IMPROVED MACHINERY FOR PRINTING CARPETS
Year: 1868

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Wilkinson, the younger, of St. Helen's
Mills, Hunslet, Leeds, in the County of York, for the Invention of
"IMPROVED MACHINERY FOR PRINTING CARPETS."
Sealed the 5th February 1869, and dated the 31st August 1868.
PROVISIONAL SPECÍFICATION left by the said John Wilkinson at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
31st August 1868.
I, JOHN WILKINSON, the younger, of St. Helen's Mills, Hunslet,
Leeds, in the County of York, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVED MACHINERY FOR PRINTING CARPETS," to be as
follows:-
My Invention relates to improved machinery for printing terry or
cut-pile carpets which require to be printed up to the edge of the fabric.
These fabrics have heretofore been printed by means of blocks which
from time to time are carried from the color table to a position above
the fabric, on to which they are brought down in order to transfer the
i

page_text: pattern from the block to the fabric, which during the printing operation
is stationary.
It has been found that printing by means of blocks is a slow operation,
and the machinery is of a complicated and expensive character, the
fabric moreover can only be moved intermittently or when the blocks
are lifted up from the surface, and when they are not printing there is
consequently a loss of time which militates considerably against the
amount of work produced in a given time. It has also been proposed to
place the fabric to be printed on a stationary table, and to cause a series
of printing rollers to pass over it from end to end and to print in suc-
cession the various, colors of which the pattern or design is composed.
This arrangement of mechanism does not produce good work owing to
the difficulty of obtaining good register, and is open to other objections
which it is not necessary to refer to here.
The nature of my Invention consists in carrying the carpet fabric to
be printed forward in an uninterrupted and continuous manner under
a series of printing cylinders or rollers mounted in suitable bearings in
fixed framings, in which are also mounted color rollers with the
.necessary appendages and accessories for the printing rollers, so that
when the fabric is set in motion the printing operation may be carried
on continuously and without any interruption or intermission until any
desired length of fabric has been printed.
The carpet fabric to be operated upon is placed in a box at one end
of the machine and is conducted over and under a series of guide and
tension rollers, whereby it is kept extended and stretched out perfectly
flat and is properly guided on to a travelling endless belt or blanket
provided throughout its whole surface with a number of pins or points
which are pressed into the back of the carpet fabric. By this arrange-
ment two or three layers of the same color may be laid in succession
on the same parts of the pattern without stopping the progress of the
fabric. As the terry or other fabric to be printed is pressed down on to
the short pins or points on the travelling endless cloth or belt it will be
carried forward therewith and made to adhere thereto all the while it is
passing through the machine and the printing operation is taking place,
and therefore if the travelling endless cloth be carried forward in an
uniform manner and the position and rotation of the printing rollers or
cylinders are accurately adjusted the printing operation can be carried
on rapidly and with great accuracy. It is indispensable to have the

page_text: means of adjusting the tension of the travelling endless cloth, which is
liable to stretch in one place and not in another, which I effect by means
of a screw adjustment adapted to the spur wheel which actuates the
printing roller. By these means the printing surfaces may be adjusted so
as to register with accuracy, and the pattern on the printing roller may be
carried forward or backward as may be required to bring it into register
with the other rollers. The fabric having passed from end to end of the
machine is released from the pins of the travelling endless cloth or belt
and may then be steamed for the purpose of fixing or striking the color,
after which the body of the coloring composition may be removed by
washing, brushing, or otherwise..
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patont,
filed by the said John Wilkinson in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 27th February 1869.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
WILKINSON, the younger, of St. Helen's Mills, Hunslet, Leeds, in the
County of York, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Thirty-first day of August, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, in the thirty-
second year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give
and grant unto me, the said John Wilkinson, Her special licence that I,
the said John Wilkinson, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or
such others as I, the said John Wilkinson, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to
time and at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and
Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVED MACHINERY FOR PRINTING CARPETS,"
upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said John Wilkinson,
my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under
my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly
describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed

page_text: in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said John Wilkinson, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement, reference being had to the Drawings hereunto
annexed, and to the letters and figures marked thereon (that is to say) :-
My Invention relates to improved machinery for printing terry or
cut pile carpets which require to be printed up to the edge of the fabric.
These fabrics have heretofore been printed by means of blocks which
from time to time are carried from the color table to a position above
the fabric, on to which they are brought down in order to transfer the
pattern from the block to the fabric, which during the printing operation
is stationary.
It has been found that printing by means of blocks is a slow operation,
and the machinery required for this purpose is of a complicated and
expensive character. The fabric moreover can only be moved inter-
mittently or when the blocks are lifted up from the surface, and when
they are not printing there is consequently a loss of time which militates
considerably against the amount of work produced in a given time.
It has also been proposed to place the fabric to be printed on a
stationary table and to cause a series of printing rollers to pass over
it from end to end and to print in succession the various colors of which
the pattern or design is composed. This arrangement of mechanism
does not produce good work owing to the difficulty of obtaining good
register and is open to other objections which it is not necessary to
refer to here.
In the machine which forms the subject of my Invention the carpet
fabric to be printed is carried forward in an uninterrupted and con.
tinuous manner under a series of printing cylinders or rollers mounted
in suitable bearings in fixed framings, in which are also mounted colour
rollers with the necessary appendages and accessories for the printing
rollers, so that when the fabric is set in motion the printing operation.
may be carried on continuously and without any interruption or inter-
mission until any desired length of fabric has been printed,
In the accompanying Drawing I have shewn the arrangement of
mechanism whereby the objects of my improvements may be effected.

page_text: Fig. 1 is a side clevation of the machine, one of the series of the printing
mechanism being shewn in section and another in side elevation. In
this Figure in order to avoid an unnecessary repetition of analogous
parts I have shortened the length of the machine, and have only shown
two sets of printing mechanism, whereas if several colors, say eight,
are to be used to produce the pattern eight sets of printing mechanism
will be required. Fig. 2 represents a plan view of one end of the
machine, and Fig. 3 is an end elevation.
The carpet fabric to be operated upon is placed in a box a at one
eud of the machine, and is conducted as indicated by the arrows over
and under a series of guide and tension rollers b, b, b, whereby it is
kept extended and stretched out perfectly flat and is properly guided
on to a travelling endless belt or blanket c provided throughout its
whole surface with a number of pins or points which are pressed into
the back of the carpet fabric by means of a weighted roller c'. The
endless belt with the points or pins thereon is seen best in the plan
view at c (Fig. 2), in which a portion of the carpet is cut away to
shew the endless belt beneath. At or near this point the carpet may
be damped either by means of jets of water or by a damping roller
(which however is not shewn in tho Drawing) for the purpose of making
the colour take better on to the wool. The machine may, as has been
already mentioned, be of any convenient length according to the number
of printing cylinders or rollers it is intended to employ to produce
the pattern or the desired effect. By this arrangement of parts I
shall be enabled to print the terry carpet fabric continuously and
without stopping its onward progressive motion, and also to lay two
or three layers of the same colour in succession on the same parts of
the pattern without stopping the progress of the fabric as, two, three,
or more of the printing rollers or cylinders may if required have the
same part of the pattern engraved thereon. It will be understood that
as the terry or other fabric to be printed is pressed down on to the
short pins or points on the travelling endless cloth or belt c it will
be carried forward therewith and made to adhere thereto all the while
it is passing through the machine and the printing operation is taking
place, and therefore if the travelling endless cloth c be carried forward
in an uniform manner and the position and rotation of the printing
rollers or cylinders d are accurately adjusted, the printing operation
can be carried on rapidly and with great accuracy. I have found

page_text: however that it is indispensable to have the means of adjusting the
tension of the travelling endless cloth c, which is liable to stretch in
one place and not in another. The cloth is kept at proper tension by
means of a screw adjustment e adapted to the bearings of the large
chain wheel f round which the endless band c passes, but the
adjustment of the tension of the endless sheet c at different points may
be effected with facility by reason of the peculiar mode in which the
travelling endless sheet c is attached or secured to the travelling
chains whereby it is carried forward. A link of one of these chains
is shewn detached and drawn upon an enlarged scale at Figures 4
and 5; Fig. 4 is a plan view, and Fig. 5 an end view of the link. It
will be seen that each link of the chains is provided on the inner
side with a projecting arm or plate 9 which is grooved on its upper
face to receive the pins 1 of a moveable top plate or cover h. This
top plate is provided on its under side with several short pins or
points 1, 1, which take into the groove of the under plate g, and the
two plates are connected together by means of a tightening screw i
and thus form a secure clamp. In order to secure the endless cloth
or belt c to the travelling chains, the top clamping plates h are removed,
so that the edges of the cloth may be placed over the groove in the
lower plates g.
When the cloth is at proper tension and perfectly
smooth and even the top clamping plates h are replaced, and their
pins 1, 1, are forced through the cloth c into the groove of the
lower plate g, thereby firmly clamping the edge of the cloth which
is secured by the tightening screws i, i. It will be evident
therefore that by merely loosening the tightening screws i and lifting
off the top clamping plate h the endless cloth may be released, and
any irregularities in its surface adjusted. The chains f, f, run in
guides f, f, Fig. 3, which rest on rails or other supports attached to
the framing. In order to tighten up the endless cloth c in a lateral
direction when it is secured to the chains f. f. (in the manner shewn
at Fig. 5) the guides f¹ are made capable of being adjusted or drawn
up laterally by means of adjusting or tightening screws, as will be well
understood. It is necessary also to be able to adjust with facility and
accuracy the pressure of the printing cylinders or rollers d on the face
of the fabric. This is done by means of vertical adjusting screws j
worked by hand for fine adjustment, and by bevil gearing for rough
adjustment. In order to adjust the surfaces of the printing rollers d
so as to cause them to register with accuracy a screw adjustment is

page_text: adapted, as shewn in Fig. 1, to the large spur wheels k, which actuate
the printing rollers by gearing into and driving a pinion d' on the
axle of the roller d. This screw adjustment consists of an arm m,
which is keyed fast on the axle of the spur wheel / and a pair of
horns n, n, mounted on the same axle, but capable of axial motion
thereon. These horns are provided with set screws, the inner ends of
which bear against the fixed arm m, so that by unscrewing one screw
and screwing up the other a slight axial motion may be given to the
spur wheel k.
It will be evident that by simply turning the spur
wheel in one direction or the other by means of the screw adjust-
ment just described, or any other convenient means, the surface of the
printing roller or cylinder & may be adjusted on its axis without stopping
the machine. In other words, the pattern on the printing roller d may
be carried slightly forward or backward as may be required to bring it
into register with the patterns of the other rollers. In order to ensure
an uniform surface speed for the travelling endless cloth c and the
printing rollers or cylinders d, these latter with their accessories and also
the chain wheels f³, f, which carry the chains f, f, are actuated from
the longitudinal shaft o (Figures 2 and 3) which extends from end to
end of the machine, and is driven by means of a small steam engine
which acts directly thereon. This shaft o carries a series of worms p, p,
which gear into and drive the worm wheels q, q, on the opposite ends
of the axles of which are mounted the spur wheels k, k, which gear
into the pinions on the axles of the printing rollers. One of the
worms p of the shaft o drives a worm wheel q¹ on the axle of the
chain wheels f. It will now be understood that as all the worms p
are of uniform diameter and all the worm wheels q, q, and q' are also
of uniform diameter the surface speed of the printing rollers and of the
pinned sheet or belt c and the fabric to be printed must be uniform.
It will be understood from the above description of my improved
printing machine that it possesses every facility for rapid and accurate
printing, it therefore only remains to remark that when the fabric has
passed from end to end of the machine it is to be released from the
pins of the travelling endless cloth or belt c, which may be done by
simply lifting it off. The carpet may then be steamed for the purpose
of fixing or striking the color, after which the body of the colouring
composition may be removed by washing, brushing, or otherwise, as
is well known.

page_text: Having now described my Invention of "Improved Machinery for
Printing Carpets," and having explained the manner of carrying the
same into effect, I claim as the Invention secured to me by Letters
Patent as aforesaid, the combination in rotary or continuous printing
machinery of a series of continuously revolving printing rollers or
cylinders (and their color rollers and other accessories) with a con-
tinuously travelling endless cloth or belt (for supporting the fabric)
provided on its surface with pins, points, or an equivalent device for
carrying forward the terry or cut pile fabric, and causing the same to
be printed by a continuous or uninterrupted operation, as herein set
forth.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Wilkinson, have hereunto
set my hand and scal, the Twenty-seventh day of February,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-
nine.