PROTECTING SHIPS AND OTHER VESSELS, BUILDINGS, WORKS OF CONSTRUCTION, AND OTHER BODIES
Year: 1860

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Mathias Anthony Josepli Dahmer
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
1st November 1860.
I, MATHIAS ANTHONY JOSEPH DAHMEN, of Peckham; Engineer, do hereby.
declare the nature of the said Invention for "PROTECTING SHIPS AND OTHER
VESSELS, BUILDINGS, WORKS OF CONSTRUCTION, AND OTHER BODIES," to be as
follows:-
This Invention consists in a novel mode of mounting and securing plates of
iron, steel, or other suitable material, so that the force of impact, and the shock
or blow is received and absorbed by an elastic bed, or arrangement of elastic
materials or apparatus disposed behind the plates and their bolts or fastenings,
and, whilst freedom of action is permitted to the extent corresponding with the
maximum effect of any blow which the material, and the means for supporting
it, is calculated to provide, the requisite solidity and uniformity of face may
be preserved when the protecting plates or armour are in their normal condition.
And for the further protection of such metallic plates or armour I apply an
external coating of any required thickness, of wood or other suitable material.
I take plates of iron, steel, or other material, of a square, parallelogram, or
other shape, and of external form suited to the purpose for which they are
intended, and for the purpose of securing them in position I rivet or otherwise
secure thereto bolts of suitable length, parallel and true to the extent of the
travel or amount of motion of which they are capable, for the purpose of
enabling them to slide back and forth, either in holes suitably prepared, or in

page_text: tubes or ferules, and around any suitable part of each of such bolts, either
alone, or in addition to other elastic material disposed behind each plate, I place
or provide spiral or other form of springs, or elastic or other material, for the
purpose of pressing back or returning the plates into their normal position, and
the inner ends of such bolts may be screwed and have nuts thereon, or slots
with cotters or keys.
The plates may either be plain, of the ordinary form, and with square or
rounded edges, or they may have a flange, either square or curved, or of other
convenient form or section, so as to form a series of cells within which the
springs, or elastic pads, or bedding, may be disposed.
For protecting ships of war, and for other such purposes, I prefer to
externally cover the iron plating (provided with elastic backing as described)
with hard wood, or woods of different degrees of hardness, so that the blow,
instead of acting by the limited area of first contact upon the hard metal, of
itself comparatively unyielding, and so produce the effect known as "punching,"
I am enabled to absorb and render harmless the intensity of the blow upon the
iron, and distribute it over an enlarged surface of the metal plating or armour,
which, in turn, is allowed to play, by the interposition of the elastic backing
or bed, and other elastic arrangements interposed behind or between the plates
and the body upon which they are mounted. Such external coating applied to
the metallic plates or armour may be rendered uninflammable by any of the
well known means employed for that purpose.