutta
percha, pitch, or tar, and I term the work so formed oleo-lignite, oleo-
flexite, resino-flexite, and so forth.
Fifthly. In order to render the said materials when imbedded more
absolutely indestructible by fire, water, or natural decay when convenient,
I prefer to prepare them by any of the anti-combustion or preserving
processes otherwise in use and suitable thereto.
Sixthly. With regard to the materials employed by me for the various
purposes of this my Invention, and in the compounding of the same for
forming the said mixtures or stone-wood masses they are of necessity
all those ordinarily and otherwise used in engineering and building
operations, for mortar making, concreting, cement, plastering, and orna-
mental plaster, imitation marble, and mastic or waterproof cement work,
and any sound wood, bamboo, cane, or any strong durable fibre, being
in fact those obtainable in any locality suited for the purposes of the
work and capable of being employed and combined as herein provided.
And my manner of exercising the said Invention is as follows:-
:-
Seventhly. When employed for the construction of foreshore or river
facings, canals, sand bags and caissoons, whether built in situ or floated
or lifted into position, or for hollow flue-formed floors, Russian stoves or
warming or drying coils, pipes, detached flues and hollow columns, or any

page_text: tabular or compartition work, and screens, partitions, bracketings, and
strong fixtures, stable fittings, and the like. I form the entire of cach
structure and piece with its whole periphery and every projection,
partition, withe, and bulkhead in one piece, with an unbroken con-
tinuity, having the permeating webbing also without break of tic,
continuously passing through the mass at every part, with the wood-
stone or stone-felt material forced and condensed about it of from two
or three inches to any greater thickness by means of ramming in and
between any ordinary or otherwise used apparatus, such as clamping
boards or plates, clamps, and draw plates, or clamp moulds and cores,
such work being termed by me clamp sheeting.
Eighthly. When employed for a shielding or casing under ceilings or
over or adjoining timber, iron, or walling for protection against fire,
damp, or miasma, or for light pitch roofs, balcony floors, and so forth,
a back or bed clamping or platform is prepared on any system to admit
of the effectual application of compression. The frame or sclvage with
the permeating webbing being fixed and strained, the stone-felting or
wood-stone forced under, about, and over the same, and powerfully com-
pressed by trowelling, I term the work band-laid sheeting. When
employed for casings or shieldings it is insulated by the means otherwise
used by me of the attaching screws, bolts, or nails, the heads of which
sustain the webbing passing at their shanks through insulating blocks of
stone-felt or stone-wood and aluminised felt washers, and when used for
floors and roofs the sheetings are made stiff and powerfully sustaining
by tension work, webbing, or trussing in thickenings of their substance,
which form ribbings, rafterings, or stiles and rails on the soffit with deep
pannels between. When hand-laid sheetings are made very thin to be
used as flexible sheetings they are of course treated in the flexo-lignite
method, and I employ them for brattice and similar work, screens, and
the like.
Ninthly. In compressing pieces or slabs of dimensions capable of
being formed in moulds I employ direct screw or hydraulic action. In
thesc, which I term pressed pieces, the selvage or web frames, with
powerful permeate webbings, are employed in combination with the
strongest treatment of the fibrous structure and media herein described.
I thus make rough slabs to form arches to carry floors and flat roofs,
wall plates, and shelves, fillets, and stone-wood bricks, or pads for screw
and nail fixings instead of wood and the like. But all pieces the faces
"

page_text: of which are to appear as finished work in manner otherwise used by
me have the fibrous structure of the body concealed by running into and
on the moulds fine facing stuffs of any plain or colored treatment, so
that the said facing stuff while slack runs into blends and perfectly.
unites with the fibrous hearting laid immediately upon it. All kinds of
doors or other pannelled or ribbed work formed as slabs, all windows and
casements, and open or pierced ballusters and parapets, and light, free,
or open stairs, tailed in or spiral, on a central newel or column, are formed
in like manner.
Tenthly and lastly. When my present Invention is employed in any
bridging structure, such as a bridge, floor, or girder, the principle of the
structure is similar to that otherwise employed by me, the upper beds of
the mass being laid arcuate and their full compression force made to bear
on the imbed frame to utilise it as a skewback and bring and maintain
the permeate or soffit web thereby in tension, and thus utilise the
ordinarily destructive forces in transverse strains, the ceilings, soffits, and
surfaces being treated in the clamps in the manner explained in respect
to pressed pieces.
Having now fully described and ascertained the nature of my said
Invention I would have it understood that I do not confine myself to
the precise details herein-above given, nor do I claim the exclusive use
of the several materials and processes referred to, except when used in
and for the purposes of this my said Invention, which I hereby declare
to consist,―
Firstly. In employing a stretching frame of wood or bamboo as an
imbed rigid frame, or a selvage of rope, cane, or cordage, or a textile
work border as a nett frame, and combining with and supporting on such
rigid frame, selvage, or nett frame my said permeate webbing or open
tension fabric of cane, ropes, cordage, or long fibre, as explained under
my first head, and in embedding the same in a mass of concreted cemen-
titious or carthy substances, as herein above described under my 7th,
8th, 9th, and 10th heads.
Secondly. In compounding with fibre concreted and cementitious
materials and treating the same so as to form the various kinds of ligno-
5 lithite, lignolite, fibrolite, or flexo-lithite, with the usual water gauging
of the cementings, or gummy or gelatinous additions, or partly or wholly
with oily and resinous media, as oleo- or resino-lignite fibrite and flexite