IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF NAILS, SPIKES, PINS, AND OTHER LIKE ARTICLES, AND IN THE MACHINERY OR APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREIN."
Year: 1877

page_text: "
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Bernard Peard Walker at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 25th September 1877.
BERNARD PEARD WALKER, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Engineer.
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF NAILS, SPIKES, PINS, AND OTHER LIKE
ARTICLES, AND IN THE MACHINERY OR APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREIN."
My Invention relates to a new method of manufacturing nails, spikes, pins, and
other like articles, and it consists in producing the same in pairs, point to point,
either by cutting, pressing, cross rolling, or otherwise operating on pieces of material
sufficiently long to make two nails by the one operation, the heads being formed
either before or after pointing. By means of this arrangement the nails or other
like articles as before mentioned are made pointed without any of the metal from
which they are formed being wasted by being removed by abrasion or cut away as
scrap, the productive power of the machinery is much greater than that of the
machines now in use, and a far greater variety of shape of the shaft of the nail or
spike can be attained than by the machinery at present in use, whilst facility is
afforded for the working up of waste metals into the before-mentioned articles.
In carrying out my Invention, as applied for example to the manufacture of nails,
a piece of metal detached from a suitably formed strip or wire having sufficient
length is formed into two nails by one operation. The ends of the detached piece
of metal are formed into heads by the action of gripping dies and punches similar
to those of the well-known nail machinery in ordinary use, excepting that I employ
the heading apparatus simultaneously so as to head at each end. By the action of
cutters suitably shaped or by other convenient means, I divide this double headed
blank so as to make two nails at one operation.
The division of the blank may be effected in various ways, of which the following
are enumerated by way of example :-
1st. By a combination of cutting and moulding processes, as in the case of nails
made from wire, such as those known as "points de Paris."
2nd. By a plain cut across, in cases when the material is rolled or otherwise
prepared of a section tapering from edges to centre.
3rd. By means of rollers revolving in opposite directions, between which the
blank in this instance made from round wire, is to be passed with its length parallel
Prins 31

page_text: to the axis of the rollers between rolls of a suitable shape, that is to say, with their
periphery in contact or nearly so midway, and tapering off each way towards their
ends.
4th. By means of dies or hammers moving to and from each other in pairs having
their paths arranged at right angles, so as to act on a rectangular shaft on its opposite
sides alternately. The acting faces of these dies or hammers are to be counterparts
of the nail points required.
The operation of dividing the blank and forming the points of the nails into
which it is resolved may be effected by parts of the same machine which detaches
the blank from.the wire rod or plate of material, and forms the two heads, but in
some cases I prefer to employ a separate machine, into which the blanks are fed
automatically, or by hand for the purpose of pointing.
"
squares
"
are
The material may be fashioned in the first instance into blanks forming two nails
connected at their pointed ends, so that by making a head on each outer end, and
cutting through the blank midway between those ends two nails are made. When
slit rods or rod iron rolled to a rectangular section as
" and
flats "
used for making nails or spikes, I adopt this arrangement, employing any suitable
form of machine for actuating the double pair of hammers or stamps before referred
to, and regulating their stroke, so as to gradually reduce the original section of the
rod to the form of two headless nails connected at their points.