CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN ROLLING AND FINISHING REGULAR OR IRREGULAR ANGLE CHANNEL AND OTHER SECTIONS OF IRON OR STEEL FOR VARIOUS PURPOSES
Year: 1877

page_text: "
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Brownhill at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 28th February 1877.
WILLIAM BROWNHILL, junior, Chairman of the Birchills Hall Iron Company, and
THOMAS HENRY SMITH, Roll Turner, both of Walsall, in the County of Stafford.
'CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN ROLLING AND FINISHING REGULAR OR IRREGULAR
ANGLE CHANNEL AND OTHER SECTIONS OF IRON OR STEEL FOR VARIOUS
PURPOSES."
In 1875 we applied for and obtained Her Majesty's Letters Patent for "Certain
Improvements in Rolling Strip Hoop Bars or other Sections of Iron or Steel,"
No. 3368, and the system of rolling described in the Specification of the said Patent,
we purpose utilizing to a certain extent in giving effect to our present improvements
in the manufacture of angle iron and other sections herein-after mentioned, in the
production of which it has hitherto been formed from the pile, after breaking down
by being worked through angular grooved rolls, and delivered from thein in a
finished condition, from which it will be understood that the meeting of the finishing
grooves represents (in the hollow) the exact counterpart of the angular section
desired to be rolled; that is to say, the true form and extent of the sectional angle,
has been imparted to the iron from the form of the grooves through which it has
passed from the heated pile to the finished angle. Angular iron thus produced has
the disadvantage of being restricted in its length, as also of not being evenly worked
or rolled down from the pile in its granular structure; but by our improved means of
rolling, we purpose reducing the pile to a strip or bar of the required thickness and
finish on the edges, an operation done with unusual rapidity, as the strip when rolled
is still in a highly heated condition, which we utilize by at once pointing or shaping
the strip so formed, and sending it through angular grooved rolls working in the
same or other convenient train, thus converting the strip technically into angle iron,
in which process great diversity of size and shape may be imparted, as for instance,
the angle of the iron may be right, cute, or obtuse, a positive angle on its exterior
and rounded and strengthened on the interior, or rounded both in the interior and
exterior; or one flat portion of the angle may be narrower or wider than the other,
and the length limited to the size or quantity of metal in the pile or bloom under
operation.

page_text: In some cases for large strong sections of angle iron the ordinary process of rolling
the pile or bloom to a flat bar may be pursued, as in working large bodies of iron
the workable heat is longer retained, so that after rolling the pile or bloom flat by
the two roll principle, the flat bar will still retain sufficient heat to pass through
shaping rolls to give to it the desired angular form. By thus producing angles from
regular or irregular strips or bars, we are enabled to produce them of large size and
great length, down even to the conversion of ordinary hoop iron, direct from the pile
or bloom to the finish; and in like manner by altering the combined shape of the
finishing grooved rolls we are enabled to roll channel or other sections that may be
required, observing that we do not purpose making our angles or other sections of
strip or flat iron of a uniform thickness, as in some instances where additional
strength is required either in the angle or at the edges of the planes of the angle,
we roll the strip or bar of unequal thickness as required.
Flat bars or strips of iron already formed may be reheated and converted into
angle iron by the process herein-before described.