IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR WASHING, WINCING, FULLING, AND FINISHING TEXTILE FABRICS
Year: 1869

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Charles Denton Abel at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
28th January 1869.-A communication from abroad by Alexandre
Six, of Lille, in the Empire of France, Manufacturer.
I, CHARLES DENTON ABEL, of No. 20, Southampton Buildings,
Chancery Lane, in the County of Middlesex, Patent Agent, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY
OR APPARATUS FOR WASHING, WINCING, FULLING, AND FINISHING TEXTILE
FABRICS," to be as follows:-
"to
This Invention consists in improvements in machinery for washing,
wincing, fulling, and finishing all descriptions of textile fabrics pre-
paratory to or during the bleaching, dying, or printing processes.
One part of the Invention has reference to improved machinery for
performing such operations by the cold process. For this purpose a row
of beaters or stampers guided in a framing are arranged to act upon the
surface of a long horizontal revolving cylinder partially immersed in a
trough containing soap-water or other fluid, round which cylinder the
textile fabric is caused to pass in a helical direction, being guided for

page_text: this purpose by a number of stationary guiding bars arranged along the
cylinder, and the fabric is furthermore held against the cylinder by one
or more pressing rollers. Thus as the fabric passes along the cylinder
it is alternately steeped in the soap-water or other fluid and acted upon
by the stampers. These receive the requisite motion by a series of cams
or wipers arranged helically round a cam shaft receiving rotary motion
from the shaft of the revolving cylinder through speed increasing
gearing. The cylinder receives a slow rotary motion through speed
reducing gearing from a driving shaft carrying a fast-and-loose pulley
driven from any suitable source of motive power. The stampers may
all be raised and put out of action by arms carrying a rod catching under-
neath hooks fixed on the stampers, which arms and rod are actuated by
a lever on the same spindle as the arms.
Another improvement consists in a modification of the above-
described machine when employed for treating the fabrics by the hot
process. In this case the cylinder round which the fabric passes is
formed of metal and hollow, with perforations all over its surface. The
one trunnion of the cylinder is formed hollow, and through it is intro-
duced either steam, hot water, or other fluid through a pipe passing
through a stuffing box at its end, and provided with two or more branches
having cocks conducting respectively to the steam boiler and to the other
receptacles containing the hot fluid. The fabric not being caused to
travel in a helical direction along the cylinder in this case the uniform
action of the stampers thereon is insured by imparting to the cylinder.a
reciprocating motion in the direction of its axis, either by a worm with
reversed path fixed on the one trunnion, in the groove of which worm a
fixed pin slides, or by any other known contrivance for this purpose.
In this case the cam shaft does not receive its motion from the cylinder
shaft, but from the driving shaft.