IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION OF IRON FOR PURPOSES WHERE GREAT TENSILE STRENGTH IS NECESSARY
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Michel Doubelt at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 31st
May 1872. A communication from abroad by Michel Pawlowitch
Lwoff, of St. Petersburgh, in the Empire of Russia.
I, MICHEL DOUBELT, of Berners Street, Oxford Street, in the County
of Middlesex, General in the Russian Cavalry, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION OF
IRON FOR PURPOSES WHERE GREAT TENSILE STRENGTH IS NECESSARY," to be as
follows:-
―:
This Invention relates to treating iron in a state of strips, thread, or
wire, and after it has been drawn or otherwise reduced in thickness, and
made into coils, hanks, or bundles, or after it has been made up into
sheets or other forms by weaving or by interlacing, so that the threads
cross one another diagonally or transversely, the thread or strips so
prepared are first laid or piled to the necessary height into a pyramidal,
lozenge, square, or other shape in cross section, and submitted to the
action of heat in a furnace or a forge and then transferred to an anvil or
a mould and struck by a steam or other hammer to amalgamate the
mass, and form as it were one body according to the purpose for which

page_text: it is intended, or the threads may first be only caused to adhere one to
the other under the action of the hammer, and then be reheated alone or
with other piles or layers before they are shaped.
The additional piles or layers may be in the same line or arranged
crosswise or diagonally as desired, the intention being to preserve the
grain or fibre as much as possible intact and yet in contact to resist
the breaking or tearing strain which the finished article is intended to
bear. In some cases. the coils, hanks, or bundles, are twisted, flattened,
or worked up before or after being piled, and the heated mass in all cases
can be passed through rolls or squeezers to unite the fibres and also to
shape the article, such as for rod bars, rails, slabs, or plates.
The mass may also be made to assume a shape suitable for coiling,
wrapping, or covering a mandrill, so that in the making of heavy or
light gun barrels or other hollow bodies or tubes the grain or fibres are
retained in a position best suited to resist latteral as well as longitudinal
strain.
The mandril itself may be hollow and may form the inner lining of
the body, supposing the article to be a heavy gun or piece of ordnance.
The bodies or masses of heated piled wire can be hammered on their
flat sides, or on their corners to produce the desired contour or shape and
to hold them together; they may also be bound round with other wires
which can be hammered with and into the pile to form part of the mass.
The prepared wire can be first twisted or coiled and then put upon a
mandril in a cold state, and be then heated and hammered or otherwise
operated upon to be united and shaped.
The main feature in the Invention is treating or preparing reduced
iron, such as wire, to amalgamate the threads or filaments for the purpose
of obtaining great tensile strength therefrom, also durability and density,
with a softness and elasticity which prevents a positive break under any
strain but rather a torn fracture.