IM- PROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FABRICS BY THE EMPLOYMENT OF FUR OR DOWN THEREIN
Year: 1869

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 5th March 1869.-A communication from abroad by Ernest
Macaigne and Jules Macaigne, of Paris, France.
I, CLINTON EDGCUMBE BROOMAN, of the Firm of Robertson, Brooman,
and Company, of 166, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent
Agents, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FABRICS BY THE EMPLOYMENT OF FUR OR
DOWN THEREIN," to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object the intimate union by means of the
weaver's loom of strips or pieces of the skin of animals or aquatic birds
with the fur or down on them, in order to form a fur or down fabric by
a process of great simplicity. All kinds of fur of animals and down of
birds can be made use of and without any waste. The fabric to which
the fur is made to adhere and which serves it as a base without any
appearance of skin is manufactured at the same time that the union of
the strips is effected, by which means a fur or down fabric is produced
superior in every respect to those manufactured by means of sewing.
The strips of fur or down employed may be thin or narrow, and in
different shades and are inserted in the warp either close together or at a
distance apart, whereby a regularly furred fabric is obtained, and one more

page_text: or less thick according to the quality desired. The skin with the fur or
down upon it is first divided into bands or strips of from 2 to several
ths of an inch (un à plusieurs millimetres) at will, and these strips are
disposed according to the breadth of fabric desired to be manufactured.
Any ordinary loom may be used for the weaving of any arrangement
whatsoever (de toute armure quelconque) whether for cloth, twill, satin,
or other kind of fabric. For every 5, or 5 of an inch more or less
one of the threads of the warp is mounted upon separate healds and
actuated as hereafter described. The warp is more or less stretched
according as a more or less fine fabric is desired.
The operation of weaving is as follows:-Supposing that one strip of
fur is desired to be used for each ths of an inch of fabric, and that this
strip of fur is, for example, of an inch in breadth, of an inch of
fabric are first made during which all the threads work and form the
fabric, then for the remaining 5 of an inch the threads mounted on
the separate healds cease to work and remain suspended above the
fabric. These of an inch being woven the fur is applied so that all
the threads which have not been employed for the last 5 are raised
and the strip of fur is placed between two rods which take it in such a
manner that the skin alone remains outside; these rods with the hair
or fur between them are passed like a shuttle into the shed and brought
against the of an inch of fabric last woven. The rods are then
removed and the workman by means of a comb draws the fur or hair,
and makes it pass through between the threads of the warp; the work
continues in the same manner until all the threads have crossed the
fur in order to touch the skin. The comb is then used to dress the fur.
The operation is then completed for one strip, and is continued in a
precisely similar manner on the of an inch succeeding. The spaces
between each strip may of course be larger or smaller according as the
fur fabric is desired to be more or less thick. The fur or down in strips
held by all the threads of the warp which have worked in the fabric
before and after it was placed in position is very firmly fixed.
A great advantage of this method consists in the perfect cleansing to
which the fur or down can be submitted, as these are usually sent into
market after an imperfect preparation.