AN IMPROVED MODE OF PRODUCING RAISED PATTERNS, FIGURES, OR DEVICES, ON. FELT HATS, CAPS, AND BONNETS
Year: 1863

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Anne Catherine Veuve Durst-
Wild at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with her Petition,
on the 17th July 1863.
I, ANNE CATHERINE VEUVE DURST-WILD, of Paris, France, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED MODE OF PRODUCING
RAISED PATTERNS, FIGURES, OR DEVICES, ON. FELT HATS, CAPS, AND BONNETS," to
be as follows:'
The Invention relates to an improved mode of producing on felt or stuff
hats, caps, or bonnets, raised figures, patterns, devices, or designs, not to be
affected, altered, or obliterated by damp, moisture, or heat, as would be the
case if obtained by the usual method of goffering for this purpose; the fur hat
is, by means of the well-know felt hat manufacturers' processes of felting and
planking, made up into a felted conical hood or cap, which is then duly
stretched over a conical block corresponding exactly with a second block, the
outside of which latter is provided in relief with the figures, devices, patterns,
or design to be produced on the hat, cap, or bonnet, this second block serving
for embossing or pressing the said figures, devices, pattern, or design in the
felt, for which purpose the conical hood is duly impregnated with any suitable
gummy, gelatinous, or resinous solution, capable of imparting sufficient firm-
ness to the felt when dry as duly to take up and retain the impression of the
second or embossing block; the thus impregnated conical hood is now left to
dry on this embossing block, and together with this latter introduced into a
hollow cast-iron or other suitable strong mould for the embossing block and

page_text: felt hood to fit and be pressed down into by means of hydraulic or other
pressure, the inner surface of the said mould being turned smooth and true,
and provision being made for heating the said mould by steam or other suit-
able means, by the effect of which pressure the figures, devices, designs, or
patterns of the embossing block will become duly imprinted or pressed into
the surface and body of the felted hood, after which the block, together with
the hood, is withdrawn from the mould, the hood is then stripped off from the
block in such manner as to have the hood turned inside out, in which state
the same is applied on a corresponding smooth block for the purpose of
pouncing or shearing from the surface of the felt the raised parts, that is to
say, those parts of the embossed surface as were not pressed down by the
embossing block, and consequently rise above the embossed or imprinted
pattern or device, after which, the felt hood being cleared of the stiffening
solution and duly moistened, the pressed or embossed parts of the patterns,
figure, or device, by swelling out or extending to their original or natural
state, will rise above the remainder; that is to say, the sheared or pounced
surface of the felt, and from the raised pattern, figure, or design, the fibres
of which parts, being henceforth in the natural or non-compressed state, will
not afterwards be affected, altered, or obliterated by damp, moisture, or heat,
thus allowing of substituting the felt hood or conical cap, either in the dry or
in the wet state, to any of the operations required for manufacturing the 'same
into a finished hat, cap, or bonnet. I must observe here, that instead of having
the device, design, pattern, or figure on the embossing block made in relief,
the same might be in intaglio or sunk therein.