IMPROVEMENTS IN DRESSING AND FINISHING WOOLLEN CLOTHS AND OTHER LIKE FABRICS, AND IN APPARATUS THEREFOR
Year: 1874

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Charles Denton Abel, of No. 20, Southampton
Buildings, Chancery Lane, in the County of Middlesex, for the
Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN DRESSING AND FINISHING WOOLLEN
CLOTHS AND OTHER LIKE FABRICS, AND IN APPARATUS THEREFOR." A com-
munication from abroad by the Firm Jules Varinet et A. Enoult,
CL
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.COMPLETE SPECIFICATION filed by the said Charles Denton Abel at.
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition and
Declaration, on the 14th January 1874, pursuant to the 9th Section
of the Patent Law Amendment Act, 1852.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CHARLES
DENTON ABEL, of No. 20, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, in
the County of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS I am in possession of an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
DRESSING AND FINISHING WOOLLEN CLOTHS AND OTHER LIKE FABRICS, AND IN AP-
PARATUS THEREFOR," and have petitioned Her Majesty to grant unto me,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, Her Royal Letters Patent
for the same, and have made solemn Declaration that it has been

page_text: D
communicated to me from abroad by the Firm Jules Varinet ct A.
Enoult, fils, of Sedan, in the Republic of France, Manufacturers.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Charles Denton Abel, do hereby
declare that the following Complete Specification, under my hand and
seal, fully describes and ascertains the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed in and by the following
statement, reference being had to the accompanying Sheet of Drawings
and to the letters marked thereon, that is to say:-
This Invention relates to means of giving a last finish to cloths and
other piled fabrics of wool or of wool and silk, wool and cotton, or of
cotton, or of other textile materials after they have undergone the ordinary
dressing, the object of such finishing process being to impart a more
fine, soft, and silky character to the surface of the fabrics operated on.
The method of operating for this purpose is to subject the fabrics to
the action of rollers which have a grinding or biting surface provided by
facing them with millstone, sandstone, granite, or other minerals of like
character by roughening them with file cuts, by serving them with
pumice, emery, sand, or other grinding powders made to adhere by glue or
other cement, by coating them with glass, sand, or emery papers or cloths,
or with caoutchouc or gutta percha, with which such grinding materials
are incorporated. Rollers so prepared together with brushing and
smoothing rollers are mounted in an apparatus or machine through
which the fabric is passed in a continuous web, so as to be subjected to
their successive action. The construction and operation of this apparatus
will be understood on reference to the accompanying Drawing, which
represents a side view thereof. The fabric Z to be operated on is passed
over two round bars t, t, on a frame pivotted at o, which bars offer by
friction a certain resistance to the feed of the fabric. It is then passed
under the guide roller a and over the two roughened grinding rollers A
and B, between which is a tension roller b¹ mounted in bearings which
slide in guides c, c, so that the roller b¹ can be depressed or elevated by
means of screws. After passing the roller B the fabric is led round and
between the draw or feed rollers C and D, under a second tension roller
62, and over a third grinding roller F, the surface of which is more finely
roughened than that of A or B in order to give the fabric a finer
finish.
After leaving the last grinding roller F the fabric passes over a

page_text: under a tension roller bs and over a roller J covered with cloth or other
piled fabric which lays the pile and smoothes the surface of the fabric
operated on. The fabric thus dressed passes over and between the draw
rollers K and L, and then between two bars n, n, fixed on a frame which
is pivotted at p, and which, being made to oscillate, lays the fabric as
indicated at Z'.
The machine is driven by a strap h acting on a pulley h¹ fixed on the
shaft o¹ of the roller A, whence all the other moving parts are driven;
the rollers B and F by the strap x from the pulley x¹, the revolving
brush H and the cloth roller J by the bands from the pulley s¹, and the
draw rollers C and K. by the strap v from the pulley v¹ on a countershaft
u worked by the strap m from the pulley m¹.
It may be readily understood that in a like arrangement of machine
a greater number of grinding, brushing, and smoothing rollers might be
employed, according to the nature of the fabric operated on.
Having thus described the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed as communicated to me by my
foreign correspondents I claim,-
First. The process of imparting a fine finish to piled fabrics by
subjecting them to the action of rollers having roughened or grinding
surfaces, substantially as herein described.
Second. The use for treating piled fabrics in the manner above referred
to, of apparatus or machinery wherein the operating rollers are worked
in combination with brushing and smoothing rollers in such manner
that a web of fabric, in passing continuously through the apparatus,
is subjected to the successive action of its rollers, substantially as herein
described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Charles Denton Abel, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Fourteenth day of January,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-