AN IMPROVED MODE OF PRINTING CERTAIN COLOURS ON CALICO AND OTHER FABRICS
Year: 1846

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, BENNET
WOODCROFT, of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, Consulting Engineer
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-second' day
of June, in the ninth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and suc-
cessors, give and grant unto me, the said Bennet Woodci oft; my exors, adñiors,
and assigns, Her especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that
I, the said Bennet Woodcroft, my exors, adññiors, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said Bennet Woodcroft, my exors, admors, and' assigns, should at
any time agree with; and no others, from time to time and at all times during
the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use,
exercise; and, vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of 'Berwick-upon-
Tweed, my Invention of "AN IMPROVED MODE OF PRINTING CERTAIN COLOURS
ON CALICO AND OTHER FABRICS;" in which said Letters' Patent is contained a
proviso that I, the said Bennet Woodcroft, shall cause a particular description
of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be

page_text: performed, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to be
inrolled in Ier said Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said in part recited
Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will
moic fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Bennet Woodci oft, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
which relates to the printing with decxidized indigo, consists in the application
of an improved gas apparatus to a calico printing machine, which apparatus
contains the artificial atmosphere or gas deprived of or devoid of free oxygen,
with which the whole room has heretofore been filled in which the operations
have been carried on, and which apparatus is made to deliver or distribute the
said gas on the color used and on the fabric (whilst it is being printed with
deoxydized indigo to produce a blue colour, or with deoxydized indigo, com-
bined with other materials, to produce other colors) wherever it is desirable to
displace the atmospheric air or to prevent its injurious action on the color or
fabric without involving the necessity of placing the painting machine, the
fabue to be printed, the printing materials, and the workmen, in a 100m or
chamber filled with the artificial-air or gas as heretofore practised; and in
further compliance with the said proviso, I, the said Bennet Woodcroft, do
hereby describe the manner in which my said Invention is to be performed,
by the following statement thereof, reference being had to the Diawing
annexed, and to the figures and letters marked thereon, that is to say:-
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING.
Figure represents a side view in section of an ordinary calico printing
machine, with 2 rollers for printing 2 shades of blue, with my improved gas
apparatus attached, and by which my improved mode of printing with
deoxidized indigo and its compounds is effected. Figure 2 represents a front
view of parts of the same machine and gas apparatus. Figure 3 represents
in plan a pair of shears of a cleaning doctor with a gas pipe fixed to it,
through which gas is delivered on to the surface of the color in the color box,
and also on to that portion of the color which is taken up by the cylinder to
the doctor. Figure 4 is a plan of what I call the swinging gas case, cut
through at the line a in Figure 2. Figure 5 represents in plan the lid of the
upper part of the gas case. Figure 6 represents in plan the upper part of
the gas case with the lid removed. Figure 7, a side sectional view of the
whole gas apparatus on an enlarged scale. Figure 8 represents a front view
of Figure 7, shewing parts of the gas apparatus on a similarly enlarged scale.

page_text: Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, are drawn to the scale on the Diawing, and Figures
7 and 8 are drawn to a scale double that size. Similar figures and letters are
used to denote simular parts throughout the Drawing. b is the lid of the gas case,
which is made of tin. c is a channel, which runs round the top of the gas case d,
containing water, in which channel of water the lower part of the lid rests, form-
ing a water lute, and thereby prevents all contact between the air in the gas
caso and the external air at any other point than at the lowest ends of the case
d represents the inside of the gas case, which has no opening to the external
atmosphero except at the bottom e and Mackintosh tube s (in Figures 7
and 8). That part of the gas case in which the punted fabric is wound on to
its roller g after being printed is also made of tin strengthened by its being
united to an outer case of wood. The lower part of the case, which is also
made of tin, has a large sheet of plate glass f fixed in front, through which
the printed fabric can be seen as it is passing upwards to be wound on to the
roller g, and in order to preserve the glass free fiom steam a wide tube of
Macintosh cloth depends from the bottom of the glass frame to a point lowe
than the apertures in order to prevent the escape of the gas, and though
which tube a stick with a small piece of cloth is introduced to wipe off the
steam from the glass from time to time as occasion may require The lower
part of the case is suspended from two iron rods and eyes, and the centre part
of the case marked 2, 2, between the upper and lower parts of it, is made of
Macintosh cloth, so as to act the part of a joint, and by its flexibility allow
the lower part of the case to swing, and when not in use to be raised nearly
on a level with the guide roller in order to be out of the way of the pinter
when the machine is wanted to print other colors than those effected by my
improved mode. k is a gas pipe in communication with a gasometei contain-
ing coal gas, which gas I prefer and use for my improved gas apparatus. is
a rod, by which the tap is opened to let gas into the case d, which gas forces
the atmospheric air out of the case at the points e and s, and to insure
the absence of all atmospheric air I have a current of gas always passing
through the case during the operation of printing, as will be hereafter ex-
plained. This rod l has a number of guage holes through it at the lower end,
which holes pass on to a pin fixed to the machine side, by which the gas is
let into the case and regulated as to quantity. m and n are two gas pipes, by
which gas is passed through the cleaning doctors on to the color to prevent
as much as possible the oxydation of the color o is another gas pipe by
which gas is passed into a small wooden box t, shewn in section in Fig 1, so
as to supply gas to the fabric before it is printed. and to the color on the
engraved cylinder passing to the fabric, but I would observe that I do not

page_text: consider it indispensable to have gas introduced at m, n, and o, though I think
it better so to do.. It is in the chamber d where the absence. of fice oxygen
is of the greatest importance in my improved process. From this before
described, aangement it will result that if gas be admitted into the gas case d
through the pipe k, until the whole case be filled, and at the same time the
cocks of the pipes o, m, and n be opened, and the printing machine set_in
motion, the winding up of the fabric on the roller g will as it increases in
bulk continue to displace sufficient gas to cause a continuous jet of gas into
the angle in fiont of the nip of the rollers, and thus effectually displace and
exclude the atmospheric air therefiom, while the gas emitted at the back of
the 1olleis performs the same office there with reference to the color in the
color boxes, and the fabric progressing to the nip of the rollers.
Having thus described the nature of my said Invention, and the best
means I am acquainted with for performing the same, I would. observe that
other airangements of printing machinery may be used, and that I do not
confine myself to the exact details of the gas apparatus herein shewn and
described, which may be either attached to or detached from the printing
machine, and also that any other suitable artificial atmosphere which is
devoid of or deprived of free oxygen may be used in place of coal gas for
filling the chamber d, and thereby displacing and excluding atmospheric air
during such parts of the process of printing in such colours as aforesaid, as may
be desirable.
.
But what I claim as my Invention is, such an application of gas apparatus to
calico printing machinery, for producing the colors I have named, as will cause
coal gas or any other suitable gas, deprived of or devoid of fiec oxygen, to be
delivered or distributed upon the color and the fabic under operation in
manner aforesaid, to the exclusion or displacement of atmospheric air, so as to
prevent the injurious effects arising from the presence of oxygen at certain
parts of the process without exposing any part of the printing machine or
fabric to the action of the gas, except where its presence is actually useful to
the production of the effect required, and without the necessity of the workmen
employed performing their operations in a room or chamber filled with such
gas as aforesaid, which has been the case heretofore.
In witness whereof, I, the said Bennet Woodcroft, have hereunto set
my hand and scal, this Seventeenth day of December, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and forty-six.
BENNET (LS) WOODCROFT.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Seventeenth day of December,
in the year of our Lord 1846, the aforesaid Bennet Woodcroft came before
our said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the Specifica-
tion aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in
form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped
according to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Enrolled the Twenty-first day of December, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundied and forty-six.