Patent ID: 7691228

Claim:
A wet crepe, throughdry process for making sheet comprising the steps of: (a) depositing an aqueous fibrous furnish on a foraminous support; (b) compactively dewatering said furnish to form a web; (c) applying said dewatered web to a heated rotating cylinder and drying said web to a consistency of from about 15 percent to about 60 percent; and (d) creping said web from said heated cylinder at said consistency of from about 15 percent to about 60 percent in a creping nip utilizing a creping fabric traveling at a speed slower than the speed of said heated rotating cylinder so as to apply a percent crepe to said web of from about 5 percent to about 50 percent; (e) throughdrying said web subsequent to creping said web from said heated cylinder to form said sheet, wherein said sheet has a void volume fraction of from about 0.55 to about 0.85 and is characterized in that said sheet exhibits a wet springback ratio of at least about 0.6 and a hydraulic diameter of from about 3×10 −6 ft to about 8×10 −5 ft with the provisos: (a) that when the void volume fraction of said sheet exceeds about 0.72, said hydraulic diameter of said sheet is less than about 8×10 −6 ft; and (b) that when the void volume fraction of the sheet exceeds about 0.8, said hydraulic diameter of said sheet is less than about 7×10 −6 ft.