AN IMPROVED METHOD OF EMBOSSING COTTON, SILK, WOOLLEN, AND OTHER TEXTILE CLOTHS OR FABRICS, AND ALSO PAPER, AND THIN METAL AND WOOD, AND IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN."
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edwin Firth at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 23rd December 1876.
EDWIN FIRTH, of Dewsbury, in the County of York, Woollen Manufacturer.
"AN IMPROVED METHOD OF EMBOSSING COTTON, SILK, WOOLLEN, AND OTHER
TEXTILE CLOTHS OR FABRICS, AND ALSO PAPER, AND THIN METAL AND WOOD,
AND IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN."
This Invention relates to an improved method of embossing cotton, silk, woolicu,
and other textile cloths, goods, or manufactured fabrics, and paper, thin metal and
wood, and to improved ineans or apparatus to be employed therein.
The method at present in most general use consists in forming the pattern to
be embossed of metallic wire or cotton in long sheets which have been lightly
wound up with the cloth or material required to be embossed with its pattern, and
subjected to various processes calculated to impress the pattern upon the cloth.
These processes are tedious, costly, and troublesome.
The object of this Invention is to overcome these disadvantages and to substitute
therefor an efficient, economical, rapid, and cleanly method and means of embossing
such materials or substances.
The improved method consists in passing the material to be embossed between
pressure rolls enclosed in removable pattern drums or cylinders.
The improved means or apparatus which I employ to carry this method into
effect consists of a series of wooden or metal pressure rolls arranged one above
another in vertical side standards or frames, and to which vertical pressure may be
given by screws and pressure blocks bearing on the journals of the pressure rolls,
and also by a suitable combination of side levers and weights. The front and back
of the apparatus are provided with tables and transverse bars for supporting the
cloth or material to be embossed, and for preventing (acting as a kind of tension
appliance) the cloth hanging slack as it passes to the rolls. The rolls are enveloped
or enclosed in drums or cylinders formed in the pattern required of wire links,
bands, or cords of metal or suitable flexible material by which the pattern is
embossed on the rotation of the pressure or embossing rolls, to which any desirable
pressure may be given by the screw, levers, and weights.
The rolls may be used cold or may be heated by steam; they are removable, and
their enclosing embossing drums inay be readily taken from off them, and drums of

page_text: other patterns substituted therefor; and they may also be used of large or small
diameter, depending mainly upon the pattern and the texture or nature of the
fabric or material required.to be embossed.
In lieu of the tight fitting drums I can also employ long continuous pattern sheets
(formed of similar materials to the drums) which are drawn by the pressure rolls
and caused to emboss their pattern upon the cloth or material passing between the
rolls with them.
Rotation is imparted to the pressure rolls by straps and pulleys or other suitable
gearing, from which other straps lead to the usual "cutling" or folding apparatus
which draws the embossed cloth from the embossing rolls and folds it in any desired
lengths.
With apparatus of the above construction two or more fabrics may be passed
between the series of embossing rolls at a time, whereby the improved method is
rendered very economical.