Improved Cloth Straightening and Expanding Apparatus for Bleaching, Dyeing, Printing, Finishing, and similar Machines.
Year: 1890

page_text: Date of Application, 11th Oct., 1890-Accepted, 29th Nov., 1890
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improved Cloth Straightening and Expanding Apparatus for
Bleaching, Dyeing, Printing, Finishing, and similar Machines.
We, JAMES BUTTERWORTH of Huddersfield Road, Micklehurst, Mossley near
Manchester, Foreman Finisher, and GEORGE FREDRICK BUTTERWORTH of Barlow
School, Staley, Stalybridge in the County of Chester, Foreman, do hereby declare
the nature of this invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be
particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement:—
Our invention relates to apparatus for straightening and expanding or widening
fabrics after they have undergone bleaching, dyeing, printing or similar operations
and previous to their passing between pressing or calendering rollers or on to drying
cylinders forming part of machines for performing said operations or finishing the
fabrics, and our invention consists in an improved construction or arrangement of
said apparatus, by means of which the effect of the same upon the fabric can be
easily regulated or altered and the expanded fabric fed to the rollers or cylinders
direct from the apparatus without risk of contracting again.
On the sheet of drawings appended hereunto:
Fig. 1 shows a sectional elevation of our improved apparatus.
Fig. 2, a plan of the same.
Fig. 3, an enlarged view of the middle part of one of the expanding rollers.
In front of the wringing or pressing rollers or drying cylinders of said machines
and close to the same, we place a roller a provided with pivots a' which are supported
in bosses. of brackets or fixings & mounted upon the machine frame or forming
part thereof. Upon the bosses or concentric with the roller we place sectors or
swing frames provided with teeth on their edges having bosses c' cast upon them in
which the pivots d' of a second roller d rotate. The two rollers a and d have spur-
wheels fixed upon them and one of the pivots a' has a spur-wheel a² fixed upon it,
which is rotated through other spur-wheels and gearing from any convenient
rotating shaft of the machine to which the apparatus is attached, or instead thereof a
pulley driven by a belt. The brackets & further support in bosses a cross-shaft h
fitted with pinions gearing with the teeth of the sectors c, and with a worm-wheel h²
which can be turned by means of the hand-wheel m and the worm wheel m¹ on
shaft m², and by this means the position of the roller can be changed from a position
about vertically above the roller a to one about vertically below the roller a.
The two rollers a and d are grooved helically preferably with multiple screw
threads of triangular section, the threads being inclined in opposite directions for
each half of the length of said rollers from the middle of each roller to its end as
shown by Fig. 3, the threads on roller d being inclined in the opposite direction to
those on roller a.
The fabric to be straightened and expanded or widened is conducted over guide
rods, as one of which the shaft / may serve in some cases, over the roller d and under
the roller a to the squeezing rollers or drying cylinders. The two rollers are rotated
so that their surfaces in contact with the fabric move in the same direction as the
fabric but at a greater speed, and by the frictional contact of the screw threads with
the fabric straighten and expand or widen out the same. By raising or lowering the
roller d by means of the handwheel m in the manner hereinliefore described, the lap
of the fabric on the rollers or length of are in contact with the fabric can be varied
and the drag on the fabric increased or reduced to the amount required or suitable to
the nature of the fabric, and where the action of both rollers would be more than the
fabric can support or than is required for the operation it is undergoing, the roller d
can be moved downwards or upwards out of the way and the fabric passed under the
roller a only.

page_text: During these variations of the position of roller d, the roller a retains its position
close to the pressing rollers or drying cylinders, which is of much importance for the
preservation of the width to which the fabric has been stretched.
Instead of passing over the roller d and under a, the fabric may pass under the
former and over the latter, the direction of the rotation of the rollers and the
inclination of the threads being reversed in this case from that shewn on the
drawings.
The rollers and d instead of being connected by spur-wheels may be rotated
independently from each other by means of belt pulleys fixed on them, the belt
driving the roller d being provided with suitable ordinarily used tightening or
compensating apparatus. The surface speeds and diameters and the pitch of thread
on the two rollers may be the same, or may be different for each roller.
We are aware that rollers with screw threads have been used for expanding and
straightening fabrics and do not claim the use of such rollers generally, but
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said invention
and in what manner the same is to be performed, we declare that what we claim is :
Firstly. The general arrangement or combination of parts of apparatus for
straightening and expanding cloth or fabrics, substantially as herein before described
and illustrated.
Secondly. In cloth straightening and expanding apparatus for bleaching, dyeing,
printing, finishing and similar machines the arrangement of two rollers helically
grooved in opposite directions from their middle to their ends and from each other
and revolved in opposite directions to each other at a higher surface speed than the
fabric passing over one and under the other roller, one of which rollers is moveable
round the axis of the other roller, substantially as hereinbefore described and
illustrated.
Thirdly. The combination of a grooved roller a with oppositely inclined screw
threads for each half of its length, and rotating in fixed brackets with a roller d
grooved with screw threads inclined in the opposite direction to the former and
carried in adjustable swing frames and rotated in the opposite direction to the
roller a, substantially as herein before described and illustrated and for the purpose
set forth.
Dated this Oth day of Datahan 1800
W. T. EMMOTT,
Agent for the Applicants.