IMPROVEMENTS IN TRIMMINGS OF A CHENILLE LIKE CHARACTER
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Saturnin Germain de Montauzan at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 16th September 1880.
SATURNIN GERMAIN DE MONTAUZAN, Negociant, Rue St. Catherine, 3, à Lyon, et
Chef de la Maison Germain Frères & Cie. "IMPROVEMENTS IN TRIMMINGS OF A
CHENILLE LIKE CHARACTER."
I have invented a spaced or plumed chenille.
Twisted chenille is first produced in picces in looms such as produce ribbons and
trimmings or on fabric looins. It is made in pieces of different widths according
as the loom is arranged to produce fabrics less or more wide.
Each piece is made in such a way as to form a certain number of bands of
chenille, which are then divided longitudinally either in the machine or by hand.
These bands thus cut apart form a fiat chenille, with a centre body of taffetas or
satin or the like formed by the warp and the weft.
On each side of the centre are the weft threads which have served to
weave the centre of the chenille, and which being without warp at the edges are
there no longer tied together and form fringes, giving a velvety aspect to the chenille
band at the two sides. The band of chenille thus formed, after being cut from the
piece is passed under two heated cylinders, which are weighted by levers; thus it is
pressed, and it obtains by this operation a brilliancy which it had not before. In
front of the cylinders there is a twisting machine turned by the hand of the
workman, and moving simultaneously with the cylinders. The twisting machine
twists the chenille into a spiral, either tighter or looser, as may be desired. This
torsion being put on the material as it issues hot from the cylinders the fabric
remains fixed in the form, and by the different means explained the chenille,
which at first is flat, becomes the chenille known as twisted chenille.
My process consists in taking the twisted chenille as described above and
flattening down upon the centre the fibres or pile composing it, in a regular or
in an irregular and interrupted manner, according as it is desired to obtain an
interrupted regular or irregular effect.
To obtain these interrupted or spaced effects I employ dies with draw holes of
a size adapted to the effects which I desire to produce by laying the pile or
loose fibre of the chenille. The dies are pierced with holes of a diameter suited
to the sizes of the bands of chenille which are to be passed through them, and

page_text: adapted also to the degree of pressure which it is desired to give to the pile to
render it adherent to the centre band of the chenille.
I pass then through this die the bands of twisted chenille, allowing the part
in which the pile is to be laid to remain an instant in the die, long enough for
the heat of the die to set the pile, but not so long as to cause it to be burnt
or the shade of color to be changed; then by a rapid movement the band of
chenille is drawn forward, so that the part which has been in the die comes out
with the pile or loose fibre laid in around the centre and rendered brilliant ;
whilst another part of each band of chenille is thus drawn so rapidly through the
die as to experience no change in passing through, but to remain as it was before, a
twisted chenille.
The intermittent effects obtained by laying the pile may be varied by using
longer or shorter dies, and the intervening lengths of unchanged twisted chenille
may have greater or less length allowed to them by varying the lengths of the
steps by which the bands of chenille are advanced through the dies.
My spaced plume chenille can be used in the manufacture of fringes, and may be
woven into ornamental fabrics as other chenille is now used, and it is useful for
other purposes for which chenille is now employed.