Patent ID: 7918964

Claim:
A method of preparing a sided cellulosic sheet having local basis weight variation on one side thereof comprising: a) dewatering a papermaking furnish to form a nascent web having an apparently random distribution of papermaking fiber; b) applying the dewatered web having the apparently random fiber distribution to a transfer surface of a rotating heated cylinder moving at a first speed; c) controlling temperature of the heated rotating cylinder to provide a moisture profile within the web; d) fabric-creping the web from the transfer surface at a consistency of from about 30 to about 60 percent utilizing a patterned creping fabric, the creping step occurring under pressure in a fabric creping nip defined between the transfer surface and the creping fabric wherein the fabric is traveling at a second speed slower than the speed of said transfer surface, the fabric pattern, nip parameters, velocity delta, moisture profile and web consistency being selected such that the web is creped from the transfer surface and the fiber distal to the cylinder surface is redistributed on the creping fabric, while the fiber adjacent the heated rotating cylinder retains its apparently random fiber distribution; and e) drying the web to form the sheet, wherein the side of the sheet distal to the heated rotating cylinder and contacting the creping belt is provided a network structure of local basis weight variation comprising: (i) a plurality of pileated fiber enriched regions of relatively high local basis weight interconnected by way of (ii) a plurality of lower local basis weight linking regions whose fiber orientation is biased along the direction between pileated cells interconnected thereby, and (iii) a plurality of fiber-deprived cellules between the fiber enriched and linking regions, also being characterized by a local basis weight lower than the fiber enriched regions.