Ruby Casting (verneuli flame fusion)

I have been reading about creating synthetic rubies/sapphires. It seems fairly straight forward to make the machine to cast/create the gems (especially with the patents in the link below). I haven't seen anyone else make a copy of the machine at the hobbyist level for some reason, only a bunch of jack asses on youtube making cloudy ruby with blow torches and arc welders.

What do you think? Have you seen anyone else make one of these machines before? Might be interesting to make? Is it illegal to make a copy if there is no profit involved - I think the patents may have expired?

https://www.freepatentsonline.com/3607111.html

 

First, a disclaimer, I'm not a lawyer, what follows is not legal advise merely my understanding of patent law.
Short answer, no it's not illegal but do so at your own risk.
Patent infringement in and of itself is not a crime and patent protection is only as strong as the patent holder's willingness to assert it. Patent law merely provides the patent holder civil legal recourse should the patent be violated. Patent infringement only rises to a criminal level if the patent holder is successful in convincing a court to issue a cease and desist order and the violator refuses to honour that order, in which case, the crime would be contempt of court not patent infringement. What all that means in practical terms, as long as your activities do not bite into a patent holder's bottom line, they will probably decide it's not worth their time and money to come after you, I underlined probably because there are counter examples.

 

Makes sense.

A lot of these patents are from the 1920's through 1970's so I'm guessing they have expired anyway. I don't plan to sell machines or gems mainly interested in recreating the process for interest sake.

 

My only comment would be patents are deliberately ambiguous most of the time so be cautious following the designs 'to the letter'. Most of my work in patents applications involved a sketchy non technical start that was further defined on each re-admission while the patent office sighted conflicting other patents. Took years to get some through sometimes!

As said by others above, I doubt you're in breach given the filing dates but you can search the patent register if you're concerned, and of course don't draw attention to yourself.

 

Started making some parts. I made a water cooling bit with some fins to cool the tip. Will probably weld it closed tomorrow.

 

All patents from the '70s are long expired. It's17 years for most things (practical applications), maybe 25 years for pharmaceutical. Plant patents maybe 20 years. Look it up on uspto site, it will give the exact date of expiration.

 

Don't forget the flashback arresters if you're going to be burning hydrogen, I've been told you can also use high pressure oxygen gauges to meter hydrogen gas.

 

I checked on the first site mentioned but couldn't find the patent number at all.

 

Make what you want zap. F everyone else and their attorneys. Then expect a cease and desist letter if you hang out a shingle. (which you aren't doing anyways, so again, F 'em)
With that said, we need tort reform something fierce in this country.

I hope you can pull this off. Pretty cool! In your 2nd photo, that thing on the right, is that concave inside that? If so, how did you do it? I made these parts the other day and had to have my neighbor do the concave part. I tried grinding a tool, but it turned out like shit.
And since when are YOU cutting acme threads? Very nice

 

Yeah well I hope I'm not stepping on toes. As far as I can tell I'm not since patents are hella old and searching the patent numbers on the available patent sites doesn't show anything active. A bit unclear what the legal status is since the patent num ers aren't coming up, but again not making to sell or "steal" their profits just making for my own use and interest in the process. They could waste cash trying to sue me but I think they'd have a hard time showing how I hurt their profits. Even posting pics of making it shouldn't be a reason since they already have the patent plans available for anyone with the right lathe/mill machinery to make it.

Also I cheated I cut the npt threads off a 2 inch pipe and welded it on there I tapped the 1/4" npt threads on the side of the water cooler though but I think the Irwin tap I bought is shit because it doesn't let store bought npt threads go in. The tap itself threads well but its like it tapped a slightly undersized npt hole or something because the 1/4" npt brass fittings just won't thread into it at all. I'm very annoyed. I guess I'll try a different brand of tap.

As for that cone I used a boring rod and got as deep as I could go then used a drill bit to cut the deepest part and then used my dremel with carbide bit to grind the last bit of the cone to connect with the hole. Rhen I sand papered the inside of the cone to get rid of chatter marks.. Not the prettiest solution but it mostly worked. I'm not sure what the best way would be to do this kind of cut. Maybe some specialized cone cutter drill bit??

I need to find a steel cone with a sharp angle to it to make the upper cone where the powder sits. Not sure I can make one with thin metal. Might be easier to buy one. Like maybe an automotive oil cone

 

My concave surface was cut on the cnc mill. He had some kind of special cutter and told me it was 93,000 lines of code! He did 5 of them for me in this 4140. They are pads which will be used for weighing aircraft. He got a decent enough finish. His lathe would have been a better option, but there was a rifle barrel mounted up and didn't want to disturb the setup. Yeah, stay far away from Irwin taps.

 

Isn't your NPT male tap tapered?, if the male tapered fittings don't engage you just have to wind the thread tap in deeper to widen the tapered female thread until you get 4-5 turns hand tight.

 

See I thought that too but then I did a test piece and drove the tap in almost to the end and still no dice. Not sure what is going on. Maybe I need to weld the holes shut and tap using a regular tap, then make my own barbs that fit them. I also don't have a lot of room to drive the tap all the way through the part. Only about 1/3" deep.

Does the tap need to be driven completely through the hole for npt or is the Irwin tap just made badly?

 

I have a parallel NPT tap in my collection from a cheap tap set so there's that possibility too. Does your have an obvious taper, if so then it's time to buy a known quality tap that will give results.

 

Maybe I'll have to check the tap for a taper.

What tap should I get? So many junk brands out there.

 

Also what solder to bond stainless 304 to mild steel? Will silver solder for jewelery wick into small gaps or do i need something different? I have 65, 75 and 85% silver solders.

 

Ideally you'd get a tool steel tap rather than an older carbon steel tap, with chrome steel at a minium. One way to tell with mystery older garage sale taps is that carbon steel taps have more flutes (like 6 or 8) to increase the number of cutting edges to compensate for faster wear. Almost any brand made in a first world country is going to be of good enough quality: Greenfield (USA), Sutton (now made in Japan), Goliath (German?), Dormer, Guhring. Once good brands like Frost are now used to badge complete crap not fit for purpose. It's hard to go wrong with Japanese taps: good material with a good price.

Stainless steel and mild steel solders well with normal tin-lead solder if you use a good liquid flux with ammonium chloride and hydrochloric acid. In your case with water cooling the parts may not get over the 230 deg C melting point of normal solder in normal operation and there's the added advantage of not getting your parts to the heat needed for silver solder. Disassembly would also be easier with tin lead solder too.

Edit: My understanding of the process is that hydrogen gas is needed for the flame and experiments I did in 1991 showed that while an oxy - acetylene flame was hot enough the gas did contaminate the gemstones and I ended up with black stones, really a super dark green colour. Hydrogen has it's own hazards like being flammable at very low concentrations, being prone to flashback and also floating up to collect at the ceiling before blowing the roof off buildings when ignited so precautions are needed.

 

Oh yeah the part I need the solder for is way higher up out of the heat completely. I want to solder the joint between the 304 ss capillary tube and the bottom of the cone to seal it in

 

What about lead free plumbing solder, and electronic solder or the silver jewelery solders as mentioned.

 

Lead free should work fine too, silver solder will work great but I'd buy the plumbing shop 45% silver or even lower. It'll have to get a lot hotter than soft tin solders and disassembly will be a pain. The flux is the key, I find this flux: Ezi-weld 801 is really good for stainless as well as just about everything else (when using tin or tin-lead soft solder):