Improvements in Apparatus for Drying Blankets or other Fabrics.
Year: 1885

page_text: Improvements in Apparatus for Drying Blankets or other
Fabrics.
EDWIN WALKER High Street Heckmondwike in the County of York Tenter
Hook Maker I do hereby declare the nature of my invention for IMPROVEMENTS:
IN APPARATUS FOR DRYING BLANKETS OR OTHER FABRICS, to be as follows:-
The present mode of drying blankets &c is by stretching them on long open
tenters. The air in the drying rooms being heated to an high temperature to
absorb all the moisture the goods may contain,-which method necessitates a great
loss of heat through the large amount of ventilation required to prevent the fabrics
from bakeing or scorching.
☑
My Invention is to make the tenters into vacuum or exhaust tenters-by closing
all the air passages in the bars and ends of same so that the dry air to get
inside the tenter has to pass, through the fabrics hung there on I then induce a
partial vacuum inside the tenter by means of continued exhaustion from thence to,
the outward or outdoor atmosphere Thus drying the goods more evenly, rapidly
and at a much lower temperature by thoroughly causing all the air to pass through
the fabrics before leaving the drying room.
i

page_text: Fabrios.
I EDWIN WALKER of Heckmondwike in the County of York Tenter and Tenter
Hook Maker do hereby declare the nature of my invention for IMPROVEMENTS IN
APPARATUS FOR DRYING BLANKETS OR OTHER FABRICS and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by
the following statement :—
The present way of drying blankets &c is by hanging or stretching them on
long frames called tenters, these tenters vary in lengeth from twenty to eighty
yards, by about ten feet high; a top and bottom rail or bars runing the whole
lengeth, these bars have hooks on each side for hanging the goods on. They are
also movable to and from each other for various widths of goods-and they are
kept in their possition by vertical posta. The tenters are fixed in long rooms
called drying rooms, or dryhouses. The air in these rooms being heated to a high
temperature in order to absorb all the moisture the goods hung in them may
contain. This system necessitates a great loss of heat from the great amount of
ventilation required to prevent the goods or blankets from baking. The present:
system of ventilating being to draw the foul or moist air out of the drying rooms
either by ordinary ventilators placed on the roof, or by fans fixed in the gables-all
of which plans are very wasteful-as owing to the promiscuous way the air is
drawn from the drying rooms to the open air, usually as much as sixty to eighty
per cent of the heated air- being thus thrown away without it having a chance of
coming in contact with the goods to be dryed. Also this plan often causes the
goods to be dryed very unequally one end of the goods being dry to baking whilst
the other end is still wet. Also this system is very bad for the men employed at
it, they having to work in tentering wet and bleached blankets &c in the hot
rooms, which at times are full of sulphur fumes and moistness. Then they have
often to untenter and run the blankets or other fabrics out of doors, and spread
them on the ground to cool before the goods are in a fit state to finish.
Thus many of these men's constitutions are broken down in mid life through
there being exposed to such great and sudden changes of temperature.
My invention is to make the tenters themselves into air chambers or ventilating
boxes, so that they are the only way the air can get into or out of the drying
rooms, and thus bringing all the air in these rooms into immediate and direct
contact with the goods to be hung thereon.
To do this I close all the air passages that are in the top and bottom bars C. C.
of tentera also both ends-and to stop up the joints and slot holes D I put on
movable flat woods A, or disks made of any other suitable material, which disks or
valves move up or down the posts B as the bars C are moved up or down to suit
different widths of goods, thus keeping the joints and slot holes D comparatively
air tight. I then connect air pipes E from the tenters at suitable distances apart
to a central air chamber or ventilating box F, which box runs or rather is fixed
parallel with and over or under the tenters. In this air passage or chamber I fix a

page_text: reversible air propeller, and as this air chamber is connected from the tenters to
the outer atmosphere, I can draw hot air from the drying room through the tenters
thus passing it through the goods hung thereon. Or reverse the air current, thus
throwing cool air from the outer atmosphere direct on to the goods-cooling them
as required in a few moments-so that they are ready for finishing as soon as
taken from the tenters.
Having thus particularly discribed and ascertained the nature of my said
invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what
I claim is
1st. Drying and cooling tenters on which blankets or other fabrics can be dryed
and cooled with one opperation and without any removal, by ventilating the drying
rooms through the same.
2nd. Drying blankets &c at a much lower temperature then is required by the
present system; and much more evenly and quickly.
3rd. Making the work more healthy and pleasant for the men as by this plan
the sulpher fumes are not allowed to mix with the air in the drying rooms, but
is drawn backward into the tenters and passed thence to the outer atmosphere.
Also the temperature being greatly reduced, they are not exposed to such extremes
thereof.