MENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FELT AND IN APPARATUS THEREFOR."
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Herbert John Haddan at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 6th May 1879. A communication
from abroad by François Bouhon, of Verviers, in the Kingdom of Belgium.
HERBERT JOHN HADDAN, of the Firm of Herbert and Company, Solicitors of
IMPROVE-
Patents, of 67, Strand, in the City of Westminster, Civil Engineer.
MENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FELT AND IN APPARATUS THEREFOR." A com-
munication from abroad by François Bouhon, of Verviers, in the Kingdom of
Belgium.
"
The Invention consists in carrying new or waste wool, after it has passed through
the carding machine, and thereby been spread out upon an endless cloth, through a
chamber or trough formed by guide rollers, two side walls, and an open or per-
forated bottom attached to the latter, and on which the wool may be exposed from
below to the action of an aspirator, and receive during its passage over the said
bottom the substances which are to be incorporated with it, such as woollen fibres
or wool in any shape, pieces of cloth, feathers, hair, waste leather, parchment, pieces
of wood or glass, &c. These substances may be thrown upon the wool by means
of a current of air produced in any suitable way, and are more firmly fixed upon it
by the action of the said aspirator. The wool, together with the incorporated
substance, is then pressed between the said guide-rollers, and passes into the felting
machine, which may be of any ordinary construction, and completes the adhesion
of the substances added to the wool, so as to produce felt, which may then be
toughened in an ordinary fulling machine. The same result is obtained by passing
the wool from the carding machine over a bath, upon the surface of which the
substances to be incorporated are swimming, either in consequence of their small
specific weight, or under the influence of some mechanical or other appliance
moving in the bath, after which the guide rollers conduct the wool into the felting
machine as above. The guide cylinders as well as the first working parts of the
felting machine may also be heated by steam or hot air or otherwise, if found
desirable. The wool can also be coated with silk or other materials by carrying
the said material into the carding machine, and spreading it upon the endless cloth
in any desired thickness, after which the same process is applied to the wool or
other material intended to form the core; the substance intended to cover the other
side being subsequently treated in the same way, and the whole mass carried into
the felting machine as above. Instead of the two only one side of the mass may

page_text: thus be coated. The surface of the felt may also be provided with a design by
threads carried upon the surface in any desired direction by means of a system of
bobbins, which unwind the thread in proportion to the motion of the wool, and the
guide cylinders may for the variation of the said designs have a suitable continuous
or intermittent motion. The designs or patterns may also be produced by throwing
the substance forming the pattern over a perforated pattern sheet placed upon the
wool, and the endless cloth applied in the described process may be replaced by any
suitable bands, upon which the various substances are thrown, or which bands may
be coated and form the core of the felt. The bottom of the trough over which the
carded wool passes may be replaced by a perforated cylindrical roller or drum.