IMPROVEMENTS IN CONNECTION WITH MACHINERY FOR TENTERING AND DRYING WOVEN FABRICS
Year: 1869

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Peter Ourrie at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 24th
December 1869.
I, PETER CURRIE, Manager to Messieurs William Fulton and Sons,
of Glenfield, in the County of Renfrew, North Britain, do hereby declare.
the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN CONNECTION WITH
MACHINERY FOR TENTERING AND DRYING WOVEN FABRICS," to be as follows,
that is to say:-
This Invention relates to, the tentering and drying of woollen and
other woven fabrics, which from their nature are liable to contract
very unequally whilst being dried, and it consists in combining
with any suitable known kind of tentering and drying apparatus
machinery for applying a positive longitudinal measurement to the
fabric together with suitable stretching appliances whilst it is being
entered upon the tentering machine. Or the measuring and stretching

page_text: -machinery may be arranged apart from the ordinary tentering and
drying apparatus.
In one modification of the improved arrangements two endless chains
are carried in fixed guides and round pitch wheels, which wheels are
connected by gearing with the tentering machinery, whilst an inter-
mediate clutch is provided for engaging and disengaging the two parts.
When a piece of the fabric is being stretched and measured its front end
*is just entered upon the tentering machine whilst its back end is held by
a cross bar temporarily fixed upon the measuring chains. The back
cross bar and chains being temporarily held by stops and the gearing
disengaged the tentering machinery is set in slow motion, and by drawing
forward the front end of the piece to a predetermined position stretches
it to exactly the required length. On this being attained the gearing is
engaged, and the two parts of the machinery then move simultaneously
so that the piece is entirely transferred from the measuring part to the
tentering part without change of length, the selvedge pins or clips of the
tentering chains taking hold of each part of it in succession and
preventing unequal contraction and elongation of different parts of it.
In practice several pieces will be fixed together by their ends and will
follow each other in succession through both parts of the machinery, and
the longitudinal measurement may be applied to each entire piece or to
any convenient portion of a piece.
When the measuring machinery is arranged apart from the tentering
and drying apparatus the front end of the piece is fixed to a cross bar
temporarily adjusted upon the endless chains, but the cross bar fixed to
the back end of the piece is not at first fixed on the chains. The gearing
is set in motion and draws forward the piece until the back cross bar
encounters fixed stops; the front bar is then carried still further forward
by the chains to the previously measured distance for stretching the
fabric to the required length, and the back cross bar may then be fixed
upon the chains. This second modification may also be used when the
fabric is to be transferred continuously from the measuring machinery to
the tentering and drying apparatus.
A single endless chain or other equivalent mechanism, such as a
longitudinal screw shaft, may be used for giving the intended movements
to the cross bars which hold the ends of the portions of fabric being

page_text: measured. The endless chain or chains may be arranged to hold the
fabric in a single horizontal, vertical, or inclined length whilst being
stretched and measured or so as to lead it backwards and forwards or up
and down over suitable guide rollers when it is desirable to economise
space.