IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF COMPOUNDS OF INDIA-RUBBER, GUTTA PEROHA, BALATA, PARKESINE, SOLID PARAFFIN OR VEGETABLE OILS, AND VEGETABLE FIBRE
Year: 1868

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Thomas Forster, of Streatham, in the County of
Surrey, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF
COMPOUNDS OF INDIA-RUBBER, GUTTA PEROHA, BALATA, PARKESINE, SOLID
PARAFFIN OR VEGETABLE OILS, AND VEGETABLE FIBRE."
Sealed the 16th June 1868, and dated the 13th April 1868.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Thomas Forster at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
13th April 1868.
I, THOMAS FORSTER, of Streatham, in the County of Surrey, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
MANUFACTURE OF COMPOUNDS OF INDIA-RUBBER, GUTTA PERCHA, BALATA,
PARKESINE, SOLID PARAFFIN OR VEGETABLE OILS, AND VEGETABLE FIBRE," to be
as follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in the manufacture of
compounds of india-rubber, gutta percha, balata, parkesine, solid paraffin
or vegetable oils, and vegetable fibre. For this purpose I first reduce
vegetable fibre to a fine powder resembling flour and then mix it with
[Price 8d.]

page_text: india-rubber, gutta percha, balata, parkesine, or with solid paraffin or
vegetable oils. Any vegetable fibre, such as cotton, flax, hemp, manilla,
jute, or other fibrous material that is capable of being manufactured into
paper, or such as waste paper, rags, wood, or sawdust may be employed.
To reduce the fibre to a fine powder I treat it in the following
manner-If vegetable fibre, such as cotton or flax in the raw state is
to be prepared I scutch and cleanse them by the usual methods of pre-
paring such materials for the manufacture of yarn. If rags I simply
wash and thoroughly cleanse them; I then take any of the corrosive
gases or acids, such as nitric, muriatic, phosphoric, sulphuric, fluoric
chlorine, fluorine, or combinations of them: If sulphuric is used, which
I prefer as being the cheapest (the ordinary mercantile acid) I take of it
one part by weight to 10 parts of water, and macerate the fibre or rags
in a bath so made for 3 or 4 hours; after which I remove them and
while wet expose them to heat, by preference steam at 282° Fahrenheit, for
half an hour, although a much lower heat and longer time will produce
the effect (but with hard or woody fibre care must be taken to adapt the
acid and heat that it is not carbonized), after which they must be well
washed and every trace of acid removed, then dried and sieved, by which
operation they will become finely pulverized into dust resembling flour,
and its fibrous origin not perceptible. Paper I treat precisely as cotton
or rags, by these means they are so finely pulverized as to be useless to
the paper maker. The cuttings from coated fabrics from india-rubber
works will not require sieving, as when dry they may be worked up in
the grinders (which is well understood). Wood, straw, or such hard fibre
should be first coarsely ground in a drug mill, then boiled in a solution
of caustic potash or soda and treated as described for cotton or flax,
When the fibre has thus been reduced to a fine powder I combine it with
india-rubber, or gutta percha, or balata, or gun cotton compounds, called
parkesine, and from such compounds solid articles may be manufactured
of a lighter kind than when made from the compounds at present in
use; or compounds of disintegrated vegetable fibre and india-rubber,
gutta percha, balata, gun cotton compounds called parkesine, solid
paraffin or vegetable oil, with or without their solvents, may be employed
for the purpose of making cheaper and better waterproof or coated
fabrics. The disintegrated vegetable fibre fills up the interstices of the
fabrics and produces a firm even coated surface, which has hitherto been
done imperfectly with zinc or whiting in india-rubber and oil prepared

page_text: waterproofs. In parkesine fabrics it has not been done at all, and at
the present moment the article cannot be obtained at a sufficiently low
rate to compete with other goods, as the grain of the cloth cannot be
hidden without too large a consumption of material.
SPECIFICATION in pursnauce of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Thomas Forster in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 13th October 1868.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAS
FORSTER, of Streatham, in the County of Surrey, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Thirteenth day of April, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, in the thirty-
first year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Thomas Forster, Her special licence
that I, the said Thomas Forster, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as I, the said Thomas Forster, my executors, ad-
ministrators, 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 MANU-
FACTURE OF COMPOUNDS OF INDIA-RUBBER, GUTTA PERCHA, BALATA, PARKESINE,
SOLID PARAFFIN OR VEGETABLE OILS, AND VEGETABLE FIBRE," upon the
condition (amongst others) that I, the said Thomas Forster, my executors
or administrators, 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 Thomas Forster, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement thereof, that is to say :-

page_text: This Invention bas for its object improvements in the manufacture of
compounds of india-rubber, gutta (percha, balata, parkesine, solid paraffin
or vegetable oils, and vegetable fibre. For this purpose I first reduce
vegetable fibre to a fine powder resembling flour, and theu mix it with
india-rubber, gutta percha, balata, parkesine, or with solid paraffin or
vegetable oils. Any vegetable fibre, such as cotton, flax, hemp, manilla
jute, or other fibrous material that is capable of being manufactured into
paper, or such as waste paper, rags, wood, or sawdust may be employed.
.
To reduce the fibre to a fine powder I treat it in the following
manner :-If vegetable fibre, such as cotton or flax in the raw state, is
to be prepared, I scutch and cleanse them by the usual methods of pre-
paring such material's for the manufacture of yarn. If rags, I simply
wash and thoroughly cleanse them; I then take any of the corrosive
gases or acids, such as nitric, muriatic, phosphoric, sulphuric, fluoric,
chlorine, fluorine, or combinations of them. If sulphuric is used, which I
prefer as being the cheapest (the ordinary mercantile acid), I take of it
one part by weight to 10 parts of water, and macerate the fibre or rags in
a bath so made for 3 or 4 hours; after which I remove them, and while
wet expose them to heat, by preference steam at 282° Fahrenheit, for
half
an hour, although a much lower heat and longer time will produce
the effect (but with hard or woody fibre care must be taken to adapt the
acid and heat that it is not carbonized), after which they must be well
washed, and every trace of acid removed, then dried and sieved, by
which operation they will become finely pulverized into dust resembling
flour, and its fibrous origin not perceptible. Paper I treat precisely as
cotton or rags; by these means they are so finely pulverized as to be
useless to the paper maker. The cuttings from coated fabrics from india-
rubber works will not require sieving, as when dry they may be worked
up in the grinders, which is well understood. Wood, straw, or such hard
fibre should be first coarsely ground in a drug mill, then boiled in a
solution of caustic potash or soda, and treated as described for cotton or
flax. When the fibre has thus been reduced to a fine powder, I combine
it with india-rubber or gutta percha, or balata, or gun cotton compounds
called parkesine, and from such compounds solid articles may be manu-
factured of a lighter kind than when made from the compounds at
present in use; or compounds of disintegrated vegetable fibre and india-
rubber, gutta percha, balata, gun cotton compounds called parkesine;
solid paraffin or vegetable oil, with or without their solvents, may be

page_text: employed for the purpose of making cheaper and better waterproof or
coated fabrics. The disintegrated vegetable fibre fills up the interstices
of the fabrics, and produces a firm even coated surface, which has
hitherto been done imperfectly with zinc or whiting in india-rubber and
oil prepared waterproofs. In parkesine fabrics it has not been done at
all, and at the present moment the article cannot be obtained at a
sufficiently low rate to compete with other goods, as the grain of the
cloth cannot be hidden without too large a consumption of material.
In carrying out this Invention I prefer to proceed as follows :-I
take 500 lbs. of water and 50 lbs. of sulphuric acid (the ordinary
mercantile colorless oil of vitriol); I mix them in a leaden cistern,
and then put into it as much clean fibre, or cotton, or jute, or linen,
or flax cuttings, or rags as can be moistened by the liquor, aud when
they have macerated for 3 or 4 hours I take them out and put them
into a vessel to drain, allowing the acid liquor to run back into the
cistern, and into it I place another lot to macerate, and so on until
the liquor is all or nearly absorbed. While one lot is macerating I
place the previous one into an iron vessel lined with lead, and put
it into a steam chamber or "curer and expose it to steam at about
270 Fahrenheit for one hour if the fibre be cotton or jute, or for 3
hours if flax, but the time must depend upon the judgment of the
operator, as much less time and heat will do for a small quantity, as
the steam readily pervades it, but operating upon 2 or 3 cwt. more
time and heat is required. I have adopted the above course as the
readiest one; but when time and space are no object the heating may
be dispensed with altogether, and the rags or fibre thoroughly dried
only. After the completion of either of these processes I place the
rags or fibre into a machine with water in which there has been
dissolved 4 lbs. of carbonate of soda for every 200 lbs. of rags, and
keep them rotating until the acid is neutralized.
In the annexed Drawing Figure 1 is a side view, and Figure 2 a
longitudinal section of the apparatus I employ.
The machine in which the neutralization is effected is marked A.
After this process I open the cock B and run the liquor into one of
the filters S, S, (shown separately at Figure 3) in the vessel C. This
liquor is highly charged with finely disintegrated fibre, but the bulk
remains in A; it is to be well washed with supplies of pure water until
it is free from the sulphate of soda; each time the water is drawn off

page_text: it must be passed into one of the filters to prevent loss of fibre. 'The
contents of the vessel are now to be drawn off into the clean filters,
but the one that received the first charge must have a copious supply
of water run through it to cleanse it from the sulphate. When all are
clean, and the waters filtered off, the clay-like mass is to be put into a
good stout canvas laid in a strong iron mould or frame open at top
and bottom, and capable of holding 40 or 50 lbs.; the fibre being well
lapped up is placed into a screw press, and the superfluous water pressed
out; it is then removed from the mould and taken out of the canvas
and rubbed through a copper wire sieve of about 12 meshes to the inch.
The thus roughly granulated substance is then laid on hot steam plates
to dry. When thoroughly dried it is to be passed through a pair of
rollers moving at unequal speeds to break up the somewhat hard grains,
and then sieved through a brass sieve of 120 meshes to the inch. If
cuttings of waterproof india-rubber cloths have been used the rubber
will remain in the vessel A, and may be taken out at the door x, and
when dried may be used for any of the usual manufactures to which
it is applicable.
Woody fibre or straw should be first coarsely ground in a drug mill.
These and wood dust (sawdust) should be boiled in a solution of caustic
potash or soda, and when well washed treated with acid, &c. as before
described. Care should be taken in these operations not to injure the
color of the rags or fibre, as some of them, jute, for instance, will be
readily carbonized if too much heat or acid is used.
It will be obvious that any vegetable fibre, whether raw or manu -
factured, as cloth, or paper, or sawdust, may be similarly treated, and
the like effect produced.
The fine sieved powder resulting from fibre treated as herein described
I combine with india-rubber, gutta percha, balata, or their compounds
in the usual way of combining oxide of zinc or other colors with such
gums, with or without solvent, which is well understood by all parties
conversant with iudia-rubber manufactures, and the proportion of fibre
dust may be varied from 1 to 20 for every 20 parts of rubber to suit the
requirements of the manufacturer.
In combining this disintegrated fibre with parkesine I have found
25 parts of it to 50 parts of dry parkesine to be the maximum, and I
use 50 parts (all by weight) of the alcoholic solvent to make the com-
bination. In proofing common cloth with paraffin or combinations

page_text: of it with rubber I use about 4 to 8 ounces of prepared fibre to the
pound, and I stir it in while the paraffin is in a melted state. I also
mix it in the same proportion with linseed or other drying oils for the
purpose of coating floorcloth and other oil-proofed fabrics, the object
being to fill up speedily and certainly the interstices of the cloths.
I lay no claim to the mode of treating vegetable fibre with acids;
but what I do claim is, the preparation of such fibre and the combination
of it when so prepared or disintegrated with india-rubber, gutta percha,
balata, parkesine, paraffin, and vegetable oils, as herein described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Forster, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Tenth day of October, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight.
THOMAS FORSTER. (L.S.)