186 Sir Frederick Bramwell [April 18, 



necessary manipulations in welding." This, to my mind, is a concise 

 and complete descrijstion of welding as we engineers understand it. 



In the Arts, I suppose there are practically, only two easily weld- 

 able metals — iron (with its variant, steel, now so commonly substituted 

 for it) and platinmn. I had hoped to have practised before you to- 

 night, welding in an ordinary fire, in order to show you the metals 

 which could be welded, by this means, and those which could, not ; 

 and then to show you that metals which could not be welded 

 by the ordinary fire could be easily welded by electricity. But I 

 must ask you to take my word in respect to these matters because 

 wc have not room, in this extraordinary structure which has been 

 put up to prevent the sparks flying about, for a fire-heating implement 

 of any kind along with the workmen and the anvil ; and therefore 

 the idea had to be given up. I am sorry, for I had hoped there 

 would have been time for all ; but probably you have all seen the 

 art of welding practised in the ordinary manner. 



Now there are several kinds of welds, and I cannot do better than 

 show you some of them as used in former days to weld the tyres of 

 railway carriage and engine wheels. During the last quarter of a 

 century such tyres have not been welded, but have been made in 

 the circular or hoop form, without welding, still their former mode 

 of manufacture will serve to illustrate the diiferent kinds of welds. 

 The most commonly used kind was that known as a scarf weld. In 

 this the two portions of the tyre before being brought together were 

 made with inclined surfaces. Preparatory to this being done the 

 ends of the bar were thickened by beating them endways — technically 

 known as "upsetting." Then they were "scarfed" or thinned down 

 in a regular incline ; the object of this was twofold : one to in- 

 crease the amount of the surfaces brought into contact, and by thus 

 magnifying these surfaces to increase the strength of the joint — the 

 other to bring the two faces into a good position and shape for being 

 operated upon by the hammer of the workman. 



Another form of weld is that known as " a double-wedge weld " ; 

 in this case each end of the bar is cut to an obtuse double bevel, 

 so that when the ends are brought together and laid upon the anvil, 

 there are two Y-shaped cavities, — one above the centre of the bar, and 

 the other below it, — two separate wedge-shaped pieces are prepared 

 to fill these cavities and the whole is brought to a welding heat. You 

 can imagine that, if a bar thus prepared and fitted with the wedges 

 is laid down on its edge, and is hammered upon its top edge, that 

 these two separate wedge pieces will be forced into the cavities in 

 the ends of the bar, and a weld will thus be made. But in the 

 later days of the manufacture of tyres by welding, at any rate for 

 passenger carriage wheels, the weld was made by what is called a 

 *' butt " weld. In this case the ends of the bar were cut perfectly 

 square, were put into the fire, having a screwed clamp placed round 

 about the tyre, and, being heated to the welding heat, the pressure of 

 the screw was exerted, and one end of the bar was forced against the 



