IM- PROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS TO BE USED IN BLEACHING, WASHING, STARCHING, AIRING, AND FINISHING FABRICS, AND IN SIZING YARNS
Year: 1857

page_text: application for Letters Patent was not given within the time prescribed
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Arthur Dobson at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 9th July
1857.
I, ARTHUR DOBSON, of Belfast, in the County of Antrim, in Ireland, Bleacher
and Finisher, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS TO BE USED IN BLEACHING, WASHING,
STARCHING, AIRING, AND FINISHING FABRICS, AND IN SIZING YARNS," to be as
follows:-
This Invention, so far as it relates to improvements in machinery or
apparatus to be used in bleaching, consists, in the first place, of a novel
arrangement and form of rubbers, instead of the old plan wherein the serrated
rubbing surfaces were inserted in long heavy planks, to which a to-and-fro
Inotion was given. I radially or otherwise serrate a circular rubber which I
mount on a vertical axis, to which I communicate any required parts of a
revolution in one direction, whilst the lower rubber on which the cloth rests
is either stationary or moveable in an opposite direction.
In the second place, it consists of improvements in wash mills. In the oli
plan the mill boxes require to be fed or supplied with cloth by men who throw
in the cloth in hanked pieces, and when sufficiently washed withdraw the
same and place it on racks or elsewhere to drain. By the introduction of
drawing and delivering rollers in the sides of the lower front timbers of the
mill frame, and an arrangement for preventing the loss of water, 1 make the

page_text: mills a continuous washing machine, so that all the labour required is to kuot
or attach the ends of pieces to each other, the cloth being taken into the box,
washed, and delivered in a squeezed or comparatively dried state.
In the third place, my improvements in apparatus for bleaching consist in
a novel and improved dash or bleaching wheel. I place moveable doors on
the cloth-feeding holes, and moveable tight covers on the outlet holes of an
ordinary dash wheel; to the edges of the water ring or race I affix concentric
flanges; I fit a circular ring plug to work between these flanges, and in the
thick part thereof I insert suitable cocks or taps, in order to admit various
liquids or other bleaching agents; also through one of these taps or cocks I
at certain times admit water. By removing the covers from the outlet holes,
I can readily get rid of used or dirty stuffs, and can to a certain extent dry
the cloth by allowing the wheel to work with the cloth only therein; also by
admitting water when the outlets are open, I have an effective wash wheel.
It will be evident that with these arrangements I can bleach cloth once put
into the wheel without removing it for any purpose.
My improvements in starching and airing apparatus consist in placing an
endless web or sheet over rollers and between two bowls, the lower of which
imparts starch or size to the outer surface of the web. The web is kept
in a state of tension sufficient to allow the fabric laid upon it to be pressed
down by rollers, without giving way too much. The airing apparatus consists
of a frame containing drawing and delivering rollers (through which the fabric
is continuously passed from the starching machine); this frame is moved to
and fro by an eccentric, so that the cloth being stretched in the frame is by
this moving about aired by the air finding its way through the interstices of
the cloth. I also propose to use a wire cylinder containing a fan as a means
of airing.
The above description, without the airing, applies to my yarn sizing machine,
except that I may use two sheets so as to size both sides of the yarn at once.
My improvements in finishing fabrics consists in providing a two-bowled
mangle with levers, which shall, as the bowls are gradually parted or elevated,
gradually lift or become subject to pressure of additional weights, and entering
two pieces of cloth into the nip of the bowls, and allowing the upper piece to
wrap on the upper and the lower on the lower bowls of the mangle.