A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines / containing a clear exposition of their principles and practice

by Andrew Ure

He formed the crown with bars similarly distributed with those of the shank. His mode of uniting the flukes to the crown is probably the most valuable part of his invention. The bars and half the breadth of the anchor are first welded separately, and then placed side by side, where the upper half is worked into one mass, while the lower part is left disunited, but has carrier iron bars, or porters, as these prolongation rods are commonly called, welded to the extremity of each portion. The lower part is now heated and placed in the clamping machine, which is merely an iron plate firmly bolted to a mass of timber, and bearing upon its surface four iron pins. One end of the crown is placed between the first of these pins, and passed under an iron strap; the other end is brought between the other pins, and is bent by the leverage power of the elongated rods or porters.

Thus a part of the arm being formed out of the crown gives much greater security that a true union of fibres is effected, than when the junction was made merely by a short scarf.

The angular opening upon the side opposite B H, [fig. 7.], is filled with the chock, formed of short iron bars placed upright. When this has been firmly welded, the truss-piece is brought over it. This piece is made of plates similar to the above, except that their edges are here horizontal. The truss-piece is half the breadth of the arm; so that when united to the crown, it constitutes, with the other parts, the total breadth of the arms at those places.

The shank is now shut upon the crown; the square is formed, and the nuts welded to it; the hole is punched out for the ring, and the shank is then fashioned.

The blade is made much in the way above described. In making the palm, an iron rod is first bent into the approximate form, notching it so that it may more readily take the desired shape. To one end a porter rod is fastened, by which the palm is carried and turned round in the fire during the progress of the fabrication. Iron plates are next laid side by side upon the rod, and the joint at the middle is broken by another plate laid over it. When the mass is worked, its under side is filled up by similar plates, and the whole is completely welded; pieces being added to the sides, if necessary, to form the angles of the palm. The blade is then shut on to the palm, after which the part of the arm attached to the blade is united to that which constitutes the crown. The smith-work of the anchor is now finished.

The junction, or shutting on, as the workmen call it, of the several members of an anchor, is effected by an instrument called a monkey, which is merely a mass of iron raised to a certain height, between parallel uprights, as in the pile engine or vertical ram, and let fall upon the metal previously brought to a welding heat.

The monkey and the hercules, both silly, trivial names, are similar instruments, and are usually worked, like a portable pile engine, by the hands of several labourers, pulling separate ropes. Many other modes of manufacturing anchors have been devised, in which mechanical power is more extensively resorted to.

The upper end of the shank F ([fig. 7.]) is squared to receive and hold the stock steadily, and keep it from turning. To prevent it shifting along, there are two knobs or tenon-like projections. The point of the angle H, between the arms and the shank, is sometimes called the throat. The arm B C generally makes an angle of 56° with the shank A; it is either round or polygonal, and about half the length of the shank.

The stock of the anchor ([fig. 6.]) is made of oak. It consists of two beams which embrace the square, and are firmly united by iron bolts and hoops, as shown in the figure. The stock is usually somewhat longer than the shank, has in the middle a thickness about one-twelfth of its length, but tapers at its under side to nearly one half this thickness at the extremities. In small anchors the stock is frequently made of iron; but in this case it does not embrace the anchor, but goes through a hole made in the square, which is swelled out on purpose.