Recent Building Patents

Progress, Volume XII, Issue 1, 1 September 1916, Page 728

Recent Building Patents

Preserving Timber. —A patent has been taken out by the Westralian Powell Wood Process Ltd. for preserving timber. To render the wood stronger and less hygroscopic when impregnated with a sugar solution, other carbohydrates such as starch, dextrine or gum, are added to the sugar solution. A hot solution is formed by adding 5% of dextrine and \% of gum tragacanth to a sugar solution of density 1.080 with or without 3% of arsenic. When heated throughout, the timber is removed and naturally or artificially dried.

Concrete Wall Construction. Patent No. 16,871, by T. Hodgson, Victoria, consists of a mould for forming concrete walls of buildings formed of a number of sections, some of which, as c and d, extend the full height while others, as h, are connected thereto when necessary. Openings i are left at suitable heights for filling purposes and are afterwards closed by plates j, which may be secured by a bar and wedges 1 and n or by latches.

The walls of the mould are secured together by bolts with spacing ferrules, and the ends of the moulds may be extended and allow the reinforcement to project so • that extensions may be easily effected. The foundation layer consists of pebbles up to 3 inch gauge, which are mixed with coarse sand and tar and rolled. The surface layer is formed of small unbroken gravel mixed with small crushed metal and tar and is thoroughly rolled to a level surface.

Concreting Building Slab & Mould. —Patent No. 37,313, by John Bellingham, Masterton. This invention relates to slabs or blocks (hereinafter referred to as slabs ”) made of concrete or the like and used in the construction of walls and other parts of buildings. Slabs of this kind have been made with integral half-studs, secured together by H-shaped keys, one half of all the members of which were embedded in the upper edges of one course of slabs and the other half in the lower edges of superposed slabs. The present invention consists in uniting slabs having integral half-studs by means of Hshaped keys, having their lower members cemented in recesses formed' in the upper ends of half-studs of a course of opposing slabs, and having their upper members cemented in recesses formed in the lower ends of half-studs of a course of opposing slabs superposed upon the lower course of slabs, the said slabs having

their upper and lower edges rebated on reverse faces and having grooves in their end edges. . Further, the invention provides rebates in the half-studs and rebated distance-pieces fitting into and connecting the said rebated half-studs of opposing slabs. The mould is made of any suitable material, such as sheet metal, aluminium,

wood, iron, brass, or the like, and is constructed to prevent breakage of a casting during its removal from the mould, half-slabs for completing the ends of courses and mitre or bevel.