IMPROVE- MENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER
Year: 1856

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Paterson at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 1st April 1856.
I, JOHN PATERSON, of the Town and County of Linlithgow,. North Britain,.
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER," to be as follows, that is to say:-
This Invention relates to various improvements in the process of manu-
facturing paper from rags and other pulp producing materials, whereby
superior efficiency and economy are secured. The special points of improve-
ment refer to the primary breaking up or disintegration of the rags or raw
materials under treatment, the washing or boiling process, and the final
bleaching of the reduced pulp. The rags or raw materials, in their assorted
condition, are first of all deposited for a few hours in an acidulous solution, as
a primary preparation previous to the subsequent disintegrating process; after
this acidulous treatment, the materials are removed and placed in the breaking
or reducing machine. This machine consists of a receiver or holder, with a
flat metal bottom, corrugated, or formed with transverse undulations. Upon
this corrugated surface there rests a corrugated metal roller, the undulations
upon the roller running in the same direction as those upon the base plate.
The rags or raw materials are placed upon the corrugated base, and the heavy
roller is then traversed back and forwards over them; this gives a powerful
rubbing and rolling action to the rags or materials, and effects the reduction of

page_text: the matters in a most effectual manner, without necessitating the use of any
cutting process.
The essential feature of this portion of the Invention being the rubbing or
softening disintegration of the rags or treated materials, it will be obvious to
the practical man that this general effect may be obtained in various ways.
Continuously rotating rollers, either plain or grooved, may be employed instead
of traversing rollers; such rollers as are used in the gunpowder manufacture,
or in grinding sand and other substances, answer well for this purpose; simi-
larly, the existing rollers or cylinders and details as at present employed in the
paper manufacture, if reduced in their rate of revolution, will serve for working
out this system of reduction.
The materials, either before or after being reduced, are boiled in a boiler
containing a mechanical agitator, which is also the boiling steam supplier.
The boiler is a vertical cylinder, and the steam is supplied to it from above
through a vertical rotating pipe, fitted with a stuffing box joint. Hollow
branch arms are fitted to this central pipe, and these arms have steam jet
orifices in them. When at work, the steam is passed into the boiler amongst
the materials through these jet branches, whilst the latter at the same time
rotate and aid the boiling and preparing effect; when the boiling is effected
by the agency of external heat, a solid agitator is used, so as still to combine
mechanical agitation and heat in the process. After the pulping reduction in
the "rag engine," the reduced mass is deposited for a short time in a souring
or acidulous solution, when it is finally treated with the proper bleaching agent
in the usual manner.