A NEW OR IMPROVED TOBE EXPANDER AND TUBE CUTTER COMBINED
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Treat Timothy Prosser at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 8th
September 1870.
I, TREAT TIMOTHY PROSSER, of Chicago, Illinois, United States of
America, Engineer, at present residing at 198, Saint Vincent Street,
Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for "A NEW OR IMPROVED TOBE EXPANDER
AND TUBE CUTTER COMBINED," to be as follows, that is to say:-
This said Invention has reference to a more simple design, construc-
tion, and arrangement of the parts of a new or improved composite
tool for expanding and fixing the tubes in the tube plates of steam
boilers and other vessels, and also for cutting such tubes to a proper
length, or cutting tubes out of steam boilers or other vessels, all in a
more simple and easy manner than has heretofore been done by any of
the tube expanders and tube cutters hitherto in use, and heretofore
requiring these two classes of tools.
This Invention (or the nature thereof) consists in making the part
of the mandril or spindle of the tool which enters the tube of a cylin-
drical form, a little less in diameter than the inside of the smallest

page_text: tube within which it is required to act, and having two (by preference
parallel, equal sized,) segmental parts of the spindle cut away on
exactly opposite sides from near the point, where a short cylindrical part is
left to an considerable distance back (as say six or eight inches) with
two dovetail (__\) or inverted T "rebate" edged grooves, (✓5)
cut down the centre web thus left, and made deepest towards the point,
but parallel in width along the edges and on the sole, sufficiently long
for the centre part of the web left along the bottom of the grooves, to
form or give the wedge or double inclined plane action of and to the
expanding and abraising_rollers,-pulleys,-or-wheels,-and-cutter of the
tool. Three or more screw holes or other recesses are formed at equal
distances apart round the circumference of the cylindrical point of the
spindle left in front of the slots for the insertion of various heights of
casehardened bearing studs or other equivalents, so as to make it fit
and work steadily in the particular size of tube it is to operate on.
For being used as a tube expander and fixer the tool has and requires
only two expanding and abraising steel pulleys or wheels, by preference,
of a double convex shape in longitudinal section, carried on steel spindles
screwed into the abutting snags or ends of two sliding blocks, made to
fit and slide with the pulley wheel on them within the opposite dove-
tailed grooves and on the inclined under surfaces or wedge body part
of the main and actuating spindle (or vice versa the spindle on them)
which is thus steadied on each side at the rear end, in and over that
part of the various sized holes of the tube and tube plates, where the
expanding and abraising is effected by the pulleys, which revolve with
their axes parallel to the main axis in a plane at right angles through
it and the centre of the grooves, the main spindle thus forming both
the wedge and a guide in the opposite direction to and at the rollers,
where steadying bearing studs may also be used to suit different sizes
of tubes. Slide guide pieces are set and fixed to the rear end of the
sliding blocks by pinching screw or other equivalent, so as to act
on the end of the tubes or tube plates, and thus regulate and retain
the pulleys or wheels in the position where they are desired to act,
while their hollow curved shape and enlarged size towards the ends
cause them to expand and tighten the tube on either or both sides of
the tube plate as desired. The gradual insertion of the spindle while
being turned by hand with a key, “spanner," "dwang," ratchet or
other motive lever or equivalent on its outer prejecting end or head

page_text: carries round and forces out the sliding blocks and their pulleys, so as
to expand and fix the tubes in the effecent manner required and as
hercin-before described.
For making the tool to act as a tube cutter to cut the tubes at any
desired distance from their ends, regulated by the said slide guide pieces,
one of the expanding pulleys is removed and a segmental block or tool
holder is inserted and fixed in its stead and place in the sliding block
by a simple screw (as that forming the axis of the pulley) or other
equivalent, the narrow cutter being similarly in a slot in the tool
holding block in a transverse plane through the centre of the pulley
and a narrow segmental guide projecting part, which steadies and
supports the outer cutting end of the tool or cutter in the grooves
formed in the tubes by the cutter while they are being cut. The roller
left in the opposite sliding block receives the strain and steadies the rear
end of the spindle across it in the cutting direction, so that the simple
forcing in of the spindle while it is being turned by hand as herein-
before described for expanding and fixing tubes forces out the sliding
blocks in their angled grooves with the cutter and roller in opposite
directions, so as to cut through the tubes of various sizes from the inside
in a most effecient manner.