Process of Printing Photographs on Textile Fabrics and Solutions connected therewith.
Year: 1896

page_text: Date of Application, 18th Nov., 1896-Accepted, 27th Feb., 1897
POTTICATION.
[Communicated from abroad by INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHIC AND SUPPLY
COMPANY, of St. Paul, State of Minnesota, United States of America.]
Process of Printing Photographs on Textile Fabrics and Solutions
connected therewith.
I, JOHN LIDDLE, 154, St. Vincent Street, in the County of the City of
Glasgow, North Britain, Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature of this
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed to be particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following statement :-
My invention relates to improvements in photography, its object being to secure
a process for photographing upon porous or absorbent surfaces or fabrics, such
as silks and similar materials, in such manner that the photograph or print
constitutes au indelible dye, penetrating and permeating the tissue or body of
the fabric itself, so that with thin fabrics the print is practically the same on both
sides.
To this end my invention consists in preparing the fabric to receive the print
by the use of materials soluble in water, which are afterward washed entirely out
of the fabrics, leaving the print as a permeating dye in and upon the same.
I prefer to do this in the manner and with the means hereinafter described.
The fabric is first soaked for ten or fifteen minutes in a translucent presensitizing
preparation composed of gum arabic, four grams, salt, oue gram, dissolved in one
hundred and twenty-three cubic centimoters of distilled water. The fabric is then
thoroughly dried and floated face down, for from two to five minutes according to
the atmospheric temperature, upon a sensitizing solution composed of ten grams or
nitrate of silver dissolved in eighty cubic centimeters of distilled water. The
fabric is then dried a second time and is ready to receive the print.
The process of printing is substantially the same as upon albumen paper, but
with relatively longer exposure that is to say, the exposure should be continued
until (with moderately thin fabric), the print is as deep ou the back of the fabric
as it is desired to appear on the face after the subsequent processes of toning and
fixiug. The print is afterward completed in substantially the ordinary manner.
As a modification of my improvements I employ as one ingredient of the
composition a non-mercuric chloride which is soluble in water, and in which the
chlorine has a stronger affinity for the silver in silver nitrate than it has for its
own base or the bases for each other, and which will therefore combine with the
sensitizing silver nitrate of the bath. It is also necessary to use as a vehicle for
this chloride a translucent gum also easily soluble in cold water and quickly drying,
by means of which the chloride is held, as it were, in suspense in the mass of the
gum in and upon the fabric, so as to be acted upon by the silver nitrate in the
sensitizing operation. When the fabric after treatment with this solution is floated
upon the sensitizing-bath the gum is softened so that the silver nitrate of the bath
penetrates the mass of the gum and the tissues of the fabric and unites with the
chlorine of the chloride and is transformed upon exposure to the light into an
indelible dye, permeating the fabric. The materials best adapted for this purpose
are gum-arabic and sodium chloride, both being inexpensive aud readily soluble in
water, the solution thus made being transparent and the driod mass translucent.
The composition is compounded in substantially the following proportions: gum,

page_text: three scruples; chloride, fifteen grains, and distilled water, four ounces.
fabric is first soaked in this solution, then dried, fonted upon the sensitizing-bath,
again dried, and then printed upon, after which the gum is thoroughly washed out
of the fabric by means of cold water, leaving the print dyed in the tissues of
the fabric.
Having now particularly described 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 :-
1. The herein described process of photographing upon a porous or absorbent
fabric, consisting in first treating the fabric with a pre-sensitizing composition
coutaining gum arabic and a chloride, then sensitizing the same, then subjecting it
to the printing process, and then washing it until the water-soluble portion is
entirely removed.
2. The process of producing positive photographs in and upon a fabric, consisting
of first preparing the fabric, with a solution of gum arabic and salt, then sensitizing
it by means of a solution of nitrate of silver, then exposing it for the production
of the photograph, then washing away the solutions, then developing, toning and
fixing in the usual manner.
3. The herein described improved photographic process, consisting of first
soaking the fabric in a solution of gum arabic and salt, then drying the same, then
floating it upon a solution of nitrate of silver, then drying the same, then printing
and washing away the solutions.
4. The herein described improved process of photographing upon a porous or
absorbent fabric, consisting of first treating the same with a solution of guin arabic
and salt, then sensitizing it with a solution of nitrate of silver, and then drying,
printing and washing the same.
5. The herein described composition of matter for preparing textile fabrics for
receiving positive photographic prints, consisting of water, a translucent vegetable
gum soluble in cold water, and a non-inercuric chloride also soluble in cold water,
the chlorine of which has stronger affinity for the silver in silver nitrate than it
has for its own base or than its base has for the silver of the nitrate.
6. The herein described composition of matter for preparing textile fabrics for
receiving positive photographic prints, consisting of water, a translucent vegetable
gum soluble in cold water, and sodium chloride, in substantially the proportions
specified.
7. The herein described composition of matter for preparing textile fabrics to
receive positive photographic priuts, consisting of water, gum-arabic, and a non-
mercuric chloride soluble in cold water, the chlorine of which has stronger affinity
for the silver in silver nitrate than it has for its own base, or than its base has for
the silver of the nitrate.
8. The herein described composition of matter for preparing textile fabrics to
receive positive photographic prints, consisting of gum-arabic sodium chloride and
water, in substantially the proportions specified.
Dated this 17th day of November 1896.
BOTTOMLEY & LIDDLE,
154, St. Vincent Street, Glasgow, Applicant's Agents.