Southwark Foundry, Merrick & Sons - Assigned Patents

Manufacturers Index - Southwark Foundry, Merrick & Sons

Southwark Foundry, Merrick & Sons
Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.
Manufacturer Class: Metal Working Machinery & Steam and Gas Engines

Patents

This page contains information on patents issued to this manufacturer.

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Patent Number	Date	Title	Name	City	Description
184,209,382	Jun. 09, 1842	Improvements in machinery or apparatus for forging, stamping, and cutting iron and other substances	James Nasmyth	, England	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 FranÃ§ois 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 frÃ¨res 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, 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.
3,042	Apr. 10, 1843	Machinery or apparatus operated by steam for forging, stamping, and cutting iron and other substances	James Nasmyth	, England	Originally patented in England, 184,209,382; see that patent for details on Nasmyth's steam hammer. This US patent was subsequently reissued 1846-09-10, 86, and then an Additional Improvement patent was issued in 1847, 82.
3,878	Jan. 10, 1845	Method of Adapting the Vibrating Steam-Engine to Two Crank-Shafts	J. Henry Towne	Philadelphia, PA	Inventor John Henry Towne and witness Samuel Vaughan Merrick were partners in Merrick & Towne of Southwark Foundry in Philadelphia; they manufactured steam engines among other products. Towne would leave the business in 1849 which then became Merrick & Sons.
RE86	Sep. 10, 1846	Improvement in machinery or apparatus operated by steam for forging, stamping, and cutting iron and other substances	James Nasmyth	, England	Originally patented in England, 184,209,382. Original US patent was number 3,042, issued 1843-04-10 and then reissued 1846-09-10, 86. This reissue was assigned to the partners of the Southwark Foundry in Philadelphia, which had licensed this patent and were paying a royalty of $1800 per hammer, equivalent to over $60,000 today, although inflation calculations are very inexact over such long time-spans.
AI82	Apr. 24, 1847	Machinery or apparatus operated by steam for forging, stamping, and cutting iron and other substances	James Nasmyth	, England	Originally patented in England, 184,209,382. Original US patent was number 3,042, issued 1843-04-10 and then reissued 1846-09-10, 86. Only the patent drawing is available. Information here taken from listing of new patents issued, Scientific American v2 no.132 1847-05-01 front page (p. 249 of the volume). The details of this Additional Improvement seem to have been lost.
58,504	Oct. 02, 1866	Improved Tool-Rest for Grindstones	w. H. Strahan	Philadelphia, PA	Abstract: My invention consists of a rest constructed and secured in front of a grindstone substantially in the manner described hereinafter, so as to afford facilities for grinding tools and other objects, and especially for the grinding of drilling-tools, which can be accomplished with the greatest accuracy by the aid of my invention.
80,550	Aug. 04, 1868	Steam Hammer	David Joy	, England
909,214	Jan. 12, 1909	Admission Valve for Gas Engines	Gustav B. Petsche	Philadelphia, PA
1,281,965	Oct. 15, 1918	Angle Planing Machine	Morton C. Hutchinson	Woodbury, NJ	Nedershein & Fairbanks.- patent attorneys
1,656,323	Jan. 17, 1928	Machine for Cutting Sheet-Form Metal	Charles B. Gray	Philadelphia, PA