IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FLOORCLOTH
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Adrien Constant Desmarest at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 22nd February 1878.
ADRIEN CONSTANT DESMAREST, of Boulevard Saint Denis, 1, at Paris, Manufac-
turer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FLOORCLOTH."
Hitherto the manufacture and impression or printing of floorcloths has always
been done with a certain number of layers applied one on the other by means of a
knife, forming a ground, and thus giving a plastering of relative thickness. These
cloths undergo a rubbing with pumicestone for the object of rendering this plastering
this uniform, that by its successive passage through a drying stove it may acquire
homogeneousness and a hardness which will permit of its receiving the impression.
It is understood that this impression does not extend beyond the last layer, that is
to say, the surface, and, not penetrating to a sufficient depth, the least rubbing takes
it off, which is a great defect, necessitating sometimes after short usage the entire
replacing of the floorcloth.
With my new system of manufacture I obtain a greater durability, whereby in
wearing the design or pattern will last as long as the entire cloth by reason of the
penetration of the impression into the interior of the tissue.
In carrying out my Invention I suppress at first the close superposition of the
layers forming the ground above mentioned; and by not giving a hard surface
thereto the impression will not be superficial.
I employ for my impressing or printing the colours composed of oil of linseed,
whitelead, and ferruginous earths of any kind, and I make use of blocks engraved
or imprinted in copper or wood.
To begin, I make a first impression on the raw tissue, which I cause to undergo
a strong pressure for the purpose of causing the liquid colors before mentioned to
penetrate to its interior. This first impression gives the design and the tone or
depth it should be.
The first operation effected, I submit the tissue thus impressed to a heat of 70°
for two days and nights. On its leaving the drying place or hothouse I take off
the rough and uneven parts with a steel instrument adapted for that purpose, or
with pumicestones with a sufficient pressure so that the design is not injured in

page_text: form or color. Thus treated I submit this cloth to a second operation, which consists
in giving to it a second impression identically the same as the preceding, with this
difference only that the same colours are more thickened.
I submit again the cloth to a heat of 70°. The dilatation produced by the heat
on the colors thus superposed and reuniting the two impressions causes that this
double layer is intimately united, and in solidifying forms one body in the interior
of the hardened cloth.
When these two impressions are completely finished and dried I do over the
surface of the cloth with a varnish of hard gum copal, serving to protect the
plastering and protect all its properties.
The wrong side of this floorcloth is covered with a layer of red paint of iron color
or with a composition of ferruginous earths for protecting it from the dampness of
the ground.
I can also set my impressions of a single layer with oil or water colors (if this
layer be feeble either directly on the hardened cloth or to the layers already
previously applied to the tissue.