AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF CAST METAL WHEELS FOR RAILWAY AND VARIOUS OTHER CARRIAGES
Year: 1846

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, GEORGE
W. EDDY, of Waterford, in the State of New York, of the United States of
North America, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Third day of November, in the tenth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
George W. Eddy, Her especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority,
that I, the said George W. Eddy, my exors, adiñors, and assigns, or such
others as I, the said George W. Eddy, my exors, adññors, or assigns, should
at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times
during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make,
use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, the Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, Sark, and Man, and in
all Her Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "AN
IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF CAST METAL WHEELS FOR RAILWAY AND
VARIOUS OTHER CARRIAGES;" in which said Letters Patent is contained a
proviso, that I, the said George W. Eddy, shall cause a particular description
of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be inrolled in Her said Majesty's High Court of Chancery.
within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said

page_text: in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being
the eunto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
George W. Eddy, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention.
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully described and
ascertained in and by the following statement thereof, reference being had to
the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the figures and letters marked thereon,
that is to say-
My Invention consists in a new and improved mode of constructing or
forming a cast-metal wheel (for railway cars or other purposes), by which the
said wheel may be founded or cast with a cold chilled tread or rim, and with
little or no danger of breaking or cracking, or being liable to afterwards break
or crack, by reason of strains, such as usually generated within it while being
made or founded according to any of the forms or modes heretofore usually
adopted in the manufacture of such wheels. Of the Drawings afore mentioned,
Figure 1 denotes an elevation of the inner side of my improved cast metal or
cast-iron wheel; Figure 2 is a transverse and central section of it; Figure 3
is another and similar section of a wheel, which will be herein-after described;
Figure 4 is an elevation of the outer side of the wheel first mentioned, as
exhibited in Figure 1 and 2. The said improved wheel is composed of a cast
metal rim (A) and hub B, united together by two cast metal plates (C, D),
as seen in Figures 1 and 2, the union of the same being effected by casting
or founding the whole in one piece at one and the same time, and in a mould
prepared with or having an iron or metal chill or ring properly adapted to it,
so as to suddenly cold chill or harden the periphery or tread of the wheel during
the operation of casting or founding it.
My improvement is to be found in the manner in which the plate D is
formed, the same consisting in giving it an undulating or serpentino shape in
any cross section of it from the hub to the tread or rim, as seen at a, b, c, d, e,
in Figure 2. The plate C or inner plate of the wheel is what is termed a
convex plate, in contradistinction to a concave plate, which is made dishing
towards the centre of the axis or hub of the wheel. Whenever the two
plates C and D have been made convex, and so as to have their convexities
in opposite directions, it has become necessary, in order to cast the wheel, to
divide or separate the hub B transversely of its axis into two parts, otherwise
the strains upon the hub in opposite directions caused by shrinkage of the rim
in the act of cooling while being founded would bo so great as either to break
the hub or one or both of the plates, or otherwise so seriously injure the wheel
as to render it unfit for safe usage. By making either the outer or inner

page_text: plates of an undulating or irregular shape, and with one or more undula-
tions (such as seen in Figure 2), and the other plate concave or convex, the
former will so contract as it cools (in the mould) under the contractile force of
the chilled rim as to yield laterally in opposite directions, and thereby oppose
little or no counteracting force to that which is generated upon the hub in a
lateral direction by the contraction of the convex or concave plate, there-
fore no separation or division of the hub will take place or become necessary
to the complete founding of such a wheel; consequently, by thus making the
plates of a wheel, I am able to render it very much stronger in its hub than
it would be if made with two regular convex plates whose convexities stand
in opposite directions from the center or middle point of the hub. In connec-
tion with the undulating plate D the other plato C may be made undulating,
or with undulations, as seen in section in Figure 3. Both plates when so
made will readily yield to the contraction of the rim, and will cool without
breaking themselves, or either of them, or the hub.
great advantage in being able to cast the hub solid,
applied to the hub, I mean that it shall be solid in every respect with the
exception of the hole through it for the reception of the axle,) in consequence
of giving to one or both of the side plates an undulating shape in transverse
section, yet I do not intend to confine my Invention to the solid hub alone, as
by using the undulating plate or plates, even when a divided hub is used, I
render the whole much less liable to being fractured or broken when founded
than when made with two concave plates, or with one concave and one convex
plate, or two convex plates alone. In Figure 1, x, x, x, denote holes or
passages cast through the convex plate for the purpose of removing the sand
composing the core of the mould of the wheel, and also to enable the founder
to sustain the core in its proper position.
Although I obtain a
(by the term solid as
I do not intend to confine my Invention to the giving to the side plate the
precise undulating curve in its cross section as I have represented in the
Drawings, but to vary the number of the undulations between the hub and
the rim, as occasion or circumstances may require. I do not claim the
manner of constructing a cast metal wheel by making it of two convex or
two concave plates, or one concave or one convex plate (united to a solid or
divided hub, and a circular rim and flanch), as heretofore formed or shaped;
but that which I do claim as my Invention is my herein-before specified
improved manner of constructing a wheel, by which I am particularly enabled
to cast it with a solid hub, and in other respects as I have above set forth,
viz., by making it with an undulating plate in combination with a concave
or convex plate, or another undulating plate, the whole being applied to the

page_text: hub and rim, and formed substantially as herein-before described, and as
represented in the Drawings which accompany my Specification, I also claim
my improved undulating plate or plates when combined with a rim and with
a hub which may be separated or divided transversely into two parts and
have its seperation between the two plates.
In witness whereof, I, the said Georgo W. Eddy, have hereunto set my
hand and scal, this Twenty-eighth day of November, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and forty-six.
GEORGE W. EDDY. (L.B.)
Taken and acknowledged by George W. Eddy
(party hereto), at Boston, in the United States
of America, this Twenty-eighth day of Novem-
ber, A.D. 1846, before me,
WILLIAM From
Sworn at the Public Office, Southampton
Buildings, Chancery Lane, this 3rd day
of May 1847, before me,
S. CARPMAEL,

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the oath of Samuel Carpmael
the Specification aforesaid was enrolled, word for word, as above written. And
also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the
Statute made for that purpose.
Enrolled the Third day of May, in the year of our Lord One thousand