690, FEDERAL REPORTER. �The Bostwick patent was said by the inventor to be an invention for soldering metallic caps and other progecting pieces on metallic vessels. He contrived it for use in his business on oil cans, which have a projecting mouth-piece somewhat like a pill box, and which are closed by a cover which fits down over the mouth-piece like the cover of a pill box. He describes a soldering iron made of sueh a shape as to fit over the cap, whether round, square, oval, or of what- ever shape the cap might be. The iron is to be made thick, so as to retain the beat, and hoUow, so as to fit over and enclose the projection; its inner diameter at its lower end being somewhat greater than the extemal diameter of the cap. The interior of this hoUow iron above the cap is to re- ceive and embrace loosely a guiding rod to be placed on the cap to be soldered, to hold the latter down firmly until it has been secured by the solder, and at the same time to guide the iron to its proper place upon or against the rim or edge of the cap. This guiding rod, also, as well as the iron, is to conform to the shape of the projection and cap. The iron is provided with a handle, which is fastened near the upper edge, andprojects in the dr^iwing at right angles to it. He thus describes the use of the device: "After the iron has been heated it is slipped over the rod, and the rod, being then placed upon the cap, is held thereon firmly, while the lower rim of the heated irou, duly supplied with solder, bearing upon the joint of the cap with the vessel, will instantly solder and secure the same about its entire circumf erence. By lifting the rod, a shoulder engaging with an offset within the iron will take up the iron with it in readiness to be placed upon another cap, and thus a number of caps may be quickly and thoroughly soldered at one beat of the iron." He claims as his invention, "the hoUow iron having a handle and beveled rim in combination with the rod, substantially as set forth." In the drawing, the soldering iron is represented about an inch in diameter, and about an eighth of an inch in thickness, and the guiding rod fills the remaining space, showing that the inventor intended the rod to be of considerable thickness, — sufficient to cover the ����
