AN IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR CASTING AND FINISHING TYPES AND VIGNETTES USED FOR PRINTING
Year: 1857

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by François Constance at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 26th January
1857.
I, FRANÇOIS CONSTANCE, of Paris, in the Empire of France, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR
CASTING AND FINISHING TYPES AND VIGNETTES USED FOR PRINTING," to be as
follows:-
The types or castings employed for printing from, as cast by the ordinary
process, require to be subsequently finished off, that is to say, to have the
superfluous metal and inequalities left by the process of casting removed from
their various parts. This process of finishing, though usually performed by
hand, is in some cases executed more or less by mechanical means, which,
however, leave much to be desired, both as regards the perfect execution of
the work and economy of time.
The object of the present Invention is to effect both the casting and finish-
ing of the types or other castings aforesaid in a more perfect and economical
manner than heretofore:
The first part of my Invention has reference to the furnace employed for
melting and maintaining the required metal in a melted or fused state. The
ordinary furnaces employed for this purpose consist of a reservoir for fusing
and containing the fused metal, communicating with a chamber from which
the fused or molten metal is drawn off as required. As the level of the fused

page_text: metal contained in the reservoir lowers, fresh blocks or portions of cold or
unmelted metal are added thereto to make up the deficiency. The umelted
metal thus introduced immediately absorbs a considerable amount of heat,
thus causing a sudden cooling of the molten metal, which is very prejudicial
to the success of the operation of casting. To remedy this defect, I make
use of an additional reservoir, suitably prepared and heated for fusing and
maintaining the metal in a fused state. This additional reservoir com-
municates with the reservoir before mentioned in such manner, that as
the metal is drawn off from the first-named reservoir a proportionate quantity
may be supplied to it from the additional reservoir by means of the before-
named communication between the two reservoirs. The blocks or pieces
of cold or unfused metal required to be supplied as the fused metal is
used are added, and their fusion is effected in the additional reservoir.
By this arrangement the metal contained in the principal reservoir is main-
tained at an equable or nearly equable temperature and level. By means of
a piston working in a cylinder connected with the chamber before mentioned
and suitably actuated, a due amount of the molten metal is at proper intervals
injected into a horizontal mould, wherein the type or vignette is formed. The
type or vignette is then by the action of the apparatus carried forward between
two cutters suitably actuated, which remove the burrs or excess of metal, left
by the process of casting, from two of the faces of the type or character and
polish them. The type or vignette then passés under the action of a cutter,
which removes the jet or superfluous metal attached to the casting at the end
whereby it was fed; it is then forced between two cutters, which remove the
burrs from the two remaining faces or sides of the type or vignette, and polish
them, and is lastly subjected to other cutters, which act upon and dress its
respective ends. The types or vignettes thus finished may then be conducted
so as to fall into a drawer or other receptacle
::
For writing or scrip characters or type I employ an arrangement of hori-
zontal mould; which is readily adaptable to the foregoing "apparatus, and may
be worked by the same means as those employed in the casting of the ordinary
'printing types above mentioned.
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