IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON BARS, PLATES, SHEETS, OR SLARS
Year: 1872

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Robert Lake, of the Firm of Haseltine,
Lake, & Co., Patent Agents, Southampton Buildings, London, for
the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON BARS,
PLATES, SHEETS, OR SLARS."—A communication from abroad by Cyrille.
Jean Caumon (also known as John Absterdam), of the Oity of
Toulouse, France, now of the City and State of New York, United
States of America, Scientific and Mechanical Engineer.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION filed by the said William Robert Lake
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition
and Declaration, on the 17th April 1872, pursuant to the 9th
Section of the Patent Law Amendment Act, 1852.
•

page_text: WHEREAS I am in possession of an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON BARS, PLATES, SHEETS, OR SLABS," and have
petitioned Her Majesty to grant unto me, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, Her Royal Letters Patent for the same, and have made
solemn Declaration that it has been communicated to me from abroad by 5
. Cyrille Jean Caumon (also known as John Absterdam), of the City of
Toulouse, France, now of the City and State of New York, United States
of America, Scientific and Mechanical Engineer.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said William Robert Lake, do hereby -
declare that the following Complete Specification, under my hand and 1
seal, fully describes and ascertains the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed, in and by the following
statement, reference being had to the accompanying Drawings forming
a part of this Specification :-
The nature of this Invention consists partly in a process of producing 1
iron bars with case-hardened surfaces by first subjecting the iron bars in
a rough state to a process of case-hardening, then heating and passing
them through the finishing rollers in such a manner that bars are.
obtained of superior strength and better able to resist oxidation, and
furthermore these bars thus prepared are easily welded.
2
The said Invention consists further in a process of producing merchant-
able bars, plates, sheets, or slabs of wrought iron or pneumatic iron, or
both combined, by first subjecting the rough bars of iron to a process of
case-hardening, then fagoting, reheating, and rerolling the same. The
process of case-hardening being intended to impart to bars of wrought a
iron or pneumatic iron the quality of welding readily under a white heat,
and consequently of uniting firmly with each other when being fagoted,
reheated, and re-rolled.
The said Invention also consists in a merchantable bar, plate, sheet,
or slab composed of wrought iron or of pneumatic iron, when the rough
bars of wrought iron or pneumatic iron arc first subjected to a process of
case-hardening, and then reheated and passed through the finishing
rolls.
.
The said Invention consists further in a merchantable bar, plate, sheet,
or slab produced from bars of wrought iron or of pneumatic iron, or both
combined, when said bars are first case-hardened, then fagoted, reheated,
and no rolled

page_text: The said Invention consists further in a merchantable bar, plate, sheet,
or slab produced from a case-hardened pneumatic bar, plate, or billet
piled against the side of a wrought iron pile, then heated and rolled
into one body.
The said Invention consists also in a merchantable bar, plate, sheet, or
slab produced from a case-hardened pneumatic iron bloom and one or
more bars or slabs of wrought iron piled, heated, and rolled into one
body..
The said Invention consists further in a merchantable bar, plate, sheet,
or slab produced from a pile or fagot made of intermixed irregular pieces
of case-hardened iron, heated and rolled into one body.
The said Invention consists further in a merchantable railway bar
composed of wrought iron and case-hardened pneumatic metal, or case-
hardened wrought iron.
The said Invention also consists in a merchantable railway bar made
from a pile composed of irregular case-hardened or converted iron or
wrought iron.
-
The metal which is generally known by the term " Bessemer steel" is
in reality nothing else but a homogeneous iron, and it is generally used
only as a substitute for wrought iron. The characteristic features which
distinguish this metal from wrought iron are that the same is produced
directly from pig iron by a powerful pneumatic blast passing through
the molten mass, whereby the action of the oxygen of the air so
thoroughly incorporates the remaining impurities with the iron as to
allow of casting the metal into ingots, said metal containing only a small
proportion of carbon combined with the iron, while even the small
quantity of 0.20 per cent. of carbon combined with iron imparts to that'
metal the capability of being cast into ignots. But the high temperature
existing in tho "Bessemer process" causes a part of the silicon
together with the sulphur, phosphorus, and other impurities to combine
with the oxygen, carbon, and iron, and a metal is produced of a dry
nature under the influence of a white welding heat in contradistinction
to the pasty nature of wrought iron under similar circumstances. The
dry nature of the pneumatic metal prevents it from welding in the pile
or fagot into a united solid body. And in order to impart to the surface
of said metal a pasty nature, or the desired welding qualities, I subject
the pieces of pneumatic metal to a process of case-hardening; then I

page_text: construct the pile or fagot, and heat, and roll, or hammer the same as is
usually practised with wrought iron piles or fagots, with the exception
'that I manage the heat and allow the same number of passes through
the rolls as now done in rolling pneumatic metal.
When it is desired to re-roll old pneumatic" Bessemer" railway bars,
or the sawed ends of new bars into merchantable bars, plates, sheets, or
slabs, I cut and prepare the same in suitable pieces according to the
kind of pile or fagot which is to be formed, and, before forming the pile
I submit said pieces to a process of caso-hardening by heating them to a
red or white heat in contact with some carbonaceous substance, or in 1
contact with some matter containing carbon, in just the same manner as
that in which wrought iron is case-hardened, with the exception that I
generally continue the process of case-hardening until a large number of
small blisters make their appearance in the surface of the metal. The
carbon in removing the oxygen and sulphur contained in the exterior of 1
the metal renders the surfaces of the same pasty under a welding heat,
and the surfaces of the metal combine with the requisite amount of
carbon to render them'capable of being welded.
When the pieces of pneumatic metal have been thus prepared I form
them into a pile or fagot, and by heating and re-rolling them they become 2
firmly united.
The samo process is applicable for the purpose of re-rolling old wrought
iron railway bars. In their natural state such old wrought iron bars
being coated on their surfaces with oxide are very difficult to weld, but
if said bars are cut in pieces of suitable length and case-hardened the 2
oxygen and sulphur are removed from the exterior of the iron and a
sufficient quantity of carbon is absorbed by the surface of the metal to
impart to the same the required welding properties. After the pieces of
old wrought iron have been thus prepared I form a pile or fagot of
suitable shape, and heat and hammer or roll the same in the manner in 3
which old railway bars are now re-rolled.
The case-hardened pieces of wrought iron are used on the exterior of
the pile as well as on its interior, and since the exterior of the pieces
constituting the pile or fagot can be case-hardened to any desired depth,
I am enabled to produce bars, plates, sheets, or slabs from such pile or 3
fagot having alternate layers of case-hardened metal of any desired thick-
ness according to the quality of metal which I desire to manufacture.

page_text: If the object of case-hardening is simply to impart welding properties
to the metal only a superficial thickness of case-hardening is required,
and if the pieces of metal so case-hardened are formed into a pile or fagot
and then heated and rolled, I produce bars, plates, sheets, or slabs having
interlayers of case-hardened metal, as represented in the cross sections,
Figure 1, where 6 designates the iron and a the intermediate layers of
case-hardened metal. But when the object of case-hardening is the
imparting of additional strength to the articles so manufactured, besides
imparting welding properties to the metal, then I case-harden the pieces
of iron to be used in the pile or fagot to a greater depth; and when the
pile or fagot is formed, heated, and re-rolled, bars, plates, sheets, or
slabs are produced having thick interlayers of case-hardened metal,
as represented in the several sections shown in Figure 2, where b
designates the iron and a the layers of case-hardened mėtal.
If I pile or fagot case-hardened pneumatic metal and case-hardened
wrought iron in alternate layers, and roll the same, I produce bars,
plates, sheets, or slabs having interlayers of pneumatic metal or wrought
iron, as represented in the several cross sections in Figure 3, where i
designates the case-hardened wrought iron and p the case-hardened
pneumatic metal. By piling or fagoting pieces of old iron rails, or iron
slabs or bars, against the case-hardened side of a bar or slab of pneumatic
iron, and heating and rolling the same together into one body, I manu-
facture bars, plates, sheets, or slabs having one side made of case-
hardened pneumatic metal and the rest of wrought iron, as represented
in the several sections 'shewn in Figure 4, where i designates the wrought
iron and p the pneumatic metal.
By piling or fagoting wrought iron bars or plates against one or more
case-hardened sides of a pneumatic bloom, and heating the whole to a'
welding heat and rolling it together, I produce bars, plates, sheets, or
slabs of pneumatic metal with one or more sides of wrought iron, as
represented in the several sections shewn in Figure 5, where i designates
the wrought iron and p the pneumatic metal. But besides manufacturing
bars, plates, sheets, or slabs by piling or fagoting case-hardened short
bars, or slabs, or short pieces of the same, and heating and rolling the
said pile or fagot into one solid article of merchandise as before stated,
I also take ordinary scraps of wrought iron or pneumatic metal in small.
and irregular pieces, and submit the said irregular pieces of iron to the
process of case-hardening; and after they have been case-hardened I

page_text: •
This object I accomplish by case-hardening the old pneumatic iron or
"Bessemer" steel bars or pieces of such bars, as previously described, and
I also facilitate materially the operation of re-rolling old wrought-iron rails
by revivifying their welding properties by subjecting them to a process
of case-hardening, as above fully explained. Furthermore, in the
manufacture of railway bars of wrought iron, with heads made of
pacumatic metal, or in the manufacture of solid railway bars of
pneumatic metal with wrought-iron flanges, or in the manufacture of
plates composed of pneumatic metal and wrought iron for protecting
vessels of war and fortifications, or of plates for making bank vaults and
safes, and sheets for making steam boilers, and for various other purposes,
such as the construction of bridges, buildings, and steam vessels, or for
making agricultural implements, it becomes very important that the
pneumatic metal should be capable of being welded to wrought iron,
and by subjecting the pneumatic metal to the process of case-bardening
I have succeeded in accomplishing the desired result. The same remarks
apply to the process of re-rolling old wrought-iron railway bars, or
wrought-iron scraps, which I can accomplish successfully by case-
hardening such bars or scraps before they are piled or fagoted, thereby
revivifying their welding properties.
The said Invention is also of great advantage in the manufacture of
bars or skelps for making gun barrels from a pile or fagot made of case-
"hardened iron, the iron being piled or fagoted in an oblique or spiral
form. By these means I obtain a metal presenting a surface surrounded
with spirals or ribands, as shewn in Figure 8, at a comparatively small
cost. The bars having a spiral structure may also be employed with
advantage for shafts, braces, or belts, in the construction of bridges, or
of various kinds of machinery.
When it is required to re-roll old wrought iron into railway bars
provided with heads of pneumatic metal, or old railway bars of pneumatic
metal provided with wrought-iron flanges, or the sawed end pieces of new
railway bars made of wrought iron and pneumatic metal, I first separate
the pneumatic metal from the wrought iron by heating the rails or pieces
of rails to a red or white heat, and passing them through rolls of such a
shape as to produce deep grooves or indentations in the web of the rail,
near to the head or near to the flange, as shewn in Figures 9 and 10,
where A designates the pneumatic metal, B the wrought iron, and O the
indentation or groove. By these means the separation of the wrought

page_text: iron portion of the rail from the portion made of pneumatic metal is
materially facilitated. The same process can also be applied for the
purpose of separating the heads of rails made entirely of pneumatic metal
from their flanges in preparing that metal for re-rolling.
By piling or fagoting case-hardened pneumatic metal and wrought 5
iron together in alternate layers in an oblique or spiral form, and then
heating and hammering or rolling the same into bars or tubes, I obtain
a metal presenting a surface surrounded by spirals or ribands of inter-
mixed metal, as shewn in Figure 11, where a designates wrought-iron
and 6 pneumatic metal. Such bars or tubes possess great strength.
1
I will here simply stato that sometimes the case-hardening may be
performed by piling the iron and charcoal in alternate layers until the
desired pile or fagot is formed, then binding the same with iron straps
and covering or coating the said pile so formed with loam or clay and
submitting the same to the required heat in any desired furnace or oven. 1
And when small 'irregular pieces are to be case-hardened, I sometimes
introduce them into a thin sheet iron casing or sleeve mixed with finely
divided charcoal, then lute the joints with loam and submit the same to
the required heat in any suitable furnace.
The pile or fagot so case-hardened may then be raised to a welding 2
heat without being withdrawn from the fire until the same is welded
under the hammer or rolls and finished directly into the articles for
which the iron is intended. In this case only loosen the earthy
coating of the metal by turning the pilo over, and scrape off the loam
before raising the heat; as soon as the oxygen has free access to the 2
layers of carbonaceous substance between the bars, the same is burned
out while the pile is raised to a welding heat which allows the surfaces
of the metal to come together in the process of forging.
'
To produce a perfect welding of the iron rail pile and the head bar.
which I use in making steel-headed rails, I sometimes weld the pile in 3
the following manner:-When it is desired to produce a superior steel-
headed rail or a superior iron rail, I construct the pile in the manner
usually practiced, or in any manner suitable for the purpose, and as soon
as the pile has obtained the required welding heat, I draw it out of the
furnace and submit it to a powerful pressure under a hydraulic press, 3
and then I pass the pile immediately through rails until the rail is
finished. Figure 13 represents a cross section of a bydraulic press; A,

page_text: designates the cross section of the pile; B is the piston of the press;
C is the liquid used in forcing the piston during the operation of
pressing. The welding of the pile by direct pressure exerted all at once
over all the welding surfaces before the said pile is passed through the
rolls, incorporates all the surfaces that are to be welded into a solid mass
and prevents the splitting or separating of the ends of the pile, which
cannot be avoided if the pile is subjected to the first passes of the rolls
without being pressed.
•
. It is well known that the ends of a rail pile when the same is treated
in the manner generally practised, spread open as the pile is subjected,
to the first passes of the rolls, thus producing a bar as shewn in Figure
14, in which a and e designate the split ends produced by the action of
the rolls in welding, which splitting causes the metal to lose its welding
heat, and thereby an imperfect weld is produced, causing the necessity
of sawing from two to three feet from the rail at each end in order to
arrive at the sound metal. By first welding the pile by the action of a
hydraulic press the metal is sound up to very near the ends of the rail,
and therefore several feet of rail are saved at each end.
By taking thin flats rolled from old iron rails, or some other thin scraps
of wrought iron, or other decarbonized iron, and submitting them to a
rapid case-hardening under a high heat, or submitting them to a rapid
partial cementation in a cementing furnace, I obtain a mottled structure
of the metal in such a manner, that when the iron so case-hardened is
piled and the pile is heated and rolled into a head bar, and the said bar
placed on an iron rail pile, I produce a railway bar having the head or.a
part of the same mottled and granulated or crystallized so as to form an
interlocked texture of crystals and fibrous iron possessing great strength
and toughness of metal. This bar and pile are shewn in Figure 12.
This metal I produce in the cementing furnace or oven in contra-
distinction to the process now practised in converting iron into steel,
where the conversion must be produced very regularly to obtain a
uniform carbonization of the metal, whereas in my case uniformity of
carbonization is not required, and the only thing to be observed in my
process is not to let the metal absorb too much carbon, so as not to
interfere with its welding in the pile. This is very readily attained by
shortening the time of cementation or case-hardening: And by
cementing the iron under a higher temperature than that used in
obtaining a uniform product of blistered steel, the carbon penetrates the
-

page_text: metal more rapidly but is not so well distributed throughout the mass ·
as when the cementation is carried on under a lower heat, which takes a
long time and great caro in converting a charge of iron into good and
regular carbonized blistered steel.
But in cementing iron for fagoting or piling for the purpose of manu- 5
facturing steel-headed railway bars, according to my process the
irregularity of carbonization of the iron produces a mottled metal
consisting of an intermixture of crystals of steel, and fibrous iron, and I
obtain a metal that would be considered worthless as blistered steel, and
yet this irregular product is a good metal to be used as a substitute for 1
the metal known as "Bessemer steel" in the manufacture of said steel-
headed bars.
I will here simply state that instead of cementing the iron in contact
with some solid carbonaceous matter,
the process
of conversion may be
still further shortened by cementing the iron in contact with some 1
aĕriform fluid containing carbon, such as the vapours of some hydro-
carbon or carburretted gases; when these come in contact with the
heated iron under a white heat out of contact of the atmosphere, the
carbon of said fluids will penetrate the interior of the metal in about
the same number of hours as it now takes days in converting the same
quantity of iron into blistered steel.
But as before stated, the more rapidly the conversion is carried on the
more irregular will be the diffusion of carbon through the mass of metal,.
and the product of such rapid conversion will not be good blistered
steel; but in converting iron for my purpose the uniform diffusion is not
essential, as my object is principally to produce a steel-headed railway
bar possessing great strength and toughness of metal capable of resisting
the action of the wheels of the train and variations in the temperature
of the atmosphere under a lateral pressure, and although the dis-
tribution of carbon is not very regular yet it is more regular than in
puddled steel, and it is also more free from the impurities which always
'remain in the puddled or so-called pneumatic "Bessemer" steel.
And as wrought iron can always be produced from ores that cannot
be converted into pneumatic metal it becomes important to produce a
substitute for the said pneumatic metal in the manufacture of rails with
steel heads, as the cemented iron possesses the quality of welding.

page_text: Having thus fully described the said Invention, as communicated to
me by my foreign correspondent, and the manner of performing the
same, I claim,-
First. The within-described process of producing iron bars with case-
hardened surfaces, by first subjecting the iron bars in a rough state to
the process of case-hardening, then heating and passing them through
the finishing rollers substantially in the manner set forth.
Second. The within-described process of producing merchantable bars,
plates, sheets or slabs of wrought iron, or pneumatic iron, or both
. combined, by first subjecting the rough bars of-iron to a process of case-
hardening, then fagoting, re-heating, and re-rolling the same, sub-
stantially in the manner set forth.
Third. A merchantable bar, plate, sheet or slab, composed of wrought
iron or of pneumatic iron, when the rough bars of wrought iron or of
pneumatic iron are first subjected to a process of case hardening, and
then re-heated and passed through the finishing rolls, substantially as set
forth.
Fourth. A merchantable bar, plate, sheet or slab, produced from bars
of wrought iron or of pneumatic iron, or of both combined, when said
bars are first case-hardened, then fagoted, re-heated, and re-rolled,
substantially in the manner described.
Fifth. A merchantable bar, plate, sheet or slab, produced from a case-
hardened pneumatic bar, plate, or billet piled against the side of a
wrought-iron pile heated and re-rolled into one body, substantially as
represented in Figure 4.
Sixth. A merchantable bar, plate, sheet or slab produced from a case-
hardened pneumatic iron bloom and one or more bars or slabs of
wrought iron, piled, heated, and rolled into one body, substantially as
represented in Figure 5.
Seventh. A merchantable bar, plate, sheet or slab produced from a
pile or fagot made of intermixed irregular pieces of case-hardened iron
heated and rolled into one solid body, substantially as represented in
Figure 6.
Eighth. A steel-headed railway bar produced by fagoting or piling a
head bar or pieces of irregular steel of cementation to a wrought-iron
pile or fagot.

page_text: .
Ninth. Heating the rail pile to a welding heat, and welding the same
under the power of a suitable press capable of exerting a welding
pressure over the surface of the pile before entering the grooves of the
rolls, substantially as described.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Robert Lako, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Fifteenth day of April,.in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-
tvo
Witness,
EDWARD C. JACKSON.
WILL". ROBT. LAKE. (L.S.)