IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING OR FINISHING GAUZE, BOBBIN-NET, TULLE, AND SUCH LIKE TEXTILE FABRICS, AND IN APPARATUS THEREFOR
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Charles Denton Abel at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 26th July 1881. A communication
from abroad by Gustav Heinrich Gruner, of Dresden, in the Kingdom of
Saxony.
CHARLES DENTON ABEL, of No. 28, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, in
the County of Middlesex. "IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING OR FINISHING GAUZE,
BOBBIN-NET, TULLE, AND SUCH LIKE TEXTILE FABRICS, AND IN APPARATUS
THEREFOR." [A communication from abroad by Gustav Heinrich Gruner, of
Dresden, in the Kingdom of Saxony.]
This Invention relates to the treating or finishing of gauze like textile fabrics,
more particularly "petinett" and "marly," by subjecting them in a stretched
condition, and while coated with starch powder, firstly, to the action of steam
inside a closed retort or chamber, then to the action of cold water, and, lastly, to
the action of steam again.
For this purpose the gauze like textile fabric is first bleached and carefully
starched, and while still moist it is stretched upon frames that should be somewhat
elastic. These frames are then placed upon small carriages running with wheels
on rails in a framing, where they are dusted over with finely pulverised starch.
The starch for this purpose is contained in a receptacle with a bottom formed of a
fine hair sieve, which receptacle is mounted above the frames on toothed wheels
running in toothed racks fixed at the sides of the said rails. A toothed wheel
rotated by a crank handle being geared with one of the said toothed wheels, the
receptacle is caused to travel backwards and forwards over the stretched fabric,
while at the same time a shaking motion is imparted to the receptacle by any
suitable known means, whereby the starch powder is deposited upon the fabric to
the requisite degree. The frames of the fabric are then run with their carriages into
heated retorts or chambers, immediately in front of which the above described
apparatus is situated, rails being provided in the retort forming a continuation of
those outside. The retort being closed air tight steam at about two atmospheres
pressure is admitted, which in acting upon the coated fabric, firstly, causes the
fibres of the latter to swell out so as to become porous and absorb further
Prins 71

page_text: quantities of starch solution; secondly, the steam chemically dissolves the starch,
causing one portion thereof to penetrate into the pores of the fabric, while the
portion not absorbed adheres in a gelatinous condition to the fibres thereof, without
however filling out the openings between the meshes thereof. The stretched fabric
having been treated with steam in the above manner the steam supply is stopped,
and the frames are removed from the retort and are lifted off the carriages by any
suitable known lifting apparatus, and plunged into a cold water tank until the
gelatinous coating assumes a transparent or translucent appearance.
are now again introduced into the retort and treated with the steam, whereby after
a certain time the textile fabric will assume a perfectly transparent or translucent
appearance. The frames are then placed in racks in a drying chamber, which is by
preference arranged above the retorts, so that the waste heat from the latter is
utilised in drying the fabrics.
The frames