IMPROVE- MENTS IN THE TREATMENT AND COMBINATION OF FIBROUS AND OTHER MATERIALS, AND IN THE ARRANGEMENT OF APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING SAME
Year: 1862

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Sinnock at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 21st November
1862.
I, WILLIAM SINNOCK, of Nicholas Lane, in the City of London, Mechanical
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE TREATMENT AND COMBINATION OF FIBROUS AND OTHER MATERIALS,
AND IN THE ARRANGEMENT OF APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING SAME," to be
as follows:-
These improvements consist in the treatment of hide offal and cuttings or
shavings, and waste of manufactured leather, and in the combination of the
animal tissue resulting therefrom, or in the combination of animal fibre
(prepared by means well understood) with woollen or hair materials, either
spun, woven, or felted, or otherwise, or with vegetable fibre, half stuff, or
pulp, or by an admixture of the several materials mentioned in equal pro-
portions, but which may be varied according to the subsequent use and
application of such manufacture, and the treating or mixing the same with
earthy or metallic chlorides, such as calcium, aluminum, or tin, or gums,
resins, or bitumenous matters or substances, so that such compound materials
may be either cast, moulded, felted, made, or compressed into suitable forms,
as sheets, slabs, blocks, or cylindrical rolls, which, when sufficiently solidified
by the extension of all matters of solution, may be divided into separate or
continuous sheets or webs of such compound fibrous materials.

page_text: The arrangement of the mechanical appliances necessary for the foregoing
operations are, first, to provide suitable moulds, which may be constructed of
wood or metal, or both, and made either square or oblong in form when
separate sheets are required; but when a continuous sheet is desired, then a
cylindrical form must be adopted. Into these moulds the prepared metals
are cast, and the disposition of the fibres being arranged in a felted form by
continuous agitation whilst the materials are held in solution, the expressible
or other excess of moisture is then removed; and the fibrous compound is at
the same time enforced into intimate combination by hydraulic or other
equivalent means, and in this condition, whether in the slab, block, or
cylindrical form, the same may be submitted to the ordinary bide-splitting
machine, whereby a novel leather felted fabric will be obtained; but when
greater strength is required than a felted fabric will sustain, the same com-
pound materials, or a part thereof, may be combined with any suitable woven
or other textile fabric, by alternating layers of such compound materials and
the woven or other prepared fabrics in the same or other forms or moulds, the
compound materials being enforced within the texture of the fabric by the
compressional or other equivalent means before mentioned whilst the materials
remain plastic. The moulded materials thus obtained may be afterwards
divided into separate or continuous sheets, the surfaces rolled, compressed,
and finished as may be desired; or the same prepared compound materials
may be moulded, formed, or shaped by any of the means well understood into
various articles of commercial importance and demand, as well as works of
art, either by itself simply as a felted compound, or in combination with any
woven or other fabric; and any of the before-mentioned articles of manufacture
may be tanned, tawed, dressed, dyed, embossed, or otherwise finished according
to the subsequent use and application of the article manufactured.