IMPROVEMENTS IN FORMING ORNAMENTAL DEVICES ON THE PROAL ON THE SURFACE OF PAPER AND CERTAIN PREPARED WOVEN FABRICS
Year: 1856

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Storey and Thomas Storey, of the Town and
County of Lancaster, Manufacturers of Oilcloth and Table Covers, for
the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN FORMING ORNAMENTAL DEVICES ON THE
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Storey and
Thomas Storey at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with
their Petition, on the 10th December 1856.
We, WILLIAM STOREY and THOMAS STOREY, of the Town and County of
Lancaster, Manufacturers of Oilcloth and Table Covers, do hereby declare
the nature of our said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN FORMING ORNAMENTAL
DEVICES ON THE SURFACE OF PAPER AND CERTAIN PREPARED WOVEN FABRICS," to
be as follows:-
Our Invention relates and is applicable to the formation of ornamental devices
or designs upon paper, or those prepared woven fabrics commonly known as
"oilcloths," where such device or design is produced in the color or paint known
as "distemper," and previous to the application of varnish used to protect such
device or design. The usual process of working in distemper to produce any
required device or pattern on a surface is, first, to lay on the mixture roughly
with a brush, and then grain or remove portions of this coat by means of
brushes, sponges, or other painters' implements, till the surface presents the
appearance desired. In some cases the design is transferred to the surface to
be ornamented by means of the ordinary and well-known method of printing
by engraved blocks, rollers, or cylinders.
Another method of imparting the design or pattern has been practisod, in

page_text: which the surface to be ornamented is first coated with color, as in the first
method referred to, the design or pattern being formed by applying to this
coat blocks or cylinders formed of such materials and engraved in such
manner as to take up, remove, or absorb certain portions of the color, and
thus leave the color unremoved to represent the device or pattern required..
Now, we have discovered that a great variety of designs having a beautiful
effect may be produced by another new mode of operation, distinct from the
methods hitherto in use, in which mode of operation our Invention consists.
It is described in its simplest form as follows:-We cover the prepared
surface of the cloth or paper to be ornamented with the required color in
distemper, and produce the design by stamping or impressing blocks or
cylinders on the color, such blocks or cylinders having the required design or
pattern formed on them in relief by any known method. We prefer to con-
struct the blocks or cylinders so that the surface in relief or the operating
surface is soft and elastic. India-rubber, leather, printers' roller composition,
or other like materials may be employed, the entire block or cylinder, or the
relief surface, being formed of or faced with either of these substances or a
combination of them. It must bo observed that the novelty and peculiarity of
our mode of operation consists in this:The pattern block or roller is simply
impressed upon the color laid on the surface of the fabric or paper to be orna-
mented, neither applying or taking away the color, but simply spreading and
redistributing it, and forming figures or devices having some resemblance to
the relief portions of the pattern block or cylinder employed; and this action,
combined with the partial adhesion of the color to the pattern block or cylinder,
when it leaves the surface produces light and shade, and gives to the design
a soft and beautiful appearance, perfectly distinct, and so as to be readily
distinguished from designs produced by any other known method of operation.
It will be obvious to those acquainted with printing that the pattern block
or cylinder may be operated by mechanism as well as by hand, so as to produco
ornamental desigus in the manner described.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Williamı Storey and Thomas Storey in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 9th June 1857.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, wc, WILLIAM
STOREY and THOMAS STOREY, of the Town and County of Lancaster, Manu-
facturers of Oilcloth and Table Covers, send greeting.

page_text: WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Tenth day of December, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, in the twentieth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto us, the said
William Storey and Thomas Storey, IIer especial license that we, the said
William Storey and Thomas Storey, our executors, administrators, and assigns,
or such others as we, the said William Storey and Thomas Storey, our exccu-
tors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others,
from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man,
an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN FORMING ORNAMENTAL DEVICES ON THE
SURFACE OF PAPER AND CERTAIN PREPARED WOVEN FABRICS," upon the condition
(amongst others) that we, the said William Storey and Thomas Storey, by an
instrument in writing under our hands and seals, should particularly describe
and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same
was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent
Office within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the
said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that we, the said William Storey and Thomas Storey, do
hereby declare the nature of our said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement (that is to say):-
Our Invention consists in the application of certain improved methods of
producing ornamental patterns or devices in colors upon the surface of paper
or woven or felted fabrics. As we have found this method of peculiar utility
and value in the manufacture of "oil cloths," we shall here describe the mode
which we pursue in the said manufacture under our present improvements.
In order, however, that, the distinction may be more clearly understood
between our new system and those which have been in use, we shall previously
take a cursory glance at the latter. It is well known that after the ground-
work of the cloths has been prepared in oil color the surface is then generally
treated with distemper, and this distemper is worked into patterns or devices
by means of brushes, sponges, or others. painters' implements by hand. In
this manner the grains of different kinds of wood or marble are very readily
imitated by a skilled workman, and the distemper being afterwards dried and
the surface varnished, a class of goods is produced which is in common use.
In this case it will be observed that the distemper or medium of colour is laid
on the fabric before being grained or worked into figures. In other cases,

page_text: where a different character of ornamentation is required, the medium of colour is
printed on the fabric, that is to say, is transferred to it from an engraved block
or roller; this being a process so well understood that we need not further
describe it. In other cases again, the colored medium is first laid on the
fabric, and the ornamental device formed by the application of blocks or
cylinders engraved or embossed with figures in relief, the blocks or cylinders
having in this case their relief surfaces formed of porous and absorbent
materials, in order freely to take up and entirely remove from the fabric the
colour with which they come in contact. The above is a general outline of the
systems heretofore employed in forming ornamental patterns on oiled fabrics,
altho it is obvious that a combination of any two or of all three systems may
be employed. The last-described system, however, has not hitherto come into
extensive use, but we have more particularly an object in here noticing it,
inasmuch as there is apparently some similarity, but at the same time a most
important distinction between this latter system and our improved one, which
we shall now proceed to describe.
According to our improved process, the distemper having been laid on the
prepared fabric in an even coat, the ornamientation is effected also by means of
blocks or cylinders. having figures in relief; but these. blocks or cylinders are
not such, nor is the manner of using them such, as to remove color from the
fabric, but simply to redistribute the color but without removing it from
the fabric. The mode of operation will be readily understood by the following
familiar illustration:-Suppose a flat surface be coated over with an even film
of plastic semi-liquid substance, if the palm of tho hand be impressed upon
this and then lifted up perpendicularly (or nearly so) it will be at once seen
that the plastic material will have arranged itself into a figure having a
general resemblance to the form of the band, but with a peculiar distribution
of masses, veins, or reticulations, and if the material impressed bo of a
suitable consistency, the impression thus produced will remain permanently
until dry. It will thus be seen that the effect of such impressions is altogether
peculiar and unlike that produced by any of the other modes of stamping,
marking, or graining. In like manner, if a block of elastic material, such as
india-rubber or leather, be embossed with any pattern and applied instead of
and in the same manner as the hand, a corresponding impression will be
produced, having the same relative character or effect. This, therefore, is the
basis of our improved process, namely, the coating of the prepared fabric
with a coloring medium in a semi-fluid state, and the subsequent breaking up
and distributing of the said colouring medium into ornamental patterns or
figures, in the peculiar manner described, and we have ascertained that the

page_text: desired effect may be obtained by employing for the purpose of impression
either blocks or cylinders, that is to say, either by a process of stamping or of
rolling. With respect to the material of which the figured surface of tho
blocks or cylinders should be composed, we have to state that a soft elastic
material, such as leather or printers' roller composition, answers the purpose
best, although, however, we should by preference use such as is soft and clastic
for the production of certain patterns, nevertheless we have discovered that a
harder material, such as wood or even metal, may be advantageously used for
other classes of patterns. We have stated that in our improved process no
color is removed by the blocks or cylinders from the surface of the fabric
operated upon. By this wo do not mean that no color adheres to the surface
of the block, roller, or cylinder after being applied to the color on the
surface of the fabric to be ornamented; some little color docs adhere after
such application; but if the block or roller is sufficiently charged on a trial
surface it will have as much color before as it retains after cach application,
therefore no color is absolutely removed from the surface of the fabric
operated upon. We therefore desire the distinction to be clearly understood
'between a process which has already been referred to as in use, and the
improved process which we have been the first to apply. By the former
process, the ornamental device is formed by removing portions of the color
from the fabric and entirely wiping such color away, whereas by the latter
process no color whatever is removed from the fabric. In the foregoing
description our Invention has been referred more particularly to the manu-
facture of oilcloth; it will be obvious, however, that it is equally applicable to
the manufacture of paper hangings, and indeed any fabric or tissue (with a
suitably prepared surface) may be treated thereby for the purpose of orna-
mentation without essential variation in the process. We have also specifically
mentioned "distemper" as being the medium of treatment in our improved
process, and we have done so both because it is a vehicle of color particularly
well adapted to the process, and because it is in very general use in the oilcloth
and other analogous manufactures. We do not, however, confino ourselves
solely to the use of distemper, properly so called, as it is evident that there
may be made a variety of plastic mixtures possessed of the requisite properties
for the purpose. For instance, even oil mixtures, which are entirely distinct
from distempers, might be used, although we may here state that we have
found experimentally those mixtures which have oil for a liquid basis not so
favorable to our new mode of treatment as those which have water.
over, we have spoken in the foregoing statement of our improvements simply
in the light of a new process, whereby novel and characteristic effect of
More-

page_text: ornamentation may be produced, and have not made reference either to any
modification of such process, or to any details of machinery or apparatus for
carrying out the Invention. Now, it will be quite clear to all those who are
conversant with the general processes of printing and stamping now in use,
either by means of blocks or of cylinders, that the same or nearly the
same mechanical appliances as are used therein may be adapted to our
improved process; it will not, therefore, be necessary to enter into a descrip-
tion of such or of any mechanical appliances, more especially as we lay no
claim to any combination of machinery as a part of our Invention. It will
also be equally clear that our described process is capablo of being modified,
and also of being combined with other known processes. As an instance of
modification, we may state that the same processes may be repeated on the
same surface with either any number of different colors or any number of
different patterns (one coat being allowed to dry before the next is laid on);
and as an instance of combination, the same surface may be printed on by the
ordinary mode of printing either before or after being treated by our improved
process.
Having thus described the nature of our Invention, and the modes in which
it is to be carried into effect, we would have it understood that what we claim
as our Invention is the production of ornamental patterns or devices on the
.surface of paper and woven or other fabrics, by coating such surface with
plastic color and then impressing it with blocks or cylinders having figures
in relief (giving the required design), which break up and redistribute portions
of the color into figures having a resemblance to those formed in the blocks
or cylinders, and also produce peculiar masses, or veins, or reticulations, as
herein-before described.
In witness whereof, we, the said William Storey and Thomas Storey,
have hereunto set our hands and seals, this Sixth day of June, One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven.
WILLIAM STOREY. (L.S.)
THOMAS STOREY.
(LS.)
WILLIAM STOREY. (L.S.)
THOMAS STOREY.
(LS.)