US64253A - Jacob reese - Google Patents

Description

grams giantess gaunt @ffirri JACOB REESE, OF PITTSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA. Letters Patent No. 64,253, dated April 30, 1867.

IMPROVED PROCESS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON WITEI STEEL SURFACE.

Elgt gtigshnls marsh in in tips): Ztefittt 331mm mm making part of tip emu.

".170 ALL WHOM IT MAY concerns:

Be it known that I, JACOB REESE,'of Pittsburg, in the county of Allegheny, and State of Pennsylvania, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Process for the Manufacture of Iron with Steel Surface; and I do hereby declare the following to bee. full, clear, and exact description thereof.

My improvement is designed to produce on the surface of malleable or wrought iron a hard, steel-like surface, susceptible of high polish, Without interfering with the capacity of the metal for being rolled, swaged, or forged into any desired form or shape. My invention is applicable in practice to many purposes, such as the manufacture of sheet iron, similar to the Russia sheet iron, to the making of armor-plates for vessels of war, and

of shafting, axles, ploughs, and various .other articles in which a hard, smooth, or highly polished surface is required. I V

1 In order to enable others skilled'in the art to make use of my invention, I will proceed to explain the manner in which it is to be employed, and in so doing I will describe its application in the first instance to the manufacture of sheet iron.

The great desideratum in making sheet iron is to obtain a. smooth, clean, and highly polished surface which will resist the tendency of oxidation which iron possesses in a high degree. For this purpose various methods have been tried with more or less success, such as cleaning the scale or oxide of? the sheets of metal after they are rolled by means of acid and coating it with oil or fatty matter, or other carbonaceous substances, or annealing the sheets in an atmosphere of carbonic oxide, or when surrounded with smoke, the object being by the use of.carliou to prevent the oxidation of the iron and give it a carburetted surface. It has also been attempted to effect this purpose by a process of steel plating or coating the malleable iron, with a thin pellicle of steel, which, as is well known, is a combination of carbon and iron, being a subcarburet of that metal. This steel plating is accomplished by forming a pile of several bars of iron with a bar of steel at top and another at bottom of the pile, and rolling the pile at a welding heat until it is reduced to a thin sheet. This plan is theoretically a good one, and produces the smoothest and best-looking sheets that have been heretofore made in imitation of Russia sheet iron, but it is attended with a great practical diiliculty arising from the fact that the welding point I of steel is at a lower degree of heat than that of iron, and as the bars of steel must necessarily be placed on the outside of the pile it is impossible to have both the iron and steel at the proper heat to secure a perfect weld. My improvement is designed to secure a more perfectly carburetted surface to any articles of malleable iron formed by rolling, swaging, or forging, than has heretofore been obtained by the various methods of treating the iron, either during the process of rolling or when it is being annealed with carbon, carbonaceous'mixtures, smoke, or carbonic oxide, while I obviate the necessity of effecting the mechanical union of a surface coating of steel by the process of welding. In the manufacture of sheet iron, as ordinarily practised, bars of malleable iron are formed of about four and a half inches in width, one-half an inch thick, and twenty-six inches in length. These bars are treated and rolled in the sheet-milluntil'they are reduced by repeated passing between the rolls to the desired thickness. By my process I use similar bars of iron, but before reducing them in the sheet-mill they are subjected to a process of partial cementa tion in a convertiug-furnace, by which means the iron is carburetted on the surface, and to a certain depth, depending on the length of time to which it is exposed to the process of cementation. These sheet bars (that is, bars of iron prepared for rolling into sheets) are subjected at a moderate heat in the convertingfurnace to the action of carbon or a hydrocarbon, which may be supplied either as a solid, such as charcoal, or as aliquid, such as petroleum. As the process of cementation commences at the surface of the iron and gradually extends inward until the whole mass is converted into steel, which requires about six days for its accomplishment, I secure the object which I have in view, that is to say, the conversion into steel of the particles of iron lying at and near the surface. of the bars, while the inner portion of the iron retains its ductility, by removing the bars from the converting-furnace in about twenty-four hours after they were put in. The length of time to which the iron should be exposed to the process of cementation in the converting-furnace will of course vary according to the size of the bar, plate, or mass of iron under treatment, and the depth -to which it is designed to carry the eli'ect produced by the action of the carbon on the iron. In sheet bars this depth may be about one-eighth of an inch below the surface. The bars thus treatednre then taken to the sheet-mill and rolled in the usual way until they are reduced to the required gauge. In rolling the sheet the carburetted surface extends over the entire sheet, having no tendency to sep arate from the more ductile particles, and the result is the production of a thin sheet of metal. having a pellicle of steel extending over its entire surface, giving to the sheet a close, fine texture, which takes a high polish, and

resembles the Russia sheet iron so nearly as to make it diflicult to distinguish one from the other. In rolling. these sheets in packs (that is, passing four or moreshects together through the rolls) there is no tendency of the surfaces of the sheets to adhere to each other, but they separate freely owingto, their smooth and hard exterior. If, instead of carburetting the iron to a slight depth, the process of cementation were carried on until the Whole mass were converted into steol, it would be too hard and rigid to be susceptible of being rolled out into thin sheets of fine gauge with any ordinary machinery, and the article produced would lack the desired eharacten istics of sheet iron, but by simply carburetting the iron at and near the surface the barsare easily rolled, and

the result is a sheet of iron of thcrequircd ductility with a highly polished surface which will effectually resist the tendency to oxidation.

My improvement is applicable to the manufacture of various articles which require to have a SI9UEll and polished surface, such as plough-wings and mould-boards, armor-plates for ships or vessels of war, shafting, axles, Sac. In making steel ploughs the mould-board and other parts required to be of steel may be made by rolling or swaging from bars or plates of malleable iron, which have been subjected to partial cementation in the manner already described, and they will possess the advantage of a steel surface with less liability to crack, besides being more easily and cheaply manufactured. i

As applied to the manufacture of armor-plates for vessels of war, my improved process possesses peculiar advantages. The piles of malleable iron, formed in the usual way, are placed in the converting-furnace, and

the process ofcementation is carried on until the iron is carburetted to the required depth, leaving the interior of the mass unconverted. They are then removed from the furnace and rolled to plates of the desired shape and thickness in-the usual manner. The result is that these armor-plates possess the ductility and strength of malleable iron to a great degree, combined with the hardness of a steel surface susceptible of a high polish and capable of resisting the force of violent rercussion. Such plates when struck by projectiles will be less liable to bend or tear than soft iron, and less apt to break than steel, thus uniting the advantages of both.

Axles for cars and vehicles, and shaft-ing for machinery may also be advantageously made from wrought or rolled iron prepared in the manner I have described. Steel shafting, although it runs more smoothly and wears better in its bearings than shafting made of wrought iron, is subject to granulation, and is very liable to break, but when made by my process, axles and shafting, having a steel surface combined with an iron body, will wear longer in their bearings than when made of ordinary wrought iron, while they possess greater strength and less liability to fracture than if made of steel. \Vagon and carriage tires, and many other articles of iron which are exposed to surface wear or require a highly polished and smooth exterior, and also need to have the strength and tenacity of wrought iron, may be made in the manner I have described.

I do not claim'as my invention the giving of a steel surface to sheet iron or other articles of rolled or wrought iron by welding a plate or plates of steel to the-iron, either before or after it is rolled or shaped, or during the process of rolling or shaping; but-what I do claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

Giving a hard and highly polished surface, or a hard surface susceptible of high polish, to sheet iron and other articles of rolled, forged, or swaged iron, by exposing the bar, bloom, pile, or slab from which such articles are to be rolled, forged, or swaged to partial cementation, so that the iron may be carburetted on the outside to asuflicient depth to give the required steel coating to the article manufactured therefrom, while the interior portion of the mass of iron retains the nature and characteristics of malleable or wrought iron, substantially as hereinbefore described.

Also, converting into steel by cementation the exterior of piles, slabs, blooms, or bars of iron designed to be rolled, forged, or swaged, while the interior or body of the piles, slabs, blooms, or bars remains unconverted and retains the ductility and softness of malleable iron, substantially as and for the purposes hereinbefore described.

In testimony whereof I, the said JACOB REESE, have hereunto setimy hand in presence of JACOB REESE.

lVitnesses:

A. S. NICHOLSON, Gno. H. CHRISTY.