IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION OF FIBROUS MATERIALS FOR PAPER PULP, AND IN NEW OR IMPROVED USES FOR THE LATTER, ALSO IN THE MEANS AND APPARATUS CONNECTED THEREWITH
Year: 1871

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Mc Nicol at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 17th April
1871.
I, JOHN MC NICOL, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North
Britain, Agent, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION OF FIBROUS MATERIALS FOR PAPER PULP,
AND IN NEW OR IMPROVED USES FOR THE LATTER, ALSO IN THE MEANS AND
APPARATUS CONNECTED THEREWITH," to be as follows, that is to say :-
This said Invention consists, first, in a new or improved mode and
means of treating or boiling various kinds of wood, particularly and by
preference white and yellow pines and other white and fibrous woods,
canes, or ligneous materials in the form of chips, shavings, or sawdust,
for the production of pulp for the making of paper, pasteboard, papier
mâche, and felt, within boilers under great pressure produced by the
application of heat and hydraulic pressure produced by force pumps
forcing in the alkaline liquids or water into the said boilers and into the
body and pores of the said fibrous wood or ligneous materials within
them, all while heat is applied directly to the exterior of the boiler from
an ordinary construction of furnace leading the heat into a flue sur

page_text: rounding it, or otherwise, by a col or set of neating pipes placed within
it with hot fluid currents circulating in them, so as to heat the con-
tents of the boiler, which improvements boil, reduce, and separate the
materials into fibre pulp, and the oily and coloring matters more
economically, in less time, and with less alkali, lyes, or alkaline liquid
than heretofore.
The boiler for so treating the wood or ligneous material is preferred to
be of the cylindrical form, placed vertically, with an inner perforated
lining or cylinder at a little distance off the outer strong shell to prevent
the wood fibre from being burned, and to allow the current of alkaline
liquid (of the usual well-known strengths or specific gravities heretofore
employed filling all the space unoccupied by the wood) to circulate up
between the inner lining and the main outer heating shell by the action
of the heat thereon, and then over the top of the inner perforated shell
and down through the wood placed within it (through a strong cover
in the top of the outer shell) so as to return laterally through the per-
forations in the inner casing to and with the upward currents in the
annular space, all substantially as so far described in accordance with
Sinclair's improvements and Patent, No. 3193, Nov. 3, 1869, but having
the pressure within the boiler produced by heat applied as stated to
the outside or inside of the boiler, or both combined, to about fifty
pounds (50 lbs.) pressure on the square inch, while being boiled for
about six hours, at which stage the extra pressure is applied in the new
manner, and in accordance with these improvements, to the extent of
one hundred and fifty pounds (150 lbs.) or more on the square inch, or
in all to upwards of two hundred pounds (200 lbs.) on the square inch,
by forcing lyes or alkaline liquids or water (by preference heated to.
as high a temperature as the contents of the boiler corresponding to the
fifty pounds (50 lbs.) pressure) into the boiler by the hydraulic pressure
of ordinary force pumps as used for hydraulic presses generally; or this
extra pressure or forcing in of the liquids may afterwards be effected
more quickly by hydraulic cylinders and rams or plungers in the form
of accumulators, all as well known and practised for giving quick and
powerful pressure in and to hydraulic presses.
This Invention also consists in the use of the said ligneous fibrous
materials or paper pulp (as usually prepared for papier mâche, and
mixed with gums, or other glutinous substances) for the new purpose of
filling in the spaces between the eyes or naves and the rims, or between

page_text: the arms of the wheels of railway carriages, waggons, and other vehicles,
by compressing the pulp into the said spaces of the wheels by hydraulic
pressure or presses until it is hard and dry, by preference by the appli-
cation of heat at the time, or while the pressure is applied thereto, all
so that the blocks will fill the spaces so hard and close before the
pressure is removed that they will not afterwards shrink or get loose.
One mode of so pressing and drying the said ligneous pulp into the
central and segmental spaces of a wheel is by the use of bottom and top
cast-iron or other strong metal pressing plates, moulds, dies, or matrixes,
made to suit each other, and to suit the shape and size of the particular
wheels to be so filled up with blocks of the said material. The upper
and lower pressing dies or matrixes are made with eccentric swivelling
screw turning or other equivalent locking catches, worked in snugs or
flanges round the edges of the moulds or matrixes, so as to bind these
firmly together after the pressure has been applied to the material filled
into them and the spaces of the wheel previously placed on the lower
matrix and top of the ram or lower pressing head of a bydraulic press,
the top pressing matrix being subsequently placed and pressed down
upon the material between the upper and lower pressing heads of the
bydraulic press until all liquid or moisture is pressed out, when the
said fixing catches of the two parts of the matrixes are turned so as to
hold them together and maintain the pressure on them and the material,
while it is finally and completely dried by removing the wheel and
matrix so bound together from the press to a drying stove, where the
pressed material or blocks become quite hard, then the catches are
released and the matrixes removed from the wheel, when it is ready
for being fitted and used as other wheels filled with blocks of wood in
thic ordinary manner or otherwise are. And when sets of these duplex
or other equivalent pressing moulds or matrixes are made in a number
or sets the process of so pressing and drying these new or improved
blocks within wheels may be carried on continuously (one wheel after
another), as described, and finally passed into and removed from the
drying stove at successive intervals, as other moist moulded articles are
done, as in porcelain, stucco, and papier mâche manufactures..