Patent ID: 8012310

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a roofing shingle, the method comprising: creating a nonwoven fiber material by: providing a slurry in an aqueous solution, the slurry comprised of chopped nonwoven fibers and a binding material, dewatering a first plurality of the fibers from the slurry such that they lay directionally aligned in at least three directions in a plurality of corresponding intersecting linear formations on the same linear plane, and thus the linear formations having substantially the same thickness as the thickness for the linear plane, and dewatering a second plurality of the fibers from the slurry such that they lay randomly dispersed coextensive with the first plurality of fibers; providing a bituminous material over and through the nonwoven fiber material; and depositing granules over and at least partially into an exposed surface of the bituminous material; wherein the binding material is adapted to bind the chopped nonwoven fibers when the nonwoven material is dewatered.