IMPROVE- MENTS IN COVERING OR ROOFING BUILDINGS, AND IN ENAMELLED SHEET OR CAST IRON TILES FOR THE SAME
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Leopold Gilquart at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 11th March 1880.
LEOPOLD GILQUART, of La Buissière, in the Kingdom of Belgium. " IMPROVE-
MENTS IN COVERING OR ROOFING BUILDINGS, AND IN ENAMELLED SHEET OR
CAST IRON TILES FOR THE SAME."
This Invention relates to a new or improved system of covering or roofing
buildings with enamelled sheet or cast iron tiles.
The sheet or cast iron tiles constituting this improved covering are enamelled on
both sides, a fluting or groove being formed in the middle of their length, and their
edges are bent over, the one above and the other below in such manner that on
being placed in position they exactly overlap one another.
At the top is a hook of a piece with the sheet iron plate forming the tile, which
is used to fasten them (the tiles) to the laths, either enamelled iron or wood. The
extremities of the iron laths or rafters are inserted into the framing or rafters
of the roof, and the wooden ones are nailed.
In the middle about the top of each piece is rivetted in the fluting a second hook
made of band iron, destined to receive and to hold the upper tile. The second hook
may be placed in a reverse direction at the back of the upper tile, in such a manner
as to hook with the under tile.
The said second hook might also be replaced by a button formed with a spike,
and either with flat, square, round, or oval head, and with the spike divided as a
swallow tail, which said button is fixed in the channeling below the upper tile.
The button can be placed in the lower part at the back of the upper tile, then a
small groove is made at the top of the under tile with which the tail of the button.
will engage.
_ The tiles may be made of various form and size if required, as follows:-
They may be flat; in that case a square enamelled iron or zinc hook is fixed at
their top in order to hook them with the laths. In the middle part of each tile is
fixed a button with a flat head, and at the under part of the said tiles is made a slot
or cut in which enters the tail of the button, in such a manner that the upper tile
reposes upon the head of the button of the under tile.
The tiles may be flat and square, and placed upon the roof similarly to slates;
they are attached to the laths by means of a zinc wire, which passes through a hole
made at the upper corners of the tile, and passing around the lath; the upper tiles

page_text: repose upon the under ones by means of buttons, as already explained. They may
be also placed upon rafters and nailed like slates. The tiles may be placed upon
the roof in a continuous line, and in this case at the break between the tiles there
is placed underneath a strip of felt or a hemp band, or any other equivalent
material, coated with either fat or resinous matters, in order to prevent the passage
of water or snow.
The tiles may be made with an indentation or pannel in their middle.
The tiles may be attached by the means of zinc or galvanised wire to the laths
in two different ways; the wire may at first turn round the lath and pass through
the holes of the tile, and be folded in such manner that each end of the wire is
folded or clinched in an opposite direction, or the wire will first pass through the
hole of the tile, and then around the lath and be twisted.