Improvements in the Manufacture of Rollers, Mouldings, and other Useful or Ornamental Articles or Materials composed of Wood Fibre.
Year: 1894

page_text: Date of Application, 25th Apr., 1894-Accepted, 9th June, 1894
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in the Manufacture of Rollers, Mouldings, and other
Useful or Ornamental Articles or Materials composed of Wood
Fibre.
I JAMES YATE JOHNSON of 47 Lincoln's Inn Fields in the County of
Middlesex Gentleman do hereby declare the nature of this invention (which has
been communicated to me from abroad by Ernest Chonet de Bollemont of Rethel
(Ardennes) in the Republic of France Manufacturer) and in what manner the same
is to be performed to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement :-
This invention relates to the manufacture of rollers, mouldings and other useful
or ornamental articles or materials composed of wood fibre which is subjected to a
high degree of pressure as hereinafter described and converted into a hard or
compact substance capable of being cut or turned and not liable to become damaged
by exposure to heat and moisture.
It has been found that the vegetable fibre manufactured from wood as described
in the Specification of Letters Patent granted to my foreign correspondent Ernest
Chonet de Bollemont to me and dated 21st June 1888 No. 9093 is capable of being
converted by suitable pressure without the addition of glue, paste, or other
cementing or agglutinating substance, into a solid hard compact body of any
desired shape or dimensions.
The present invention consists essentially in compressing wood fibre obtained
according to the aforesaid former Specification or otherwise, in moulds in such a
manner as to produce a solid compact body of close structure or grain.
The manufacture of a roller for use in the finishing treatment or goffering of
silk goods may be described as an example of the practical applications of the
invention. In the first place a hollow cylinder is prepared of a somewhat larger
internal diameter than the roller. This cylinder may be made in two or three
sections in order to facilitate the operations which are commenced by adjusting an
iron shaft or axis in the centre of the cylindrical mould. A certain quantity of
the wood fibre is then spread in a very regular or even layer in the moulding
cylinder and there subjected to a pressure of about 300,000 kilogrammes.
Successive layers of the fibre are thus introduced the pressure being applied after
each introduction until the length of the roller is completed. The roller is then
thoroughly dried and again subjected to pressure until it has acquired a sufficiently
hard and uniform consistency to admit of being turned in a lathe and rendered a
smooth as glass. The rollers employed in dressing or finishing and goffering
processes are exposed to the action of liquids and a high temperature so that rollers
composed of compressed paper or pulp as heretofore manufactured have a very
short existence being ultimately destroyed by calcination. The rollers manufactured
according to this invention are free from this disadvantage and resist the action of
the liquids and heat.
This manufacture of rollers is described here merely as an example the invention
being evidently similarly applicable to the manufacture of any article capable of
heing formed from the fibre by compression in moulds such as mouldings ornaments,
frames boxes, and other articles heretofore made with papier maché, plaster and
the like.
It is also evident that any other wood fibre (as well as that described in the
aforesaid Specification of Letters Patent No. 9093%) of various lengths and
thicknesses and of more or less fibrous natures may be employed to obtain the
same or analogous results that is to say, a hard, compact, moulded product.

page_text: Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what I
claim is :-
The manufacture of rollers, mouldings and other useful or ornamental articles
from wood fibre by subjecting the wood fibre to high pressure in moulds (without
agglutinating or cementing substances) so as to form hard compact bodies substan-
tially as hereinbefore described.
Dated this 25th day of April 1894.
JOHNSONS & WILLCOX,
47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, W.C.