IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MEANS OF AND. APPARATUS FOR CLEANSING, WASHING, OR SCOURING FABRICS OR GARMENTS OF ALL KINDS
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Fernand Dehaître at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 22nd September 1877.
FERNAND DEHAÎTRE, of the Firm Pierron et Dehaître, of Boulevard Saint
Denis, No. 1, at Paris, Mechanician. "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MEANS OF AND.
APPARATUS FOR CLEANSING, WASHING, OR SCOURING FABRICS OR GARMENTS OF ALL
KINDS."
The mechanical washing of woven fabrics, linen, felt, and other materials, requires
the realisation of two practically indispensable conditions, viz, the introduction to
and the successive passage of the washing liquid over the articles to be washed.
The various kinds of apparatus hitherto designed for this purpose have not
answered the expectations of their constructors, either because of the insufficient
agitation of the immersed materials, or in consequence of the bad arrangement of
the apparatus.
For the purpose of overcoming this difficulty I have devised the improved
combined system of rotary washing machine which forms the subject of this
Invention.
The essential characteristics of this apparatus consists in the combination of par-
titions or perforated, or corrugated metal divisions, acting as agitators, and raising
the materials in the washing bath for the purpose of separating them at each revo-
lution, and draining them before redipping.
I will now describe a machine constructed according to this Invention, and which
is made preferably of small dimensions.
In this case the apparatus consists of an envelope, holder, drum, or barrel of sheet
metal, and against the sides interiorally thereof are fixed bars extending longi-
tudinally from side to side, and serving as agitators.
An intermediate partition formed of hollow or solid bars serves the purpose of a
collector or beater, that is to say, it will collect or take up the immersed materials
from the bottom and raise them out of the washing liquid, thus draining them,
and again plunging them into the bath, and so on at each revolution.
On the side of the barrel is arranged a movable lid for the purpose of introducing
and removing the materials to be washed, and a screw plug, and tube, or opening,
TD 071

page_text: is provided to empty or draw off the liquid,; or, as required, for introduction thereof
by means of a pump or otherwise.
The barrel is mounted upon trunnions in bearings or framing, and rotation is
given thereto by means of a hand wheel and pinion, or interiorally, toothed wheel
on the drum and pinion on the arbor of the said band wheel.
The introduction of the liquid (generally hot water with or without steam)
may be effected in a constant manner through the trunnions of the barrel if
desired; a universal joint will effectually serve this end.
For apparatus of larger dimensions I construct the barrel of two concentric
covers, the inner one being perforated. The bars serving as agitators are fixed as in
the first-described arrangement, as also is the intermediate partition for collecting
and raising the materials being washed out of and replunging them into the liquid,
and additional partitions are also provided to act as supplementary agitators. For
this arrangement, as for that already described, the introduction of water and steam
may be advantageously effected through the centres of the trunnions of the barrel,
or in any other desired manner.
The rotary motion may be communicated to the apparatus in any desired manner,
or by simple transmission through change gearing or fast and loose pullies.
A crossway divisional partition will in the case of machines of large construction
be provided in the interior concentric cover to divide the receptacle into two parts
BO as to receive and keep separate different kinds of articles. Corrugated metal
may be employed instead of the tubes or bars described, as arranged longitudinally
within the drum.