Improvements in and relating to Snap Hooks.
Year: 1895

page_text: Date of Application, 29th Oct., 1895-Accepted, 11th Jan., 1896
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in and relating to Snap Hooks.
I, RICHARD ALVIN BREUL, a citizen of the United States of America,
residing at 55 Beach Street, in the City of Bridgeport, County of Fairfield and
State of Connecticut, one of the United States of America, Inventor, do hereby
declare the nature of this invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:-
My invention consists in an improved snap hook, for use in connection with
halter chains and other suitable purposes, and is specially constructed to obtain at
the lowest possible expense a most compact, very serviceable, and substantial snap
book of unquestionable security and of much greater tensile strength than has
heretofore been obtained in any such device; and to employ for the construction
of said snap hook only one piece of round wire in a single layer or thickness.
As will be shown hereinafter, I have accomplished these results by flattening
certain parts of the wire blank so as to gain strength and elasticity wherever
required, and have provided for a mutual connection of the two ends of the wire,
effecting such a union between these ends that the snap will in operative use
virtually form a solid loop similar to a chain link, and no strain short of the tensile
strength of the weakest part of this loop can materially alter the general shape and
efficiency of the snap, or unbend the hooked end.
Referring to the former state of the art and to similar devices now known, my
improved snap is analogous in general construction and shape to the universally
known hand forged article appearing on the halters made of German coil chain.
This German device is bent from a flat piece of steel, but the metal is not brought
into good and favourable disposition, the whole device is cumbersome, larger and
heavier than necessary, rough to handle and hard to operate on account of the
unavoidable surplus of material contained therein; and also the hooked end and
the loop are only held in shape and place by their own bend, which may easily be
forced open or broken off. This latter defect has often attracted the attention and
skill of inventors, and some American Patents have been granted in which
provision was made for overcoming this objection. I am aware that snap hooks
have been made of a sheet metal blank, combined with a wide spring the end of
which has a large opening through which is passed all of the hook and the
fastening of the device to a ring or other object is effected on the reverse side of
the spring.
As will be shown, my snap hook, by means of its construction or arrangement,
and the manipulation of the wire employed for its formation, can be made from
any size of material in as compact a form as any of the regular halter snaps now in
use and with a spring action as sensitive and yielding to the touch and as positive
in its return as that in any known first-class snap hook, which are now formed with
separate specially attached springs, of either flat, coiled, or other very elastic
construction.
I will now proceed to describe in detail my improved snap hook, the manipulation
of the material for properly constructing the same, and the procedure and operations
I use for arriving at the completely finished article.
In the accompanying drawings-
Figure 1 is a view of the original round wire blank, as cut from the wire coil;
Figure 2 shows in detail the straight swaged blank;
Figure 2 shows the same with the locking tooth and slot formed in its ends;

page_text: Figure 3 is a side view of the completed snap hook; Figure 4 is a perspective
view of the same;
Figure 5 is a side view showing the spring pressed back; and
Figures 6, 7 and 8 show, respectively, a side, a front, and a detail view of the
snap hook, showing a deviation in the locking device, as hereinafter described.
In the construction of my improved snap hook, the round wire blanks A, are cut
from a coil of wire, and as the blank is elongated by the flattening process herein-
after described, the round wire blank is cut considerably shorter, about one-fifth,
than the required length of the body of the completed hook. The ends of the
blank are then swaged in a cold state between suitable press or drop-dies, or
eccentric rolls, under heavy pressure, in the following manner :-About two-thirds
of the length of the blank are flattened out by pressure of the rolls or dies to one
end, from the point a to the end a', increasingly broadening from the width of the
round stock at the point a to the end a¹, this broadened spring end forming the
combined shank, spring loop and spring proper of the finished snap hook.
The other end, a, of the blank is cold swaged and flattened in a plane at right
angles to that of the main flattened portion a-a', forming the flattened hook end,
which, when the two straight ends of the blank are brought together in the
completed hook, intersects or meets the spring end at the central line of the same
and at a plane at right angles to that of said spring end. This cold swaging of the
spring end a-a' imparts to it a high temper, and the swaged flattened ends are
then shaped for interlocking by cutting from the inner side or edge of the hook
end a² a tooth-forming recess b, leaving the locking tooth b', while a tooth engaging
slot c is cut or punched in the flat spring end a¹.
The blank is then bent or curved to form the spring loop B and spring C; and,
lastly, the other flattened end a² is curved to form the hook D; while the spring C
is held close against the shank body, and the exact adjustment given to the hook-
end to cause its tooth b¹ to exactly engage with the slot in the spring end.
In Figures 6, 7 and 8, I have shown the link body formed in precisely the same
way, but the spring end formed by notching or recessing it on each side, with the
locking head or end E, and the end of the hook divided into a V-shape, so that its
extremities will engage on each side of said locking head, as shown.
It is obvious that other styles of snaps, whether made from wire, sheet-metal,
malleable iron, etc., if they embody a hook and a flat spring resting against the
inner side of it, can be provided with the locking arrangement I have described,
but the spirit of my present invention, or a substantial part of it, will be involved
if a connection between the two solid and unbent ends of the hook and spring is
effected by the means herein shown.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim, is :-
1. As a new article of manufacture, a snap hook, made from a single piece of
wire, having an increasingly broadened combined shank, spring-loop, and spring
end, and a flattened hook end overlapping said spring, and means for interlocking
the parallel overlapping unbent ends, substantially as set forth.
2. A snap hook made from a single piece of wire in only one layer, bent into the
well-known general shape shown, and formed with the broadened elastic portion
comprising part of the shank, the spring-loop, and spring, and the intersecting
broadened hook end, formed in a plane at right angles to that of the spring and
having cut in its inner edge the tooth-forming recess, and a corresponding tooth-
engaging slot formed in the spring, substantially as set forth.
Dinted thi 00th of October 100K
JENSEN & SON,
77, Chancery Lane, London, W.C., Patent Agents.