A NEW AND USEFUL OR IMPROVED YELLOW METAL SHEATHING NAIL OR SPIKE WHICH BY MEANS OF A NAIL-CUTTING ENGINE IS CUT FROM YELLOW SHEATHING METAL
Year: 1863

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Samuel Leonard Crocker, of Taunton, in the County
of Bristol and State of Massachusetts, of the United States of America,
for the Invention of "A NEW AND USEFUL OR IMPROVED YELLOW METAL
SHEATHING NAIL OR SPIKE WHICH BY MEANS OF A NAIL-CUTTING ENGINE IS
CUT FROM YELLOW SHEATHING METAL."
Sealed the 27th May 1868, and dated the 19th March 1863.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION filed by the said Samuel Leonard Crocker
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition and
Declaration, on the 19th March 1863, pursuant to the 9th Section of the
Patent Law Amendment Act, 1852.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, BE IT KNOWN,
that I SAMUEL LEONARD CROCKER, of Taunton, in the County of Bristol and
State of Massachusetts, of the United States of America, have invented a
"NEW AND USEFUL OR IMPROVED YELLOW METAL SHEATHING NAIL OR SPIKE WHICH
BY MEANS OF A NAIL-CUTTING ENGINE IS CUT FROM YELLOW SHEATHING METAL,"
and I do hereby declare that the nature of the said Invention, and the
manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully set forth in the following
Specification.
The yellow metal above referred to is a composition of about sixty parts of
copper and forty parts of zinc. It is rolled into plates of sufficient thickness
and shape to be cut up into nails. It is such a composition as is now exten-
sively used in lieu of sheet copper for the sheathing of navigable vessels. In

page_text: consequence of the difficulties heretofore supposed to exist in the manufacture
of yellow metal nails and spikes, it has been customary to cast or found them
from a composition of copper, zinc, and some other metal, it having been dis-
covered that nails could not be made to advantage by casting them from
copper and zinc combined together in the proportions of sixty parts of the
former to forty of the latter. To do so either a different proportion of copper
and zinc or an addition of some other metal was required. When in a cold
state the yellow metal cannot be used for the manufacture of cut nails or spikes
in a nail-cutting machine, the great frangibility of the metal preventing the
nails or spikes from being cut and headed; I have discovered that by heating
it to redness or thereabouts, and while so heated introducing it into the nail
or spike machine, it may be safely cut up into nail blanks, and each of said
blanks be headed by the machine. After the nails or spikes, as the case may
be, have been thus made, they are to be again heated to or about to redness
and when so heated they are to be plunged into cold water, in consequence
thereof their brittleness will be so overcome as to render them capable of being
bent or driven without that danger of being broken under such operations as
the common cast composition nails or spikes would be subject to. This mode
of making either a nail or a spike of the yellow metal enables me to produce
one which, although it may not have but two-thirds the amount of metal in it
that a cast composition nail or spike may have, yet it will possess quite as much
if not more strength. This renders my yellow metal nails or spikes, as the
case may be, much cheaper than the cast nails or spikes, besides being a far
better article, particularly on account of the perfection with which the head is
made, the cast composition nail having its head rough and jagged, and so much
so that in consequence thereof a great objection arises to their use as sheathing
nails. I would further remark that the rough state in which the heads of the
cast composition nails are generally found tend to render foul the bottom of a
vessel. The heads of the composition nails cannot be smoothed without much
expense, to which my yellow metal is not subject owing to the perfection with
which the head of it can be formed by the nail machine. The yellow metal
nail made of copper and zinc in the same or in substantially the same propor-
tions as such metals are combined in order to produce the yellow metal
sheathing prevents, when it is used to confine the yellow metal sheathing
to a vessel's bottom, any galvanic action, such as takes place when
either copper or composition nails are used. This galvanic action, destroys
the metal but protects the nails. When the metals are combined in the nails
in different proportions to what they are in the sheathing more or less galvanic
action accrues, this always tending to the destruction of the metal immediately

page_text: around the nails; so when the metals (that is copper and zinc) are
combined with some other metal (tin for instance), which they must be in order
to enable them to be cast into nails in a workmanlike manner, or to advantage
such nails when used to secure sheathing to the bottom of a vessel are liable
to the effects of galvanic action and soon destroy the metal near the heads,
whereas my improved yellow metal nail being made of the same materials
as the sheathing, and combined in the same proportions, is not only not subject
to galvanic action, but is more durable in consequence thereof, and can be made
as strong as the composition nail with a much less quantity of metal, conse-
quently it is not only cheaper than either the composition or the copper nails,
but possesses advantages of strength and durability which they do not. The
cast composition nail or spike owing to its brittleness cannot be driven without
great care, whereas my yellow metal nail or spike, being tougher and more
maleable, can be driven without the same difficulty.
I wish it distinctly understood that I lay no claim to the Invention of either
a cast copper nail, or a cast composition nail made of copper and zinc com-
bined in different proportions from that in which they are combined in the
yellow metal (known in commerce as "Muntz's sheathing metal"), or combined
in the same proportions and with some other metal, but what I do claim as
my Invention is the new article of manufacture herein above described, viz., a
yellow metal nail or spike made by the combined processes of heating the
metal to redness, and while in such state cutting and heading it in a nail
machine, and subsequently treating it substantially as described, meaning by
the term yellow metal a metal composed of copper and zino in the proportions
in which they are usually combined in the manufacture of the well-known
"Muntz' sheathing metal."
In witness whereof, I, the said Samuel Leonard Crocker, have hereunto
set my hand and seal this 97th February 1863.
SAMUEL LEONARD CROCKER. (L.S.)