Patent ID: 6881302

Claim:
A paper former comprising two wires which converge for defining a paper production gap and a plurality of dewatering blades arranged in said paper production gap in a paper producing direction and brought into sliding contact with one of said two wires so that a stock is dehydrated while being conveyed in a state put in said paper production gap, each of said plurality of dewatering blades being shaped into a convexly curved surface configuration bent along a traveling direction of one of said two wires and equipped with a wire sliding contact surface brought into sliding contact with said wire for guiding the traveling of said wire, and a moisture run-off opening being made in said wire sliding contact surface for running off moisture developing through the dewatering from the wire side; wherein, said moisture runoff opening in any of said wire sliding contact surfaces comprises a plurality of parallel grooves, and, for two adjacent dewatering blades of said plurality of dewatering blades, a direction of inclination of grooves made in a first wire sliding contact surface with respect to a moving direction of said stock, and a direction of inclination of grooves made in a second wire sliding contact surface with respect to said moving direction of said stock, are set to be different from each other, and are mutually set as line symmetry, wherein a step is formed between an upstream end of a groove formed on a dehydrating blade and the wire sliding contact surface, and wherein said dewatering blades constituting a portion of said plurality of dewatering blades are brought into sliding contact with one of said two wires while the remaining dewatering blades are brought into sliding contact with the other wire.