IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PLATES, RODS, AXLE TYRES, AND OTHER ARTICLES THAT ARE REQUIRED TO BE' PARTLY OF IRON AND PARTLY OF STEEL
Year: 1862

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Gustave Simons, at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 9th October
.1862.
I, GUSTAVE SIMONS, of No. 27, Place du Théatre, Liege, Belgium, Manu-
facturer, do hereby declare the nature of the Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PLATES, RODS, AXLE TYRES, AND OTHER ARTICLES THAT
ARE REQUIRED TO BE' PARTLY OF IRON AND PARTLY OF STEEL," to be as follows':
The object sought to be accomplished by this Invention is, to manufacture
steel and.iron united'intimately to one another; this, from the nature of these
metals, is impossible when one of them is welded to the other; in fact, all
such welds heretofore made are incomplete, and after having been subjected
to a greater or less' amount of work, the two metals separate from each other.
Now, I have attained this object by the application of the principle of partial
cementation. By conducting the cementing process in the manner herein
described, plates, bars, both round and square, and other articles may have one
or more, or all of their faces, or à part
à part or the whole of their circumference
steeled, the other faces or the interior of the articles not having been at all
subjected to the carbonizing actión.' Articles' thus made may be welded in a
complete manner either to iron, by uniting it to the iron portion, or to steel,
by uniting it to the steel face. Article's thus steeled exteriorly, may also
be easily made hollow by boring out the interior portion of iron.
The different forms of iron are first brought nearly to the shape they are
required to be after their partial transformation into steel. In the case of

page_text: rolled articles they are not passed through the last two or three finishing
grooves of the rolls, and if they are hammered articles they are not completely
finished; the articles are prepared in such manner that the portion which is
to be cemented shall be composed of fine-grained iron (this being the most
suitable for the purpose), and the portion which is to remain unchanged, that
is to say, remain iron, shall be either a coarse-grained iron or a fibrous iron,
according as one or other of these qualities is most suitable for the ultimate
destination of the manufactured article. The article thus prepared is then
placed into the furnace or into the apparatus, where it is to be subjected to
the action of the carburating material, great care being taken that the portions
which are to remain unchanged shall be completely protected from the influ-
ence of this material. This result is obtained by conducting the operation in
the following manner :-If it be desired to manufacture plates, bars, or other
articles, of which some of the sides only are to be steeled, the portion or por-
tions which are not to be steeled are covered with a coating composed either
of an incombustible material when the cementing is to produced by charcoal
or other combustible (cannel coal, for example), or when the cementing is to
be produced by chemical agents, matters not acted on by these agents are
employed. If it be desired to manufacture plates, bars, and other articles
having all their sides or their entire circumference cemented, it is only
necessary to cover with the materials above mentioned the ends where the
coarse-grained or fibrous iron can be seen. In either case proof pieces placed
in the furnace or apparatus employed will indicate the progress of the opera-
tion, and will aid in regulating it. If it be desired, for example, to conduct
the process in ordinary cementing furnaces, and to act on the upper plates of
piles or bundles to be rolled into rails, plates, or other articles, the process is
conducted in the following manner :-After having prepared the article rela-
tively to the nature of the iron employed as above stated, the plates are
arranged in the furnace in the following manner:-The bottom of the case
is covered with a bed of wood charcoal, about 1 inches deep; upon this are
placed the plates, care being taken that it shall be the fine-grained portion
that shall be in contact with the charcoal; the bottom of the case is filled in
this manner, leaving an interval of about half an inch between the sides of
the plates. These spaces are filled to the depth of an inch with wood
charcoal (for 2 inch plates), the charcoal is then perfectly beaten down, the
whole is then covered with a layer composed of sand, clay, and iron scale to a
depth of about half an inch; a second row of plates is then placed, care being
taken to place the coarse-grained iron upon the sand, and again only about
half the plate is left uncovered, the sand is also beaten down, and over the

page_text: whole is placed a bed of wood charcoal of about half an inch in depth; the
first operation is then recommenced, and is continued until the case is entirely
full; the whole is then covered with a thick bed of sand and clay, and the
furnace is hermetically closed.
In order to be able to judge of the degree of cementation, three or four
iron-proof pieces of the same quality as those placed in the furnace are used.
By operating in this manner, the only part which is converted into steel is that
which is in contact with the charcoal, and that only to the depth desired. The
face intended to be the working face of the rails or to be the steeled portions
of the slabs or bars is of steel, and the face which is to be welded to the
roughened or corrugated iron of the pile is pure iron, and will therefore weld
to the rest of the pile as perfectly as ordinary iron plates. The steel and iron
of the top plate are completely inseparable, because the steeling action only
takes place when the adhesion and cohesion of the two qualities of iron
(coarse grain and fine grain) is completely established, which cannot modify
the change of nature of any part of the metal, and also because the change
from one of the states of the metal to the other is gradual and imperceptible;
each layer has therefore a sufficient similarity with the one united to it for the
cohesion to be complete and indestructible.
If iron wheel tyres nearly completed are to be acted on, the exterior circum-
ference is subjected to the cementing agent, whilst the inner circumference
which is to be welded to the other parts of the wheel is protected from the
action of the cementing material in the same manner as hefore described, and
will thus remain in the state of iron, and the weld can therefore be made in a
complete manner. It is scarcely necessary to state that steeled wheel tyres
may also be made from piles or bundles, the plates of which have been made
in the manner above described; steeled plates or slabs may also be made from
piles or bundles, the plates of which have been made in the manner above
described, or they may be partly steeled in a cementing surface as before; the
cementing having been accomplished, they are finished by being passed two or
three times through the rolls.