A NEW AND IMPROVED PROCESS FOR COATING ALL SORTS OF ARTICLES WITH GOLD, SILVER, AND OTHER METALS OR MIXTURES OF SUCH METALS AS MAY BE BEATEN INTO THIN SHEETS OR COATINGS
Year: 1869

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Henri Adrien Bonneville, of the British and Foreign
Patent Offices, 18, Chaussée d'Antin, Paris, in the Empiro of France,
and 10, Sackville Street, Piccadilly, in the County of Middlesex,
Patent Agent, for the Invention of "A NEW AND IMPROVED PROCESS
FOR COATING ALL SORTS OF ARTICLES WITH GOLD, SILVER, AND OTHER METALS
OR MIXTURES OF SUCH METALS AS MAY BE BEATEN INTO THIN SHEETS OR
COATINGS," A Communication from Frederich Volkman, residing at
Berlin, in the Kingdom of Prussia, Gentleman.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION filed by the said Henri Adrien Bonnoville
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition and
Declaration, on the Ith January 1869, pursuant to the 9th Section
of the Patent Law Amendment Act, 1852.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, HENRI
ADRIEN BONNEVILLE, of the British and Foreign Patent Offices, 18,
Chaussée d'Antin, Paris, in the Empire of France, and 10, Sackville
[Price 8d.]

page_text: Street, Piccadilly in the County of Middlesex, Patent Agent, send
greeting.
"A NEW AND
WHEREAS I am in possession of an Invention for
IMPROVED PROCESS FOR COATING ALL SORTS OF ARTICLES WITH GOLD, SILVER, AND
OTHER METALS, OR MIXTURES OF SUCH METALS AS MAY BE BEATEN IN TO THIN SHEETS
OR COATINGS," a communication from Frederich Volkman, a person
resident at Berliu, in, the Kingdom of Prussia, Gentleman, and have
petitioned Her Majesty to grant unto me, my executors, adminis:rators,
and assigns, Her Royal Letters Patent for the same, and made solemn
Declaration that it is a communication.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Henri Adrien Bonneville, do
hereby declare that the following Complete Specification, under my hand
and seal, fully describes and ascertains the nature of the Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, that is to
say:
The Invention communicated to me relates to a new and improved
process
for coating all sorts of articles with gold, silver, platina, zinc,
and all other such metals or mixtures of metals, as may be beaten into
sheets between the gold beater's skin in the usual way. Like coatings
may be effected upon silken, woollen, cotton, flaxen, hempen, or other
thrend, and upon the textile materials made of such thread, without
losing anything of their suppleness, and at the same time imparting to
them a metallic brilliancy. Figures or designs may be reproduced
having a metallic brilliancy on the rough or smooth surfaces of metal
or wooden articles, earthenware, marble or other substances, and these
figures or designs may be steeped into water or exposed to rough weather
without being spoilt or losing anything of their brilliancy. This coating
is specially applicable in the ornamentation of tissues or stuffs, for
wearing apparel or ladies' dresses, such as lace, tarlatans, and such like
translucid materials used in the manufacture of parasols, fans, flags, and
such like articles. This process may be divided into two parts, the
peculiar mode of preparing the composition, by means of which the
metal is applied, and the mode of applying or coating and fixing the
metal by means of a temperature regulated in an oven disposed to that
effect.
1. A Preparation for the Gold Coating.-Ochre or oxyde of iron not
calcinated and perfectly purified by a washing is mixed with painters
varnish made of linseed oil boilt with litharge or oxyde of lead.
This

page_text: varnish must be perfectly pure and clear. The said mixture is crushed
in a mill or on a marble slab by adding from time to time some good
oil of turpentine, called American oil of turpentine. To this mixture is
added for every 500 grammes of matter or substance 150 grammes of
painters' varnish of the finest quality, 30 grammes of old mordant
varnish slow in drying, like that used in a fresh state to make typo.
graphical ink, and 45 grammes of oil, called East Indian oil, and of
cobalt resin diluted in painters' varnish. The whole is then inti:nately
mixed by crushing on a marble slab or in a mill. The mixture is next
subjected in a glazed gritstone vase to the action of a moderate heat
until it attains such a consistency us to form threads between the mass
and the end of a stick steeped into it on being withdrawn. The mixture
is then allowed to cool, and when required for uso it is diluted with
pure and rectified oil of turpentine in such a quantity as to avoid
soaking and drenching the articles or objects to be ornamented.
B. Preparation for Coating with Silver, Platina, Zinc, and other
White Metals.-The ochre is replaced by ceruse or white lead of the
finest and purest quality. The following operation in this case is the
same as that above specified, save that the ochre is replaced by ceruse or
white lead of the finest and purest quality.
C. Copal Varnish.-500 grammes of the best copal, called East Indian
copal, are dissolved and diluted in 750 grammes of purified and distillod
turpentine, and 105 grammes of painters' varnish.
It may here be remarked that the two preparations A and B are
identical, and that they may be used simultaneously or apart, that the
metallic brilliancy will be greater or lesser according as the qualities
and quantities of the substances employed be those above indicated
or not.
II. Process for Coating Silken, Cotton, Woollon, and other Tissues.―
A sufficient quantity of one or other of the above compositions is diluted
on a glass pallet with a few drops of purified oil of turpentine, and then
applied on the tissue by exerting a slight pressure with a soft brush;
it is then allowed to dry for twenty-four hours in the open air, and
a second thin layer is uniformly spread over the first and left to dry
for twenty-four hours more. After this lapse of time the layer is
sufficiently sticky to cause the metallic sheet to adhere. This appli-
cation is effected in the usual manner on the gilder's cushion, after
dividing the metallic sheets with the gilder's knife as may be needed,

page_text: and with brushes, so as well to cover all the parts; pressure is
then exerted by means of a lump of pure and fine cotton, and
□ gentle and careful friction effected with cotton to unite the sur-
fuces and do away with the metallic refuse. The tissues thus ornamented
are next dried by being suspended on wires or placed on wicker wattles
in an oven constructed for the purpose lined internally with earthen-
ware slabs and gradually heated to 70 degrees centigrade in the
space of eight hours. When these tissues are quite dry and cool
they are rubbed afresh pretty hard with a pure cotton wad, and very
beautiful tints may be obtained by rubbing with translucid colours, such
as sienna brown, ultramarine, or carmine. The figures or designs may
be indefinitely varied by means of engraved rollers, such as those
used for printing textile fabrics.
III. To ornament thread or openwork tissues the above preparations
are diluted with oil of turpentine, called American oil of turpentine,
sufficiently limpid to be spread in a thin uniform layer. The thread or
tissues should be previously stretched so as to avoid their sticking to
one another in the oven, where they are dried for 12 hours at 60 degrees
centigrade of heat. When cool they are turned and done over on the
opposite side, care being taken that the fibres do not stick together,
which is obtained by means of the brush. This second layer is in its
turn dried at a heat of 75 degrees centigrade, and then the third layer
spread, on which the metallic sheet or leaf is laid, the ochre composition
being used for gold and the ceruse one for the white metals. This third
layer is allowed to dry at a temperature of 20 or 25 degrees centigrade,
but it is sufficiently dry to bring about the adherence of the metallic
leaf. The coating of gold is effected in the manner above indicated,
with this difference, that the refuse of the metal is taken off not with
a lump of cotton, but with a soft brush made of bear's hair and of a fan
A final
shape. This operation must take place on a supply surface.
drying is then effected in the oven during a lapse of time varying
between twelve and eighteen hours, when the heat may be carried to
75 degrees centigrade. When the articles are dry and cooled the dust
adhering to the metal is taken off and the polishing effected by means
of a brush made of badger hair. By a careful and attentive manipu-
lation the tissues assume every appearance of those manufactured with
metallic thread, and the figures or designs are perfectly rendered.
For articles made with non-porous materials the layers should be

page_text: thicker and repeated, and for those made with porous materials the
layers should be thinner, but equally repeated; the mode of operation
is however the same as that above given. The ossential point is to
apply the various layers with regularity and the metal carefully on the
last layer before it is too dry. Platina should be used preferably to
silver, and fine silver is not so good as the mixture known under the
name of American tin, because silver has the disadvantage of blackening
too speedily.
Having thus fully described the nature of the said Invention, and
the manner of carrying the same into effect, what I claim is a new and
improved process for coating all sorts of articles with gold, silver, and
other metals, as may be beaten into thin sheets or coatings, substantially
as herein-before fully set forth and described.
In witness whereof, 1, the said Henri Adrien Bonneville, have
hereunto set my hand and scal, this Fourth day of January,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-
nine.