1851 Great Exhibition: Official Catalogue: Class VI.: W. Fairbairn and Sons
200. FAIRBAIRN, W., and SONS, Manchester — Inventors and Manufacturers.
Patent riveting machine, for riveting boilers, and other vessels, constructed of wrought iron. The moving slide and die are worked by the action of a revolving cam upon an elbow joint, which gives a variable motion, and exerts the greatest force at the closing of the joint and the finishing of the rivet.
The figure represents this machine.
The invention of the riveting machine originated in a turn-out of the boiler-makers in the employ of the exhibitor about fifteen year ago. On that occasion the attempt was made to rivet two plates together by compressing the red-hot rivets in the ordinary punching-press. The success of this experiment immediately led to the construction of the original machine, in which the moveable die was forced upon the rivet by a powerful lever, acted upon by a cam. A short experience proved the original machine inadequate to the numerous requirements of the boiler-maker's trade, and the present form was therefore adopted about eight years since.
The large stem, A, is made of malleable iron, and having an iron strap, B B, screwed round the base, it renders the whole perfectly safe in the case of the dies coming in contact with a cold rivet, or any other hard substance, during the process. Its construction also allows the workman to rivet angle iron along the edges, and to finish the corners of boilers, tanks, and cisterns; and the stein being now made 4 feet 6 inches high, it renders the machine more extensive in its application, and allows of its riveting the fire-box of a locomotive boiler or any other work within the given depth.
In addition to these parts, it has a broad moving slide, C, in which are three dies corresponding with others in the wrought-iron stem. By using the centre die every description of flat and circular work can be riveted, and by selecting those on the sides it will rivet the corners, and thus complete vessels of almost ever shape. This machine is in a portable form, and can be moved on rails, with care, to suit the article suspended from the shears.
The introduction of the knee joint gives to the dies to variable motion, and causes the greatest force to be exerted at the proper time, viz., at the closing of the joint and the finishing the head of the rivet.
In other respects the machine operates as before, effecting by an almost instantaneous pressure what is performed in the ordinary mode by a long series of impacts. The machine fixes in the firmest manner, and completes eight rivets of 0.75 inch diameter in a minute, with the attendance of two men and two boys to the plates and rivets; whereas the average work that can be done by two riveters, with one "holder on," and a boy, is 40 0.75 inch rivets per hour; the quantity done in the two cases being in the proportion of 40 to 480, or as 1 to 12, exclusive of the saving of one man's labour. The cylinder of an ordinary locomotive-engine boiler, 8 feet 6 inches long, and 3 feet diameter, can be riveted and the plates fitted completely by the machine in four hours; whilst to execute the same work by hand would require, with an extra man, twenty hours. The work produced by the machine is likewise of a superior kind to that made in the ordinary manner; the rivets being found stronger and the boilers more free from leakage, and more perfect in every respect. The riveting is done without noise, and thus is almost entirely removed the constant deafening clamour of the boiler-maker's hammer.
403. FAIRBAIRN, W., and SONS, Manchester — Inventors and Manufacturers.
Specimens of corn-mill work:— Improvements in the manner of driving, in the means employed for adjusting and regulating the grinding-stones, and in the means of feeding.
421. FAIRBAIRN and COMPANY, Manchester.
A flour-mill.