King Ax Co. v. Hubbard

• Decision Date: 03 October 1899
• Docket Number: 680.
• Citation: 97 F. 795
• Parties: KING AX CO. et al. v. HUBBARD.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

97 F. 795

KING AX CO. et al. v. HUBBARD.

No. 680.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

October 3, 1899

Chester Bradford, for appellants.

Clarence Byrnes and Thomas W. Bakewell, for appellee.

Before TAFT and LURTON, Circuit Judges, and SEVERENS, District Judge.

TAFT Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a decree in a patent case in which the circuit court found the patent of the complainant to be valid, and to be infringed by the defendant's machine. 89 F. 713. The patent was No. 500,084 and was granted on June 20, 1893, to C. W. Hubbard, as assignee of James Taylor, for an improvement in the manufacture of axes. The answer set up the defenses of invalidity for want of novelty, public use for more than two years before the application, and abandonment and noninfringement.

The patentee, in his specifications, says:

'My invention relates to the manufacture of axes and other similar eye tools, and is designed to produce a much truer neater, and better finished article than has hitherto been possible; and, to that end, it consists in a pair of dies having a hole therethrough, and a plunger or hammer head which enters this hole and is yieldingly pressed against the ax as it lies in the mold. It also consists in the construction and arrangement of the parts as hereinafter more fully described and set forth in the claims. In the drawings, 2, 2, represent the vertical guides of a die press, the cross head, 3, of which reciprocates between these guides and bears the upper die, 4. The lower die, 5 is carried upon the bed of the machine, and at one end of the dies their meeting faces are correspondingly recessed to form a hole within which fits the plunger or hammer head, 7, which is carried at the inner end of a sliding bar, 8, passing through one of the guides, 2, and pivoted at its outer end to a weight, 9, which bears against the same and presses it inwardly. A shoulder, 10, is formed upon the plunger, which prevents it entering too far into the mold cavity; and, as seen in Fig. 2, the hole through which it passes is of about the same size as the end of the matrix or cavity. The weight is suspended and held in place by a link, 11, and serves to press the squared inner end of the plunger against the rear end of the ax lying in the dies. The dies have the usual side recesses to receive the mandrel 12, around which the ax poll is formed, and, with the exception of the end recesses for the plunger, are similar to those commonly employed. The operation is as follows: The ax with the mandrel still passing therethrough is placed in the cavity in the lower die, with the plunger butting against the rear end of the poll, and the upper die is reciprocated. As the ax lies in a box die, it is compressed in all directions by the blow of the upper die, and is forced into the exact form desired, with a finely finished surface and a squared end to the poll, while the formation of fins between the dies is prevented by the plunger, which will give sufficiently to allow the flow of the metal endwise. The plunger or hammer head will not, however, allow sufficient endwise flow of the metal to distort the ax on account of the quickness of the blow, it acting in the manner of an anvil. The plunger will adjust itself automatically to an ax having too little or too much metal therein, and finish the same as perfectly as one having exactly the right amount; and a spring may be employed to hold the same in place, though I prefer the weight shown. The advantages of my invention will be appreciated by those skilled in the art. The flowing of the metal sidewise, and the lengthening of the eye portion, which always takes place when open dies are used in finishing, are entirely obviated, as well as the fin formation which always occurs when ordinary box dies are employed. The surface of the ax is compressed and given a high polish, and its edges are made sharp and exact. Many variations will suggest themselves to those skilled in the art without departure from my invention, since what I claim is: (1) A pair of dies having a hole, a plunger movable within the hole, and means for continuously forcing in said plunger with a yielding pressure, substantially as described. (2) A stationary die and a reciprocatory die having mating recesses at one end forming a hole opening into the die cavity, a plunger within the hole, and means for exerting a continuous yielding pressure upon said plunger, substantially as and for the purposes described. (3) A stationary die and a reciprocatory die having mating matrix cavities, a hole leading through the die to the matrix, a plunger in the hole, and a weight arranged to exert a constant pressure upon said plunger, substantially as described.' (Image Omitted) The following sketch aids in understanding the machines:

TAYLOR PATENT.

(Image Omitted) The device of the defendant, as shown by a sketch of defendant's expert, is as follows:

(Image Omitted) The usual method of making axes is to cut off for the ax poll a sufficient piece from a bar of iron, and to form the hole for the handle or the eye by bending the bar double over a mandrel. After the poll is forged, the steel edge or bit is welded to it. Before the Taylor invention, polls were first forged roughly into shape by hand hammering. Subsequently small trip hammers were used in forging, and much increased the output per day. In this process, the poll was forged by three or four or more blows of the trip hammer on an open die. A box die is distinguished from an open die in the fact that when the upper and lower faces of the box die are together, the die cavity of the box die is entirely closed, while in an open die the sides are open. An improvement in the manufacturing of axes by the use of box dies was patented by Palmer & Hubbard in 1871. The method consisted in taking the poll in its roughest shape, and putting it in a box die, and then dropping upon it a hammer in which was the other half of the die. This operation was repeated two or three times, then the bit was welded to the poll, and that again was subjected to the operation of another box die and drop hammer. The objection to the use of the box die, as shown in the Palmer & Hubbard invention, was the difficulty of adjusting the quantity of metal so exactly that the operation of the die upon the metal in the rough would not result in the excess of metal appearing in large and obstinate fins all around the ax poll at the line of contact between the two faces of the dies. The removal of the fins required costly sawing and finishing, and rendered the process impracticable. It was possible by the nicest measurement and weight of the material to produce a good poll, but for commercial purposes such nice adjustments were not practicable. The box die was therefore abandoned, and recourse had to forging with the open dies and the small drop hammers before referred to. The Taylor invention is shown by the expert evidence on both sides to produce exactly the effect which the specifications describe. No fins form at any place on the poll, except sometimes at its head, and these are so slight as to be easily removed in the finishing process. The same number of men can make 2,500 ax polls in a day by using the Taylor device, when by earlier methods they could make but 500, and the cost of making axes has thus been reduced about 15 cents per dozen.

One of the defendant's experts attempted to show that the Taylor patent is invalid for want of novelty. Dayton, the other expert for the defendant, does not say so, but only seeks to limit the scope of the patent by prior devices in the art. Box dies in the manufacture of axes were old. the drop hammer in the forging of axes was old. In the Hammond patent and in the...