NAILS, MANUFACTURE OF 385 



nail, so as to press its substance very strongly, and squeeze it into a wedge form. 

 Thus the nail is completed, and is immediately discharged from the clamps or 

 holders. The carriage is then moved again by the rotation of the crank-shaft, which 

 brings another portion of the rod c, forward, cuts it off, and then forms it into a nail. 



Dr. William Church, February 1832, obtained a patent for improvements in 

 machinery for making nails. These consist, first, in apparatus for forming rods, bars, 

 or plates of iron, or other metals ; secondly, in apparatus for converting the rods, &c. 

 into nails. The machinery consists of laminating rollers, and compressing dies. 



The method of forming the rods from which nails are to be made is very advan- 

 tageous. It consists in passing the bar or plate iron through pressing rollers, which 

 have indentations upon the peripheries of one or both of them, so as to form the bar 

 or plate into the required shape for the rods, which may be afterwards separated into 

 rods of any desired breadth, by common slitting-rollers. 



The principal object of rolling the rods into these wedge forms, is to measure out a 

 quantity of metal duly proportioned to the required thickness or strength of the nail 

 in its several parts ; which quantity corresponds to the indentations of the rollers. 



Thomas John Fuller patented an improved apparatus for making square-poi*ed, 

 and also flat-pointed nails. His invention consisted of the application of vertical 

 and horizontal hammers (mounted in his machine) combined for the purpose of 

 tapering and forming the points of the nails ; which, being made to act alternately, 

 resemble hand-work, and are therefore not so apt to injure the fibrous texture of the 

 iron, as the rolling machinery is. He finishes the points by rollers. 



William South-wood Stacker introduced a machine apparently of American parent- 

 age, as it has the same set of features as the old American mechanisms of Perkins, 

 at the Britannia Nail Works, Birmingham, and all the other American machines for 

 pressing metal into the forms of nails, pins, screw-shafts, rivets, &c. ; for example, it 

 possesses pressers or hammers for squeezing the rods of metal and forming the shanks, 

 which are all worked by a rotatory action ; cutters, for separating the appropriate 

 lengths, and dies for forming the heads by compression, also actuated by revolving 

 cams or cranks. 



Mr. Stocker intended, in fact, to effect the same sorts of operations by automatic 

 mechanisms as are usually performed by the hands of a nail-maker with his hammer 

 and anvil ; viz. the shaping of a nail from a heated rod of iron, cutting it off at the 

 proper length, and then compressing the end of the metal into the form of the head. 

 His machine may be said to consist of two parts, connected in the same frame ; the 

 one for shaping the shank of the nail, the other for cutting it off and heading it. The 

 frame consists of a strong table to bear the machinery. Two pairs of hammers, 

 formed as levers, the one pair made to approach each other by horizontal movements, 

 the other pair by vertical movements, are the implements by which a portion at the 

 end of a red-hot rod of iron is beaten or pressed into the wedge-like shape of the shaft 

 of a nail. This having been done, and the rod being still hot, is withdrawn from the 

 beaters, and placed in the other part of the machine, consisting of a pair of jaws like 

 those of a vice, which pinch the shank of the nail and hold it fast. A cutter upon 

 the side of a wheel now comes round, and, by acting as the moving chap of a pair of 

 shears, cuts the nail off from the rod. The nail shank being still firmly held in the 

 jaws of the vice, with a portion of its end projecting outwards, the heading die is 

 slidden laterally, until it comes opposite to the end of the nail ; the dye is then pro- 

 jected forward with great force, for the purpose of what is termed upsetting the metal 

 at the projecting end of the nail, and thereby blocking out the head. 



A main shaft, driven by a band and rigger as usual, brings, as it revolves, a cam 

 into operation upon a lever which carries a double inclined plane or wedge in its 

 front or acting part. The wedge being by the rotatory cam projected forwards be- 

 tween the tails of one of the pairs of hammers, causes the faces of these hammers to 

 approach each other, and to beat or press the red-hot iron introduced between them, so 

 as to flatten it upon two opposite sides. The rotatory cam passing round, the wedge- 

 lever is relieved, when springs instantly throw back the hammers ; another cam and 

 wedge-lever now bring the second pair of hammers to act upon the other two sides of 

 the nail in a similar way. This is repeated several times, until the end of the red- 

 hot iron rod, gradually advanced by the hands of the workmen, has assumed the 

 desired form, that is, has received the bevel and point of the intended nail. 



The rod is then withdrawn from between the hammers, and in its heated state is 

 introduced between the jaws of the holders, for cutting off and finishing the nail. A 

 bevel pinion upon the end of the main shaft takes into and drives a wheel upon a 

 transverse-shaft, which carries a cam that works the lever of the holding-jaws. The 

 end of the rod being so held in the jaws or vice, a cutter at the side of a wheel 

 upon the transverse-shaft separates, as it revolves, the nail from the end of the rod, 

 leaving the nail firmly held by the iaws. By means of a cam, the heading-die is 



VOL. III. f! 



