Improvements in the Manufacture of Mosaic Floor Cloth, and Apparatus for that Purpose.
Year: 1896

page_text: Date of Application, 16th July, 1896
Complete Specification Left, 2nd Apr., 1897-Accepted, 15th May, 1897
Improvements in the Manufacture of Mosaic Floor Cloth, and
Apparatus for that Purpose.
I, FREDERICK WALTON, of No. 114 Holborn, in the City of London,
Manufacturer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
My invention relates to the manufacture of mosaic floor cloth by means of
comparatively simple and inexpensive apparatus arranged and operating as
follows.
I manufacture in the usual way sheets of plastic floor cloth material of various
colours such as are required for the mosaic pattern, say, for example, red, yellow,
and blue. I cut these sheets, by revolving cutters or otherwise, into rectangular
slabs of convenient size which may be somewhat larger than two repetitions of the
pattern. I cut from each of these slabs the tesseræ required for the pattern,
employing for this purpose a plate to receive the cut out tesseræ which may be
termed a transfer plate and a cutting block provided with projecting knives, the
spaces between the knives being shaped. to the pattern and made with bottoms
which can be pushed outwards.
The transfer plate may consist of two plates one perforated with holes, and a
second provided with projecting pins to correspond with these holes, and which may
at will be caused to protrude through the perforated plate or retracted within its:
thickness.
The thickness of the perforated plate and length of the pins is such that when
the two plates are in contact the pins protrude, and when one plate is moved from
the other the pins are retracted.
Placing the slab to be cut, say the red slab, over the transfer plate and under
the cutting block, I cause the cutting block to descend thereby dividing the slab
into tesseræ.
Those required for the red parts of the pattern are extruded from the spaces
between the knives, by pushing outwards the bottoms of those spaces and are held
on the pins projecting through the holes in the transfer plate; then, on removing
the cutting block, the other pieces of the slab which are not required for the
pattern are pushed out and removed to be worked again into sheet.
The transfer plate with the red tesseræ upon it is inverted over another plate,
which may be termed the composing plate and the tesseræ are deposited on it and
held by projecting pins with which the composing plate is provided.
The tessera are detached from the transfer plate by retracting its pins within the
perforations. A yellow slab is dealt with in the same manner as the red, and
finally a blue slab, the composing plate being thus filled with the red, yellow and
blue tesseræ arranged together to form the desired pattern.
I provide a number of these plates and I feed them in succession tangentially
under a revolving drum which carries round with it a web of fabric to form backing
for the floor cloth.
A number of pins project from the circumference of the drum through the
backing fabric and peretrate the tesseræ on the composing plates which are thus.
carried round with the backing and they are caused to adhere to it by pressing
rollers. From the drum, the backing fabric with the tesseræ on it is passed.

page_text: between heated pressing rollers which cause the tessera to cohere together and to
adhere to the backing thus producing a continuous sheet of mosaic floor cloth.
Dated this 16th day of July 1896.
ABEL & IMRAY,
Agents for the Applicant.
Improvements in the Manufacture of Mosaic Floor Cloth, and
Apparatus for that Purpose.
I, FREDERICK WALTON, of No. 114 Holborn, in the City of London,
Manufacturer, 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 :--
.
My invention relates to the manufacture of mosaic floor cloth by means of
comparatively simple and inexpensive apparatus arranged and operating as I shall
describe referring to the accompanying drawings.
Fig. 1 is a section of the cutting plate,
Fig. 2 is an elevation partly in section of the transfer plate in one position,
Fig. 3 is a similar view of the transfer plate inverted over the composing
plate.
Fig. 4 is a side elevation of the fixing machine.
I manufacture in the usual way sheets of plastic floor cloth material of various
colours such as are required for the mosaic pattern, say, for example, red, yellow
and blue. I cut these sheets, by revolving cutters or otherwise, into rectangular
slabs of convenient size which may be somewhat larger than two repetitions of the
pattern. I cut each of those slabs into tessera by pressing it between the cutting
plate shewn in Fig. 1 and the transfer plate shewn in Fig. 2.
The cutting plate has projecting from its under surface a number of knives, thin
blades a shaped and arranged according to any desired pattern. The spaces
between the blades a are fitted with bottom plates beach having a stem or several
stems, some of them c being short, and some d'longer and urged upwards by springs.
The heads of the short stems bear against a plate e and the long stems d pass
through the plate e and bear against a higher plate f.
The plate carrying the cutters a is fixed to a frame g attached to the head of a
suitable press. A slab of coloured sheet, say blue, being placed under the knives a
the frame g is forced down so that the knives penetrate the slab till they meet the
ebonite cover of the transfer plate; the whole slab being thus divided into tesseræ
by the knives a. As the frame g is raised and with it the plate f, those of the
tessera which are not required for the pattern remain in the spaces between the
knives and are taken up with them until the plate f, just before the upstroke of
the press is completed, meets fixed stops. Thus the stems d and the bottom plates
attached to them are kept down while the cutting plate continues to rise and the
tesseræ not required for the pattern are thus forced out of the pattern spaces and
fall upon the ebonite h, but the plate e having in addition to its weight the pressure
of the springs on the stems d, tends to remain down, forcing down the bottoms b to
which the stems c belong and so pressing on the transfer plate those tesseræ which
are required for the pattern. These tessera being thus pressed on fine pins i which
project through the ebonite h from a plate k below, and which are arranged in
groups corresponding with the tesseræ of one colour, such as blue, are held by these
pius while the other tesseræ not required for the pattern being loose can be swept
off the transfer plate. The transfer plate having on it only the blue tesseræ

page_text: required for the pattern is now inverted as shewn in Figure 3 over the composing
plate having pins m projecting beyond its surface, these pins being distributed
uniformly over the whole plate. While the pins i of the transfer plate are with-
drawn by retracting as far as permitted by collar bolts k' the plate k to which they
are fixed, the blue tesseræ are pressed on the composing plate and held thereon
by the pins m.
Tessera of another colour, say red, having been cut and received
on a transfer plate as above described, are brought to the same composing
plate and pressed on it, occupying some of the spaces between the blue tessera
already on it. And in like manner, tessera of other colours are pressed on the
same composing plate, until the whole pattern is completed. A number of
composing plates being thus covered with tessera are taken to the fixing
machine Figure 4 which is substantially the same as that described in my
prior Specification No. 20670 of 1895 and shewn to a small scale in Figure 7
of the drawings annexed to that specification. The plates are placed successively
on a pair of endless travelling bands B each consisting of steel ribbon with pins
projecting from it at equal intervals.
The composing plate has at each side a flange with a hole through it; by
placing the composing plate with the holes of its flanges engaged on the pin on
the bands, its proper position laterally and relatively to the plate preceding it is
ensured. A web F of suitable fabric passes over guide rollers to the surface of a
slowly revolving drum D, which gives corresponding motion to the bands B by
suitable gearing B. As the composing plates C travel tangentially under the
drum, which has numerous pins projecting from its surface through the backing
fabric, the tesseræ are taken up from the composing plates and carried round with
the backing until they leave the drum at F. The backing with the tesseræ on it
is then carried between a thick flexible apron A and a heated pressing drum P and
carried through between this drum and adjustable pressing rollers P₁ by which the
tessers are caused to adhere to the backing and cohere together, the completed
floor cloth being carried away over a roller R. Rollers P2 and P3 covered with
felt or like material occasionally smeared with paraffin wax, serve to wipe and
lubricate the surface of the drum P.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of this inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is :-
1. The herein described method of manufacturing mosaic floor cloth by cutting
and depositing on a transfer plate tessera cut from a coloured sheet of floor cloth
material, transferring these to a composing plate, transferring to the same com-
posing plate similarly cut tesseræ of other colours to complete the pattern, passing
composing plates thus charged successively under a pinned drum carrying backing
fabric by which the tesseræ are taken from the composing plates, and finally passing
the backing and tesseræ covered by a thick apron between heated pressing rollers,
causing the tessera to cohere and to adhere to the backing.
2. Cutting, transfer and composing plates constructed and operating substantially
as described with reference to Figures 1, 2 and 3.
2007
ABEL & IMRAY,
Agents for the Applicant.