Donner v. American Sheet & Tin Plate Co.

• Decision Date: 20 November 1908
• Docket Number: 31.
• Citation: 165 F. 199
• Parties: DONNER v. AMERICAN SHEET & TIN PLATE CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

165 F. 199

DONNER v. AMERICAN SHEET & TIN PLATE CO.

No. 31.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

November 20, 1908

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

James K. Bakewell, Charles Neave, and Charles MacVeagh, for appellant.

Kay Totten & Winter, for appellee.

Before GRAY and BUFFINGTON, Circuit Judges, and CROSS, District Judge.

BUFFINGTON Circuit Judge.

In the court below, Percy E. Donner, assignee of patent No. 620,541 granted February 28, 1899, to W. H. Donner, for rolling black-plate, filed a bill, charging infringement, against the American Sheet & Tin Plate Company. In an opinion reported at 160 F. 971, that court held the fourth claim thereof valid and infringed. From a decree in pursuance thereof, the latter company appealed to this court.

This patent concerns sheet-rolling mills. In such mills the general and almost universal practice both prior to this patent and since was and is as recited in the patent, as follows:

'To feed the bars through a set of two-high rolls and then return them over their tops for the next pass, the screws of the rolls being successively adjusted to bring the rolls closer together for each pass. This operation is continued until the iron is too cold to roll, when the packs are returned to the furnace, and being reheated are then given a second series of reductions until they are rolled sufficiently long for doubling, when they are doubled and returned to the furnace, these operations being continued until the desired gauge is obtained.'

The succeeding stages of the operation need not be detailed. The object the patentee had in view is stated in the specification as follows:

'The object of my invention is to provide a plant and method of working the metal whereby the time and labor consumed in passing the metal back over the rolls is obviated, and the iron reduced more rapidly and without changing the adjustments of the rolls, * * * and to obtain a continuous plant wherein the various sets of rolls are maintained at substantially the same temperature by reason of the metal passing there-- through in a continuous or regular manner, thus giving more accurate sheets and reducing the liability of breaking the rolls.'

It should here be stated that after the sheets are reduced in gauge by rolling back and forth four times, which is the customary number of initial passes, they are laid one upon the other to form packs. This process is called 'matching,' and is an intermediate operation in sheet-rolling. The entire operation of sheet-rolling, including the preliminary rolling of individual sheets and the subsequent rolling of packs, Donner sought to accomplish by a continuous mill, which is one where the entire process of rolling goes forward continuously and without subjecting the sheets to any return over the rolls so that they may repass through them. Complainant's expert tersely defines a continuous mill as a 'plant wherein a separate set of reducing rolls is employed for each reduction. ' By this process it will be seen there is no adjustment of the rolls for the several passages as in the old process, but a single adjustment takes place for the single passage, which alone is made through each stand of rolls. The advantages incident to a use of a continuous mill the patentee thus enumerated:

'The advantages of my invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art, since the labor and time of reducing the metal are greatly decreased, a greater number of reductions can be given before reheating the pack, and the number of workmen is materially reduced. Since I use one pair of rolls for each reduction instead of making several reductions on one mill, the reductions are more uniform and accurate than where the adjustments are being continually changed. The adjustments of the tensions of the rolls which regulate these reductions are made easy for an unskilled workman, whereas the adjustment by the ordinary method heretofore used requires the close attention of a skilled roller.

The packs being fed to the rolls in a continuous and regular manner, the rolls are kept at a substantially uniform temperature, and hence at about the same contour or shape, giving more accurate sheets than formerly and avoiding breakage of the rolls by reason of contracting and expanding thereof.'

The patentee's particular form of mill, shown in the accompanying cut:

(Image Omitted)

-- consisted, in so far as is now pertinent to note, of four sets of two-high rolls set tandem with feed tables or conveyors between each set. At a sufficient distance from the last of the four sets, to allow matching of the sheets, which individually had had the four customary passes, two additional sets of two-high rolls were set tandem. The process up to and including the operation of the last two sets of rolls is thus described:

'In the drawings, A represents a heating furnace having chambers 2, 3, and 4, in which the bars are heated. This furnace may be provided with one or as many chambers as desired. When the bars are brought to the proper heat in this furnace, they are taken to a continuous mill D, consisting of several sets of two-high rolls, of which I have shown six sets, arranged in tandem, numbered, respectively, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, each set of rolls being provided with a feed-table or conveyor, 11, which is shown as consisting of a series of sprocket-chains passing over positively-driven sprocket-wheels at their ends, though other forms of positively-driven feed-tables may be employed, if desired. I have shown the sprocket-wheels at one end of the feed-table chains as mounted upon a shaft having bevel-gear connections with a shaft, 28, extending alongside the continuous mill, though these chains may be driven by any other desired mechanism. The metal being placed upon the first feed-table passes through the set of rolls 5, and being reduced therein emerges upon the second feed-table, which carries it to the rolls 6, in which it receives a further reduction, and thence passes on in a similar manner through the sets of rolls 7 and 8. The next set of rolls, 9, is spaced a sufficient distance from the set 8 so that the plates may be matched at this point, if desired, the feed-table between rolls 8 and 9 being correspondingly lengthened for this purpose. To stop the plates upon the table between the rolls 8 and 9, I show tilting fingers, 29, arranged between the chains near the end of this table and arranged to be swung into upper position to stop the metal or into lowered inoperative position by a lever, 30. From roll 9 the metal passes through set 10, and on emerging from this set of rolls the metal, which has now been reduced to a suitable gauge for doubling, emerges upon a feed-table, 12.'

Upon this device claim 4, which reads as follows:

'In a plant for rolling black-plate, a continuous train in which two of the sets of rolls are sufficiently removed from each other to allow the bars or sheets to be matched between said sets of rolls, substantially as described'--

was granted.

The proofs in this case satisfy us of the great advantages and desirability of the continuous rolling of sheets, but they equally satisfy us that this patentee neither disclosed anything novel in his patent, or showed successful means of continuous sheet-rolling. The continuous mill of Howell, described and illustrated in the 'Iron Age' on August 13, 1891, embodied a device containing all the elements of Donner's fourth claim. In this publication was a horizontal section which showed four sets of two-high rolls, which Howell called a blooming mill. Two of these sets were each mounted in separate, parallel, reverse tandem form as shown in the accompanying cut, to which we have added a line showing the course traveled by the sheets:

(Image Omitted)

The published description of Howell's process is as follows:

'With the object of eliminating the item of cost by skilled labor Mr. Howell proposed a continuous train with its blooming mill, which would be in charge of one skilled man, the other help needed being common labor. In the blooming mill, Fig. 1, the slab or ingot is taken from the furnace 'A,' and is passed through the first set of rolls, as indicated by the arrow, and is put back...