IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF TAPER TUBES, AND IN THE
Year: 1853

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Ferdinand Potts, of Birmingham,. in the
County of Warwick, Tube Manufacturer, for the Invention of
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF TAPER TUBES, AND IN THE
"
Sealed the 20th March 1854, and dated the 20th September 1853.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Ferdinand Potts
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 20th September 1853.
I, FERDINAND POTTS, do hereby declare the nature of my said Inven-
tion for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF TAPER TUBES, AND IN
THE APPARATUS CONNECTED THEREWITH," to be as follows (that is to
say):-
My improvements in the manufacture of taper tube may be divided
into two parts: first, as to the mode of cutting or sharpening the metal
for taper tube; and, secondly, in the mode of finishing such tubes.
The manner I propose to cut or form the metal, which of course
must vary in shape according to the length or amount of taper require.l
is this: I provide myself with two strips of iron or such suitable
material of sufficient strength; those strips I fasten together at one

page_text: end with a hinge joint, and at the other I apply a segment, the centre
of which is the joint before described; this enables me to open them
to the desired angle to form the guide for cutting the metal for the
tube, and allows me to use circular shears for that purpose. This
árrangement also enables me to work with great precision and despatch.
The metal so formed is bent up on a mandril, and brazed at the joints
ready to receive my next improvement, which is to apply a pressure to
the surface of the tube by turning the mandril around with the tube
on it, and at the same time pushing it forward and backward under
the pressure untill the whole surface is made smooth and uniform, such
pressure being obtained by a suitable lever.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Ferdinand Potts in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 20th March 1854.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,
FERDINAND POTTS, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Tube
Manufacturer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twentieth day of September, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, in the
seventeenth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and succes-
sors, give and grant unto me, the said Ferdinand Potts, Her special
license that I, the said Ferdinand Potts, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, or such others as I, the said Ferdinand Potts, my execu-
tors, administrators, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the
Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN THE MANUFACTURE OF TAPER TUBES, AND IN THE APPARATUS CONNECTED
THEREWITH," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said
Ferdinand Potts, by an instrument in writing under my hand and
seal, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said

page_text: Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed, and
cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six
calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said
Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Ferdinand Potts, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement (that is to say):
My Invention consists, first, in the mode of preparing or cutting out
the flat pieces of iron or other metal from which I
propose to make my
taper tubes; and, secondly, in the means of rounding or finishing such
tubes after they have been rudely put into form by the usual process of
malletting and soldering. And it may assist if I first describe the mode
now used for cutting out pieces of metal for taper tubes, which is done
by first preparing a pattern, and laying such pattern down upon the
sheet or sheets of metal intended to be cut up, scribing the shape of
such pattern on the sheet of metal as many times as the sheet of
metal will admit of; after which each piece is cut off either by
circular or common shears; and as such plan of working prevents
any great accuracy in the size of each piece or straitness on the
edges that are to be united, as also occupying much time to get
an unsatisfactory result, it is with a view of obviating those objec-
tions that I have adopted the following plan:-Having provided
myself with circular or other shears, and a suitable bed for the
sheet of metal to lay on while being cut, in which bed I have a
sunken groove at right angles with the axis of the shears, and I also
have a portable bar of iron, to be removed or applied to the bed at
pleasure, such bar (on the under side or sides) corresponding with the
groove in the bed in which it is intended to move, as herein-after de-
scribed. At one end of the bar I have a fixed jaw, and at the other a
sliding jaw, the use of which is to hold lengthwise the sheet of metal
intended to be cut up, and such sheet of metal being secured in its
right position, it is drawn along on the bed, with the bar working in
the guide or groove, and the outer edge of the metal, which is always
ragged and untrue, is taken off, leaving a perfectly straight and smooth

page_text: edge on the sheet of metal, which is now to be removed from the bar
and further cut up into taper strips or pieces in the following way :-
I prepare a flat piece of wood or iron sufficiently long for the tubes
required, and wide enough to enable me to regulate the amount of
taperness I may wish to give to them. Upon this piece of flat wood or
metal I lay an angle piece of iron fastened (with a hinge joint at one
end) by a regulating screw, and at the other by a set screw working
through a slot, which enables me to adjust this angle strip of iron in
such a way as I may wish, according to the amount of taperness
required in the finished tube; or I may fix the angle iron in any
required obliquity, and keep it for a fixed pattern, and prepare such
for every size of tube I require, thus preventing the necessity of setting.
Against the vertical side of the angle iron here described I place the
prepared or straight edge of the sheet of metal to be cut up, and pass it
between the shears, turning ends to the remaining portion, and passing
it again through the shears, and thus alternately changing ends to the
metal with each piece that is cut off until the whole is divided, making
no waste, and preserving great accuracy in the size of all, with truth
or straitness on their edges. Passing over the operation in which I
have no novelty, namely, that of malletting and soldering, I come to
the second part of my Invention: I fix the tube so rudely rounded
and soldered on to a mandril of the same degree of taperness as the
tube, and connect the mandril (with the taper tube on it) to a mandril
working in journeys with a fast and loose clutch, which mandril may
be driven by steam, water, or hand power, causing the taper mandril
with the unfinished taper tube to revolve at any required speed, the
tube and mandril resting in a V groove or bed; and by means of a
suitable lever, the end of which works along in a groove just above and
behind the tube and mandril, and by pressing the lever on the tube
downward and backward and forward at the time it is revolving, I am
enabled to round the tube into a smooth and uniform shape, after which
it is drawn from the mandril a finished tube, to be ornamented according
to the nature of the metal or the purpose for which it may be required.
In some instances it may be more advantageous to carry the lever
backwards and forward on the tube by means of an endless chain or

page_text: screw motion, as in that case, as no judgment is required from the
operator, only pressure on the lever, an inferior class of labour or skill
may be employed. But in order that I may be clearly understood how
I propose to give effect to my Invention I will proceed to describe the
Drawings hereunto annexed, in which I have exhibited the application
of the screw as a means of carrying along the lever at the same time it
is pressed down on the tube, as I believe it presents the best means
of effecting the object set out in the second or last part of my
Invention.
DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING.
Fig. 1, represents the front view of a circular shears provided with
the bed A, A, and groove B, B, best seen in Fig. 2, which is an end
view of Figure 1. The bed is supported by the iron or wood brackets
C, C, secured to the wood stand D, on which the frame E, for the
circular shears and shears F, F, also rest, the same being of the usual
construction, with the exception of the guide pieces G, G, projecting
from the frame E, exactly at right angles with the axis of the shears.
Fig. 3, represents a side view of the sliding bar I, I, that works in
the groove B, B; H, being the fixed jaw, and J, the sliding one;
the blue line representing the edge of a sheet of metal held down on
the bar by the set screws K, K. I have also exhibited a top view of
the bar, Fig. 4, and sheet of iron secured in its right position ready to
be passed along the bed and through the shears for trimming or true-
ing the edge, which I have represented by a dotted line at L, L, and
it will be observed that from the dotted line L, L, to the points of the
jaws M, M, is the exact distance from the cutters or shears, as exhibited
in Figure 2, to the angle of the groove B, shewing that the workman
has only to compute the inequalities of the edge, when he will know
how to set or secure the sheet of iron on the bar so as not to cut off
more than is necessary. I have further shown an end view of the bar I,
and jaw J, at Fig. 5, shewing the sheet of iron by a blue line. This
brings me to the next process, which I have represented at Fig. 6,
being the regulating guage for cutting the taper pieces of iron or other
metals. I, is a flat piece of iron or wood, and M', M', an angle piece

page_text: of iron, fitted with a hinge joint at N, a part of which joint laps over
on L, and is held by the set screw 0, which, passing through the
slot P, P, allows a sufficient range for the guide M, at that end, the
other end being also held by the set screw Q, working through the
slot R, R. A piece of thin iron S, S, S¹, S³, is also represented as
being the shape it would assume if cut to such a guage, but it will be
necessary for me to observe that S¹, S¹, and L, I, are exactly parallel,
or equal distant, and which is also the exact distance that is between
the guides G, G, and the cutting edges of the shears F, F, as exhibited
in Figure 2, through which it passes to be cut, as the part L, rests upon
the bed T, and against the guides G, G, while the sheet of iron to be
cut up will rest in or on the angle iron M, M³, and is passed under or
between the shears, cutting off a piece, as exhibited at S, S, S, S, in this
Figure, a section of which, taken through the dotted lines U, U, is
exhibited at Fig. 7, shewing an end view of the part L, and angle iron
M. Fig 8, and 9, represent a top and front view of my machinery
for finishing or rounding taper tubes, consisting of the driving shaft A',
and fast clutch B', with the mandril C', working in the journeys D, D,
and when in work the clutch E¹, must be brought into contact with
the clutch B', giving motion to the taper mandril F, F, which is united
to the mandril C, by a loose pin, shewn in dotted lines, and the set screw
at g. Along the bed or top of the frame h, is a V groove for the taper
mandril to lay in while in work, as in this case, for I have shewn at
H, H, a tube on the mandril ready for finishing. At the back of the
frame, working in the journeys j, j, is the screw K', which forms a
fulcrum or upper bearing for the lever G', and by means of the clip,
which is wormed to fit the worm of the screw, it is evident that as the
screw revolves by being connected with the mandril C, by the cog
wheels m, and m', the clip k, will be taken along by the screw K', and
with it the lever G', to which it is united; and according to the amount
of pressure or weight placed on the small end of the lever so will the
pressure be diminished or increased that is given out by the lever
pressing on the tube; and in order that that part should not wear away
I have fitted a steel burnisher, such as is shewn at M, Figure 9, which
represents a section of the lever through the part where the burnisher

page_text: is applied. The cog wheel m', attached to the screw being larger than
the one on the mandril C, it is evident that the taper mandril, with the
tube, will revolve much faster than the screw, and the horizontal
motion of the lever be very slow, in order that the taper tube may
receive the necessary amount of pressure for rounding and burnishing.
Fig. 10, represents an end view of Figure 9, and Fig. 11, a section
of the same taken through W, W, and I have lettered the same parts
with the same letters as they are exhibited in each Figure. When the
clip k, is taken on with the lever to the end of the screw the clip will
rest up against the blank part of the screw at O', when the small end
of the lever can be raised up until the projection P', rest in the longi-
tudinal groove R, shewn only in the section, Figure 11, and the lever
with the clip can now be brought back to repeat the same operation on
the same tube, or the tube can be easily removed from the mandril, and
another one applied.
-
Having thus described my Invention, and the means of carrying
the same into effect, I wish it understood that the modes of realizing
my object, as represented in the Drawings, are susceptible of cousi-
derable modification, as, for instance, the motion obtained by the screw in
Figures 8, and 9, may be also obtained with an endless chain, or the lever
may be forced onward by the operator while at work, having obtained a
purchase on the tube from a simple projecting piece secured to the
frame; and the guage, Figure 6, may be made permanent, but in that
case a guage would be required for every size tube that may be required
be made; as also the bar exhibited at Figures 3, 4, and 5, for cutting
or trueing the edges of sheet iron or other metal requiring to be cut
up into given sizes, it will be easily conceived that a projection on the
bed, with a corresponding groove in the bar, would produce the same
result.
But what I claim as my Invention is, first, the trueing the edges,
and cutting up sheets of metal into pieces for taper purposes, without
first marking or scribing the shape of the piece or pieces to be cut out
with circular or other shears.
And, secondly, I claim as my Invention the mode of rounding or
finishing taper-tubes by gradually applying pressure downward on the

page_text: face of the tube at the same time that the tube is revolving on a suit-
able mandril, as herein described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Ferdinand Potts, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Eighteenth day of March, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-four.
FERDINAND POTTS. (L.S.)