US90478A - Improved iron front for buildings - Google Patents

Description

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JOHN ALEXANDER, OF GREENPOIN'IbAND NATHANIEL J. BUR- CHELL, OF NEW YORK, N. Y. i

Letters Patent No. 90,478, dated May 25, 1869.

IMPROVED' IRON FRONT FOR BUILDINGS.

The Schedule referred to in these Letters Patent and making part of the same.

To all whom it may concern:

Beit known that we, JOHN ALEXANDER, of Green- I point, in the county of Kings, and Stat-e of -New York,

and NATHAMEL J BURCHELL, of New York city, in the same State, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Fronts for Buildings; and we do hereby declare that the following isa full and exact description thereof.

We will iirst describe what we consider the best means of carrying out our invention, and will afterwards designate the points which we believe to be new therein.

The accompanying drawings form a part of this specification.

Figure l is a front view, and

Figure 2 is vertical section of the front, or, rather, the upper part of the front of a dwelling, constructed according to our invention. The upper story is made with plain joints, andthe next below with ashlar joints.

Figure 3 is a rear view, and

Figure 4, a horizontal section of one of the pieces, on a larger scale. This is a piece between the windows.

Figure 5 is a rear, and

Figure 6, a horizontal section of one of the pieces over the windows, or where the pieces form continuous tiers. o

Figure 7 is a vertical section of the same.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in all the figures.

Our fronts are mainly masonry, laid in mortar, so as to afford the proper thickness and strength, but it is faced with a thin coating of cast-iron.

The iron is made in plates or sections, and fastened together, and also fastened or anchored in the masonry, and is coated, so as to imitate, very perfectly and neatly, stone surface.

Iron buildings have been many years known, and are greatly approved. While possessing very great advantages over any other material, they are open to objections. They are expensive, and conduct heat too freely, transmitting heat from the interior outward iu winter, and from the exterior inward in summer, under the indue-nce .of the sun.

To remedy this last diiiiculty, brick-work has been placed within the iron shell, but the expense has been thereby increased, and made almost insupportable| for general purposes.

Our invention provides a good non-conductor, while having all the ordinary qualities of masonry walls, with a thin surface of iron.

The latter is not intended to contribute strength, to

any great extent.

We make the faces of a length and height corre-y spending to blocks of stone.

We can make the surface or faces of each piece plane, or we can make it figured, in imitation of tooled ashlar, or random tooled, or chiselled, or boasted, or pointed.

We can make the work in imitation of rubble, or wev can make it rusticated, if preferred, or we can, in case any part ofthe whole design should require such work for any peculiar effect, or in case it should be desired by any architect or builder, with a view to provide against any expansions and contractions by heat and cold', give the whole the appearance due to rough quarry-storie.

Any walls of stone or brick-work may be imitated in our invention, and a variety of patterns may be provided, so as to make a proper'variety in the imitatioustones, but, in all cases, we make the iron as thin as it will flow, so as to economizc the metal, and, although badly-broken and irregular brick and stone may he used in the wall behind, it is very important that strong material be there used, and that the thickness, and the mode of laying the stone or brick, be such as will afford a firm and substantial wall without depending upon the iron for strength.

In the drawings- A A, Sac., represent the broad faces of the sections, which represent the stones, and

A A are the flanges.

A2 AI are the eyes, or lugs, which project beyond, and abut together like the fianges, but present broader surfaces.

They form the 'means of firmly securing together the edges of the thin castings Al A.

B are the screw-bolts, which hold these blocks together.

We have constructed several fronts and partial fronts of first-class houses by this means, preparing the plates A Al A2 of several sizes and forms, adapted to match together and properly form the entire front, taking care to mark each on the back with letters and numbers indicating their position. We nish the edges so that they lit together accurately, and adapt all to be fastened together by screw-bolts, which may be used indiscriminately in any of the holes.

In putting up a building, we keep the iron-work weight of the fine earth-colored just a little ahead ofthe brick; that is to say, we apply together, and firmly screw-boltv in place, the several iron sections A A A2, until three or four tiers of such sections have been raised, then the iron-workers continue their work while the bricklayers commence to construct a strong and hrm wall, C,- close in the rear of the iron shell thus provided.' The brick- Work is continued, closely following the iron-work, and solidly embedding the anchors a, which project backward from centre lugs A3, cast on the rear faces of the iron sections, as represented.

We do not consider it essential to the success of our invention that the masonry be tilled out tirmly against the rear of this iron, over the whole of the surface; in fact, we rather prefer that the face of the brick-work shall touch the iron only at points, so .as

' to allow a little air-space between the iron and the brick, over a good portion of the surface.

Such spaces make the house warmer in winter and cooler iu summer, and also allow the thin -iron plates to expand more freely when greatly heated by thesnn or by any extraordinary cause, such as a` eoniiagration. in an adjacent building. l

The back surfaces of the iron sections maybe left unprepared, or may be coated with bitumen or paint, or any ordinary preservative, but vthev front should be carefully prepared in imitation of stone.

-The stone, which we preferas the most tasty and rich, and at the present time most in vogue, is the soft but durable freestoue, now known 'as brownstone.

The benefit of our invention may be realized, in part, by simply painting the surface with a proper brown color. It may be realized still better by painting it with a proper color, and while the paint is still fresh and sticky, covering it withlsand, the grains of which are of the proper color, or with sand, the grains of which are of diiferent colors, so mixed as to produce the proper effect.

We have succeeded in producing a very strong, suc-v cessful, and vevidently-durable coating, by a special course ot' preparation, which we will now brieiy describe. v

We stir into good, japan varnish about half itsv powder, known in trade as Princes metallic paint.

, It the castings or sections A A1 A2 are made with ordinary skill, the composition may be applied thereto without any previous preparation, further than the ordinary brushing with a wire brush. l lVe 'apply the preparation by means of an ordinary painter-s brush,

and having thus coated the surface with the semi-duid compound, we dust upon it powdered brown-stone, or

sand yof the same color, or mixtures'of sand of the Y proper color, and the particles attach themselves by partially embedding themselves in and adhering to the soft coating. We can apply the dry material with a sieve or dredge, or we can strew it on by hand.

Having thus covered the Whole surface with much We can pul'verize chips or waste pieces of brown-Y stone,.to make the dry material for the surface, by any mechanical process.

I u case pulver-ized material ot' the right color, or mixtures of sand of such color, are not conveniently accessible, we can employ common white sand, and color it by mixing with it the tuely-pulverized red material known as Princes metallic paint.

It very greatly contributes to the economy due to our invention, to construct a number ot' buildings eri--I actly alike. XVe have, in the several blocks now in course ot' construction, in one instanceV seven, and in the others nearly as great a number of buildings standing together, side by side, each an exact counterpart of its neighbor, so far, at least, as the front is concerned. In vsuch cases we can correspondingly screw-bolt the edges of the plates forming the facings of one front to the plates which form the faces of the adjacent front, but we do not deem this duplicating or building of fronts in blocks absolutely essential.

It should be observed, as very important, that in preparing the plates which form the angles of any` work, especially at the' edges of the doors and windows, we increase ythe width of the flanges A, or of the corresponding angular projection, which extends back from the edge of the main part A, so as to form the returns or edge-facing of the apertures for the windows, in other words, the edges ofthe windows or doors, or of any blank window, in. lour fronts, should show the same material as the face proper ofthe building, and should be finished by coating, in the .same manner as the other parts.

W'hat we claim, ,is-

In the ornamentation and protection of the walls of buildings, the plates A A, with their inward-projecting iianges, bolted or'riveted together in the manner described, and attached or fastened to the walls, by means of the metallic hooks or rods a, and the eyes formed on the inner sides of theouter plates, all constructed and arranged substantially in the manner and for the purpose herein described.

In testimony whereof, we havehereunto set our` Witnesses:

0. C. Lrvnvefs, W. O. DEY.

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