IMPROVED METHOD OF CASTING STEEL
Year: 1824

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, FRANCIS
HENRY WILLIAM NEEDHAM, of David Street, in the County of Middlesex,
Esquire, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth
did, by His Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United King-
dom of Great Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Seventh
day of October, in the fifth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the
said Francis Henry William Needham, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I,
the said Francis Henry William Needham, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend my "IMPROVED METHOD OF CASTING
STEEL," within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, in
such manner as to me, the said Francis Henry William Needham, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, should in our discretion seem meet;
in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that if 1, the said Francis
Henry William Needham, should not particularly describe and ascertain the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same
to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent, that
then the same Letters Patent, and all liberties and advantages whatsoever
thereby granted, should utterly cease, determine, and become void, as in and
by the said recited Letters Patent, relation being thereunto had, may more
5 fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Francis Henry William Needham, do hereby declare that the nature of my
said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, are particu-
larly described and ascertained as follows:-
My Improved Method of Casting Steel consists in melting the steel in large
quantities, in capacious pots, crucibles, or other suitable vessels, which are to
be fixed in furnaces; and, when so melted, of running the fused steel from the
said fixed crucibles or other vessels through lateral tubes to the moulds, instead
of withdrawing the melting pot or crucible from the furnace, and pouring off
the metal, as in the ordinary mode of casting. In the furnaces (which may be
constructed according to any of the usual plans) I fix the crucibles or melting
pots upon fire brick or stone bearers, so as to allow the fire to envelope them
in a similar way to the retorts for generating gas. The crucibles or melting
pots are to be made of fire stone, Stourbridge clay, or any other material that
will sustain the action of the fire. They are formed something in the shape of
troughs or deep dishes, with moveable covers on their top sides, and are placed
upon the bearers, inclining a little from the horizontal. At the lower part of
the crucible an aperture is made, from which a tube extends to the outside
of the furnace, and when the steel is perfectly fused a plug or stopper is to bu
withdrawn from the outer extremity of the tube, and the fluid metal allowed
to run off, which the inclined position of the crucible will facilitate. In this
way a single crucible or melting trough, or two or more crucibles or melting
troughs, may be fixed in one furnace, the fire being made to act upon them all
at the same time, by which means a larger quantity of steel may be fused for
casting them in the moveable crucibles, and consequently articles of greater
magnitude and substance may be cast in steel by these means than by the
modes heretofore adopted. As different quantities of steel require different
degrees of heat to bring it into fusion, it will be necessary to place that steel
which is least fusible in the crucible that is most powerfully acted upon by the
fire, and the more easily fusible in the further crucibles, by which means I am
enabled, in casting large and heavy articles, such as shafts or cylinders, to
employ steel of the best quality in casting such parts of the article as require it,
and an inferior kind of steel in the other parts, consequently I can produce
such articles at a less expence; for instance, in casting a large cylindrical
roller of steel, the interior of which might be of an inferior quality of
steel, I should place a cylinder of wrought iron within the mould as a partition,
and cause jets of fluid steel, of dissimilar qualities, to flow at the same time
from two of the crucibles into the moulds, by which means the fluid steel
would adhere to the wrought-iron cylinder, and thereby form a solid roller.

page_text: In casting articles of smaller dimensions in steel, such as horse shoes,
hammers, axletrees, and other things which have usually been forged, I pro-
pose to employ portable iron moulds, which, when properly braced together,
are to be brought under the jet of fluid steel, and held in such positions that
the metal may flow into the bottom of the mould, and thereby drive the air
upwards, which must be allowed to escape through small apertures.
It will hence be perceived that my claim of Invention consists in employing
fixed crucibles or melting pots for the fusion of steel which are to bo seated in
a furnace, and in causing the fluid steel to flow through pipes or tubes from
the crucibles to the moulds.
In adapting this Invention I do not mean to confine myself to the form or
dimensions of the melting pot, but employ such forms and dimensions as cir-
cumstances may render eligible. Neither do I confine my Invention to any
particular form or construction of furnace, but mean to employ such furnaces
as may be found best suited to the adaptation of my Invention.
In witness whereof, I, the said Francis Henry William Needham, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, this Seventh day of April, in the
year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and twenty-five.
(Ls.) F. H. W. NEEDHAM.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Seventh day of April, in the
sixth year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Fourth, the said
Francis Henry William Needham came before our said Lord the King in
His Chancery, and acknowledged the Instrument aforesaid, and all and every
thing therein contained and specified, in form above written. And also the
Instrument aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute
made in the fifty-fifth year of the reign of His late Majesty King George the
Third.