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315,412 · Hyatt · "Illuminating Tiling and Grating for Covering Vaults, Roofs, &c." · Page 3 Home  > Prism Glass  > Patent Index  > Page 3

315,412: 3 of 9

employing several tiles of the ordinary kind to close such a space. Sectional space b² illustrates the effect of employing but one tile to close such a space.     Fig. 6 represents a small illuminating-tile made with light-holes grouped in clusters of oblique-angled triangles.     Fig. 7 represents.a large or one-casting panel-tile similar to Fig. 6.     Fig. 8 represents a portion of an opening covered by tiles similar to Figs. 6 and 7.     Figs. 1 to 8 illustrate the system of patent-light manufacture and construction in use, and show the features that constitute both its merits and defects, both features of which must be fully understood in order to be able to comprehend and appreciate the nature and value of my improvements.     Fig. 1, an opening to be covered by illuminating-gratings, is designed to illustrate the practical fact that the size of openings to be covered thus is altogether too great to admit of being closed by any tile capable of being made in a single casting, such openings being in general from eight to sixteen or twenty feet long, and in width varying from three to ten or twelve feet. Fig. 2, therefore, represents the opening divided by rafters or tile-supports into sizes of convenient width and length to be closed by gratings that can be made in a single piece or casting. Now, if we consider Fig. 2 to represent a roof-space divided into sections b b b by the rafters a a a, then, were this ordinary roof construction made with do regard to light, we should have the rafters crossed by purlins, cutting up and subdividing all the sectional spaces; but light being the purpose of the construction shown by the figures, the sectional spaces b b are left entirely open between the rafters to let in as much light as possible, and the illuminating-tiles manufactured to close such sectional spaces are made with direct reference to this prime necessity of the construction policy. Figs. 3, 4, 5 are designed to illustrate this point. Fig. 3 represents an illuminating-tile as ordinarily made, but so small that three of them are required to close one of the panel or section spaces of Fig. 5, as shown at b'.     Now, as by the common mode of constructing these gratings they are made each with a dead-work border, c c c c, which entirely surrounds the light-field D of the tile on its four sides, as seen in Fig. 3, it follows, as illustrated at b', Fig. 5, that the employment of such tiles is directly at variance with the construction policy of illuminating-roof making in which purlins are inadmissible, for it is plain to be seen that the dead-work border of tile No. 1 in sectional space b', Fig. 5, where it abuts with the dead-work border of tile No. 2, produces a dead-line and loss of light equal to an equivalent interception of light by a purlin; and this loss of light in each one of the sectional spaces, when so closed by a number of small gratings of ordinary make, is augmented directly in proportion to the number

of such tiles employed, as is further illustrated in b', Fig. 5, where the dead-work borders of tiles 2 and 3 abut together. It follows from this that the fewer the tiles to each one of the sectional spaces the greater the light, and consequently that a single or one-casting tile is best of all when manufactured in the common way. This fact has become so generally recognized by architects and the public generally that the one-casting panel-tile system of manufacture and construction is now the universal mode the country over, and no manufacturer of patent lights has any chance of success unless he conforms to this established usage. At the same time it has been always felt to be a great drawback to the industry that illuminating-tiles cannot be manufactured to stock sizes and kept on hand to be sold as merchandise. Any manufactured article that can be kept in stock can be always manufactured more cheaply and to better advantage than when made to order. Making to order means paying the highest wages and buying the raw materials in the dearest market, and this enhances prices and restricts use and consumption.     Sectional space b², Fig. 5, illustrates the one-casting panel-tile system of construction, the principle of the construction as illustrated by the figure being a closure for the sectional space containing a light-field substantially co-extensive with the area of the section of space covered by the tile. Panel-space b', Fig. 5, contains three tiles, and consequently three light-fields, with necessarily two dead-work border-divisions running across the panel-light space of the structural frame-work, and with therefore a consequent and equivalent loss of light power; but panel-space b², containing but one tile, and therefore but one light-field, secures thereby the whole of the available light power of the sectional or panel space contained within the structural frame-work to which the illuminating-tiles are fixed. This one-casting panel-tile mode of construction secures the object of the invention as to light-power, but at a great sacrifice to the art as an industry, confining it to the condition of a mere handicraft, with but little, if any, importance beyond its own immediate centers of production and manufacture.     Drawing Fig. 5 reveals the defect of the present system, and at the same time reveals the primary cause-- to wit, an illuminating-grating or light field entirely encircled by a dead-work border-- the consequence of which, as shown at b', is that the sectional or panel space of the foundation-frame thus closed is not only disfigured by the dead-lines of the dead-work borders where they cross the space between the light-fields of the separate tiles, but the light-power of the section-space to this extent also suffers a diminution of its illuminating-power.     Figs. 9, 9a, and 10 illustrate one form of-my improved fractional gratings and construction. Fig. 9 represents a grating in all