GB Patent: GB-184,209,382
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Improvements in machinery or apparatus for forging, stamping, and cutting iron and other substances
Direct action steam hammer
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Patentee:
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| James Nasmyth (exact or similar names) - Patricoft, near Manchester, England |
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Patent Dates:
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| Granted: |
Jun. 09, 1842 |
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Patent Pictures:
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Espacenet patent
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Jeff Joslin
Vintage Machinery entry for Southwark Foundry, Merrick & Towne
Holtzapffel's description of Nasmyth's steam hammer
Detailed description with drawing
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Description: |
| The piston rod coming out at the bottom of the cylinder is attached to the hammer. High-pressure steam is let in under the piston, which raises piston and hammer to any required height. The hammer is guided by planed rails. The cylinder valve opens the hammer falls on the work with full force due of gravity and then is immediately lifted by new steam entering the cylinder. To lessen the force of the blow the steam timing can be advanced so that the steam enters the cylinder before the hammer has hit the work, and that steam absorbs some of the force. Nasmyth claimed that this system could be so precisely adjusted that the hammer blow could be made to step within one-tenth of an inch of the anvil. A later refinement was to use a double-acting cylinder that allowed the force of the hammer to exceed that due solely to falling by gravity.In 1843, Nasmyth claimed that Frenchman François Bourdon had stolen his steam-hammer design. Nasmyth conceived of and designed his hammer in 1839-40 in order to forge a 30-inch diameter shaft for a paddle steamer, an idea that did not come to immediate fruition because the boat design was changed to use a screw propeller. At nearly the same time, Bourdon conceived the same basic idea in order to hammer large steam-engine forgings, though his shop owners were unconvinced of the practicality and no hammer was built. Bourdon and one of his shop owners visited Nasmyth's shop in mid-1840 and saw Nasmith's steam-hammer drawing. Bourdon explained his own design and created a rough drawing to show it. Afterwards, Bourdon got permission to build his hammer, which he did later that year, filing a French patent in 1841, with the his employer, Schneider frères et Cie, taking out a more complete patent the following year. Nasmyth saw the Bordon/Schneider hammer in April 1842 and built his own hammer later that year. Nasmyth won the public-relations battle for the title of steam-hammer inventor, but subsequent research has confirmed that the men independently and virtually simultaneously invented the steam hammer. Fifty years before either of them, the now-forgotten William Deverell patented the same idea, GB-180,602,939, but his idea had to wait for the development of steam power to make it a more practical and useful idea.According to Douglas Freunds's 1997 book, this patent was licensed to Merrick & Towne of Philadelphia, for $1,800 per hammer manufactured. |
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