IMPROVEMENTS IN FINISHING WOOLLEN FABRICS AND IN APPARATUS THEREFOR
Year: 1875

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Thomas Benjamin Willans at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 26th November 1875.
I, THOMAS BENJAMIN WILLANS, of Vale Mills, Rochdale, in the
County of Lancaster, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN FINISHING WOOLLEN FABRICS AND IN APPARATUS
THEREFOR," to be as follows, that is to say :—
This Invention has for its object to secure in a simple and economical
manner the proper amount of elongation or stretching of woollen goods,
which have been subjected to what is known as the milling process.
It is well known that different pieces of woollen fabrics shrink or
shorten to different extents when subjected to the milling process; and
it is of great importance that in the subsequent finishing process they
should be severally re-elongated or stretched again to different extents
corresponding inversely to their respective different extents of shrinkage,

page_text: and so that they shall all be equal in length and proportionate in weight
or quality, or shall all bear the same relation as regards length and
quality to what they severally were before being milled. The modes
hitherto in use of securing these results have been very troublesome and
have involved considerable labor.
In carrying out the Invention the finishing of the woollen fabrics is
effected by means of machinery of the kind described in the Specification
of Letters Patent, granted to William Henderson, and dated 8 May
1869 (No. 1410), or by other more or less similar machinery, but which,
like it, has mechanism whereby the degree of elongating tension im-
parted to the fabrics passing through it can be accurately adjusted.
Before however passing the fabrics through such finishing machinery a
number of pieces are taken that should all be of one length, but which
have shrunk to various shorter lengths when being milled, and they are
passed through special measuring apparatus in their shrunk condition.
As the pieces are delivered by the measuring apparatus they are sorted
into separate lots corresponding to the different shrunk lengths, as
ascertained by the measuring apparatus, and each lot containing pieces
of only one length. All the pieces of one lot are afterwards joined into
one continuous length by sewing end to end, and are passed through the
finishing machinery, whilst the tension mechanism thereof is adjusted to
suit the particular elongation the pieces of that lot require; every other
lot is in succession dealt with in the same way, the tension mechanism
of the finishing machinery being readjusted for each lot.
The special measuring apparatus which is by preference employed in
carrying out the Invention consists of a light framing, in which is
mounted a horizontal roller of a size to measure a yard or other
convenient length round its circumference. A worm on the spindle of
this measuring roller gears with a toothed dial, which shows the number
of yards measured by means of a stationary pointer. The woollen fabric
is led through between two or three oblique grooved breadthener or
smoothing bars to a guide roller below the measuring roller; it then
passes round a considerable portion of the measuring roller and under a
guide roller below, whence it proceeds to mechanism which draws it
through the apparatus, and at the same time delivers it in a folded
condition.

page_text: This drawing, delivering, and folding mechanism consists of a pair of
upper rollers, through which the fabric passes and a pair of lower rollers
which deliver it, the latter being carried by levers swinging from the
centres of one of the upper rollers, and made to vibrate by connecting
rods from cranks on the first motion shaft of the apparatus.