IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION OF THREADS, AND THE MANUFACTURE OF FABRICS FROM THE THREADS SO PREPARED
Year: 1867

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, of the Firm of
Robertson, Brooman, and Company, of 166, Fleet Street, in the City of
London, Patent Agents, for the Invention. of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
PREPARATION OF THREADS, AND THE MANUFACTURE OF FABRICS FROM THE
THREADS SO PREPARED."-A communication from abroad by Stanislas
Vigoureux, of St. Denis, France.
Sealed the 20th August 1867, and dated the 23rd February 1867.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Clinton Edgcumbe
Brooman at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 23rd February 1867.
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 "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
PREPARATION OF THREADS, AND THE MANUFACTURING OF FABRICS FROM
THREADS SO PREPARED," to be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is to first form the threads of any textile
material into a looped surface or knitted fabric composed of a single con-
tinuous thread in order to submit the threads under this provisional form to
coloring, printing, or dyeing, and to all the processes and operations which
precede weaving.
This preparatory and temporary knitted stuff or fabric analogous to a single

page_text: thread, and manufactured by any hosiery frame, is intended to be substituted
for skeins, in which form it has been usual to put threads for manipulating
them, and the said knitted provisional fabric undergoing the same manipulations
or treatments as the skeins is afterwards unwoven, or rather unknitted by
simply pulling or drawing the thread, and these threads can then be used for
weaving.
The following are the different applications to which this Invention can be
applied.
1st, I establish an entirely new process for manufacturing colored or chiné
threads (fils chinés), which will produce in the fabrics made with them effects
of colors more homogeneously distributed, and softer degrees of shade than by
the ordinary processes. Thus instead of as at present printing the thread in
order to color it either in the state of skein or of unwoven warp on all its
surface, or of weft which is afterwards unwoven, I form according to this
Invention the thread to be colored into a provisional knitted fabric, and I
print this either with a flat surface or with a roller to ornament the thread
with designs and in the desired colors; then by simply drawing I unknit or
unravel this temporary knitting, which undoes very easily, and I redistribute
the thread in order to put it on bobbins or otherwise for its subsequent
operations according to whether it is meant for the warp or weft in weaving
the final fabrics.
Secondly, instead of printing I can in order to color the thread previously
knitted employ the plan of dyeing by reserves with resin, that is to say, I
print the reserve in designs or compartments which will resist the dyeing bath,
and I then dye the unreserved parts.
Thirdly, again I can in order to dye the thread, print and brush, or simply
brush, all or part of the knitted fabric with one or several colors distributed
according to the designs or compartments. In this manner the color being
only on the face of the fabric is divided or interrupted upon the thread, which
after the unknitting will be found finally mottled or colored (chiné).
Fourthly, I utilize the waved configuration which the unknitted thread
possesses, a configuration resulting from its interlacing or formation into
loops to make fabrics of an entirely new appearance, crimped or crisped, and
in which the color produces particular effects. To effect this utilization the
waved configuration of the thread is rendered permanent by submitting it to
the action of an indestructible process of pressure and vapor. The pressure
which it undergoes, combined with the impregnation of the vapor and the
action of the heat, has the effect of flattening the knitting in the thicker
parts, the result of which is that the unknitted thread has undulations and

page_text: irregularities which give to the fabric manufactured from it the appearance of
crape and the particular effects above referred to.
Fifthly, the system of preparatory knitting may be applied to many other
operations to which threads have hitherto been submitted in skeins, such as
washing, scouring, drying, and others. The provisional knitted fabric is
preferably made up in a circular shape by the aid of a circular hosiery frame,
but any ordinary knitting machine may be employed.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 23rd August 1867.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CLINTON
EDGCUMBE BROOMAN, of the Firm of Robertson, Brooman, and Company, of
166, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent Agents, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-third day of February, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, in the thirtieth year of
Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto
me, the said Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, Her special licence that I, the said
Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such
others as I, the Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, my executors, 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 THE PREPARATION OF THREADS, AND, THE;
MANUFACTURE OF FABRICS FROM THE THREADS SO. PREPARED," (communicated to
me from abroad by Stanislas Vigoureux, of St. Denis, France,) upon. the con-
dition (amongst others) that I, the said Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, my
executors or adminstrators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their,
or one of their 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 I, the said Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to

page_text: be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement thereof, that is to say :-
The object of this Invention is to first form threads or fine slivers into a
looped surface or knitted fabric to be substituted for the ordinary form of
skeins for the purpose of submitting this fabric to the same treatments and
operations that skeins ordinarily undergo, and afterwards to unknit .or undo
this provisional or temporary fabric by winding or spooling, or simple drawing
in a continuous circular manner on machines or frames, in order to fill bobbins,
spools, or otherwise, the threads being well stretched and brought back to their
original straight form by means of steam, or by natural
which removes
from them all trace of the knitted or undulating configuration, with the view
of employing them finally in weaving for the manufacture of fabrics and stuffs
of all kinds. Vegetable matters for the most part do not preserve in the
unknitted form the curls or turns of the loop; threads of flax and cotton, for
example, have no need like those of wool of being submitted to the action of
steam to cause them to return to the straight form..
repose,
The thread knitted by any known means, but preferably by a circular frame,
is so knitted for the purpose of this Invention in order that it may be unknitted
after the operations or treatments (one or several) which are applied to skeins,
then brought back into the straight form like the straight threads of skeins*
in order to be manufactured into the same description of fabrics as the latter.
An important advantage of the Invention is that the threads can be put
into a circular knitted fabric or web of from 100 to 1000 yards long, and
they can in this form be submitted to the treatments required for the thread,
namely, washing, scouring, mordanting, bleaching, dyeing, printing, fixing,
maddering, and others, by employing a mechanical system, such as is employed
for goods in the piece without the division of work which is necessitated by
the number of skeins when the treatments are applied to threads in that form.
The treatments are effected in this manner much more regularly, and the
knitted fabric can be afterwards undone more easily than skeins.
This Invention then consists, firstly and principally, in the preparation of
threads in the form of a looped surface or knitted fabric in substitution for
the form of skeins in order to undergo the same treatments and operations,
and to be undone or unknitted by circular continuous winding into stretched
or tight threads, then if needed submitted to the action of steam to maintain
the thread in the straight forn, and in manufacturing or weaving with these
threads fabrics like those which are made from skeins, treated, bleached,
dyed, and otherwise operated upon as aforesaid.
Secondly, in coloring or in printing designs by printing blocks or rollers by
I

page_text: hand or machine upon the temporary fabric to make chiné threads; these
threads are brought back to the straight form like those of ordinary skeins
when they are wound or reeled. Notwithstanding that the threads in the
temporary knitted form received a design the design is no longer found upon
the threads, they give new and varied effects of all forms, colored in some
places and not in others, that is to say, that this thread colored or chinéd in
the temporary fabric is so much the more new that after the winding as a
prepared or finished thread the chiné design has not the original forms of the
printing or printed design. These forms are modified according to the more
or less close knitting of the temporary fabric.
Thirdly, in plain or figure dyeing the temporary fabric according to the
ordinary mode of dyeing, mordanting, and maddering in reserve.
Fourthly, in brushing the temporary fabric with color acting only on one
side, to have shaded chinés when the thread is unknitted.
Fifthly, in the employment of this temporary fabric or knitted form to
submit the thread to all the usual operations, winding or reeling, washing,
scouring, fixing, preparing, drying, singeing, and others, to which threads
have been generally submitted in the form of skeins. The temporary knitted
or looped fabric may be made in any hosiery frame, or the frame may be
modified in order to make a fabric of a more simple form, and more easily to
be undone. The fabric is generally made of loose and open loops in order
that the thread may be more easily submitted to the action of the agents and
parts of the various treatments. The same principle of making a temporary
fabric may also be applied to fine slivers before being formed into threads..
And having now described the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, I declare that I claim, the preparation
of threads in the manner herein-before described, and the manufacture of
fabrics from threads so prepared.
In witness whereof, I, the said Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-second day of August, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven.
C. E. BROOMAN. (L.S.)