IMPROVEMENTS IN BENDING AND SHAPING ANGLE AND BAR IRON FOR SHIP-BUILDING AND OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1854

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Anderson at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 6th December
1854.
I, JAMES ANDERSON, of Dumbarton, in the County of Dumbarton, North
Britain, Shipwright, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention. of
"IMPROVEMENTS IN BENDING AND SHAPING ANGLE AND BAR IRON FOR SHIP-BUILDING
AND OTHER PURPOSES" to be as follows, that is to say:-
This Invention relates to a system or mode of bending and shaping angle.
iron of various sections into the forms required for the frames of iron ships;
the same arrangements being also applicable to bending and shaping angle and.
bar iron for structures of various kinds. In carrying out the Invention as
applicable to ship-building purposes, a level platform is used, such platform
being made up of pieces susceptible of being changed, so as to increase or
diminish the extent of the platform, or so as to modify the arrangement of a
number of dovetail grooves with which the platform is traversed. These
grooves run in straight lines, and serve to guide the shaping blocks used in
bringing the angle iron to the required form for the ship frames, and the
directions of the grooves are arranged as nearly as possible at right angles to
the curves to which the generality of the ship frames are made; in other words,

page_text: ship. A series of carrier pieces work on the grooves, being actuated by a longi-
tudinal screw, working in a half-nut formed in the bottom of the groove, and
turned by means of small bevil wheels and a vertical and a vertical spindle, or
a nut or half-nut may be formed in the carrier pieces, and these may be moved
by screw spindles lying along the grooves, and actuated at the outer edges
of the platform. The carrier pieces carry the blocks for bending and shaping
the frames, these blocks-being-mounted on swivel joints, so that their acting
faces may be set accurately, parallel with or tangential to the frames at the
several points. The blocks are furnished with face pieces, which are capable
of adjustment to any angle, to suit the inclination to be given to the standing
up flange of the angle iron, a recess for the other flange or flanges being made
or left between the top of the carrier, pieces and the under side of the front of
the shaping blocks. Shaping blocks are to be used on both sides of the frame,
there being two in each groove, which are moved towards each other, the angle
iron to be bent or shaped-being-between--them: The face pieces may either
be flat or curved, to suit the dimensions or other peculiarities of the frames
and various details, and their. adjustment may be effected in various ways; as,
for example, by means of a sliding piece, worked by a screw spindle, and
taking hold of the curved back of the face piece by means of a dovetail groove
and slip. The shaping blocks, may be formed to suit either common angle
iron or T iron, as well as iron of other sections. In operating with this appa-
ratus, the shaping blocks being set apart, the angle iron is laid between them,
and the blocks are gradually brought together in the proportions necessary to
give the required form to the frame. These operations may be very greatly
facilitated by forming graduated indexes along the grooves, so that each block
may be worked to its destined point, according to instructions corresponding
with the indexes. The face pieces of the shaping blocks may also be fur-
nished with similar indexes, "so_that_the_amount_of_bevil_to_be_given to the
standing-up flanges may be determined in a similar manner.