This patent consists of claims in two general areas: the shape of the cast strip (and thus of the mold which casts it) and oiling during the casting process. It was not assigned to the Ludlow Typograph Company (although this fact does not demonstrate that they did not acquire rights to it).
The mold described has raised ribs internal to it (these do not, curiously, extend all the way to the front opening of the mold). These ribs produce corresponding channels in the cast strip. The idea is that in use strips will tend to stick to each other (especially when coated lightly with oil), and that these channels will make them easier to separate by hand.
From the point of view of the history of the Elrod, however, the secondary set of claims may be more important. Recall that while Benjamin Elrod's original patent (1,344,577, filed 1918, issued 1922) specified a rather crude pressure oiler, patent documents from the 1920s (and the Elrod Instructions Number 4) indicate that a "suction" oiling system was used instead. At some point this was changed to the modern Elrod system of pressure oiling through a Diffusion Tube with a packing material in the tube.
Lemiux' patent, filed 1933, claims as an innovation a pressure oiler. However, his oiler has no packing in its equivalent of a Diffusion Tube. It relies solely on pressure to regulate the flow of oil. It claims a pressure oiler, though, not as an independent device but as one operating in conjunction with the ribs of the mold. These ribs will, Lemiuex claims, assist in keeping the oil from simply floating up and failing to lubricate the entire mold.
Interestingly, the tube of this pressure oiler is shown as being in contact with the mold (as in the Elrod Pressure Oiler), where the earlier ("suction") oiler tubes were shown a short distance away from the mold.
The Elrod Pressure Oiler (pressure with packing) probably would not have infringed upon the pressure oiler described here (pressure without packing but specifically with ribbed mold). Therefore this patent must remain only a tantalizing piece of history rather than a defining item, pending more research, because it cannot be used to date the Elrod Pressure Oiler.
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