THE MANUFACTURE OF WELDLESS CHAINS AND CABLES FROM STEEL, HOMOGENEOUS, AND SIMILAR METALS."
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Deakin at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 20th January 1879.
WILLIAM DEAKIN, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Gentleman.
"THE MANUFACTURE OF WELDLESS CHAINS AND CABLES FROM STEEL, HOMOGENEOUS,
AND SIMILAR METALS."
Hitherto chains and cables have been made of iron, generally from round bars or
rods, and bent into shape and each link welded.
Now my Invention consists, firstly, in making chains and cables from steel,
homogeneous, or metals such as "Bessemer," Siemens," or similar material, and
secondly in constructing the said chains and cables in such a manner that the
operation of welding is entirely avoided and dispensed with, thereby producing a
perfectly weldless chain or cable from end to end.
This may be effected in various ways, as, for instance, I may take a piece of a bar
of the said metal formed to any convenient shape and design suitable to the multi-
farious and numerous purposes for which chains or cables are required, and which
may be bent into form by any suitable appliances, and manipulated by such means
as hammers, rolls, shears, cutters, punches, presses, stamps, or dies, or their equi-
valents, and actuated by steam, hydraulic, or other convenient power, and by such
means to admit of one link being lapped, doubled, and looped through another and
so on to the completion of the chain without welding of any kind.
Or I may
roll such metal into plates, plain or indented, of the desired thickness, and stamp
or cut out blanks therefrom of the required shape and dimensions for forming
such weldless links to be afterwards made into a chain or cable according to my
Invention; or I may cast such links into the suitable form required for the purpose,
and subject such links to the operation of hammering, stamping, or pressing into
the finished form, the said process contributing very materially to the solidifying
and improving of the metal under operation. Thus it will be seen that by my
Invention I produce solid weldless chains and cables from steel and homogeneous
metals, whereby increased strength and greater durability are obtained and with
decreased weight.
In the carrying out of my Invention I am enable to use up and utilize rail
ends, plate ends, and such like scrap with great economy and advantage (or I may
use up the scrap produced in making these chains from scrap or otherwise by
re-melting the same and casting into links), and manipulating the same into
weldless chains and cables according to my Invention.

page_text: It will be readily understood that in carrying my Invention into effect the means
and appliances and the processes will have to be varied to meet the numerous
purposes and designs for which such chains and cables may be required, so as to
obtain the desired shape and description of link.
In manufacturing chains and cables according to my Invention I not only
obtain mathematical accuracy and improved quality in the process of their formation,
but being made almost entirely from tools and mechanical appliances, I am
enabled to employ unskilled labour, and thus dispense with the skilled hand labour
that is indispensable in manufacturing iron chains by welding each link separately,
there being also considerable economy effected in the consumption of fuel; thus it
will be seen that a great saving in the cost of manufacture is effected.