US2533985A - Process for multicolor printing on flocked area of fabric - Google Patents

Description

Dec. 12, 1950 J. ARoNsTElN ETAL 2,533,985

PROCESS FOR MULTICOLOR PRINTING ON FLOCKED AREA 0F FABRIC Filed Sept. l2, 1947 ATTO EYS Patented Dec. 12, 1950 PRCESS FOB MULTICOLOB PBINTING N FLOCKED AREA oF FABRIC Joseph Aronstein and Mitchell' Aronstein, New York, N- Ye and Joseph A. Solomon, Home ton, Va.

Application September 12, 1947, Serial No. '773,656

l Claim' 1 This invention pertains to the manufacture of okod textile fabrics and particularly to the manufacture of such fabrics 'wherein the docked areas are colored with one or several colors. Qur invention Comprehends. a continuous, QQmmercial proooss ood apparatus for Producing, indoiotoly 1011s lengths of moltioolorod iloohod material. at lmQlUllY high. slpeds- In tho oostz fabrics. have been dotted. by YariQllS @Olitlllllls 9100657595 t0 PTQdll il malle" rial wherein the hooked oroo/S 'all had the ,somo coloring. The iflzocvzl;` itself was sometimes colored before it was applied to the yfabric; sometimes had a color different from that of the fabric. In some cases, by resorting to much handwerk., it has been possible to produce relatively small individual panels of textile fabric bearing flocked patterns in several colors, the various colors being applied one at a time by hand operations. There has been no satisfactory commercial process, however, nor any commercial machinery suitable for yproducing continuously a multicolored flocked pattern on a textile fabric,

@ne of the principal obstacles to coloring selectively a flocked awa has arisen from the fact that Hocking is ordinarily done upon a sheer, often diaphanous, backing material, such as a sheer marquisette, so that the opaque docked areas will present a pleasing contrast of" textures. With such al backing material it has been commercially impractical to pass the textile through any` SOT-t of printing process for the reason that the inf herent nature of: the backing material would cause it to give, and to stretch unevenly, making it impossible, to, bring the various colorsv into proper. registration with one another or to orient them upon the fioclsed areas according to any predetermined plan.` By our invention we have devised various processes and apparatus whereby. a fabric, even though fragile and insubstantial, may be passed through a conventional` type oi multioolorv p rliltrlg; assembly to apply, accord" ing to a predetermined plan, correctly aligned colors. to flocked areas or to, selected areas; ofy the fabric..

lt is an objectrv of our invention to provide a process and apparatus of the character described having to a notable extent the characteristics and capabilities set forth;- n` further Objectis to pro,- vide methods ofy and means; for continuously manufacturing aV multicolored textilel fabric.. A mother-objectivesthe provision. of an apparatus which. Combines aridisynchronizcs a nochma ao,- sernbly.-v with a multicolor printing assembly; A Still; further-f obiootivo the loro-vision or certain 2 y methods of flocking and certain flock applying and printing assemblies, which overcome various disadvantages inherent in known prior art constructions. Other objects will in part be pointed out as the description proceeds and will in part become apparent therefrom.

The invention accordingly consists in the vfeatures of construction, combinations of elements, methods of operation and arrangements of parts as will be exemplied in the structure and Sequences and groups of related steps to be hereinafter described and the scope of the applica tion. of which will be set forth in the accompanyme, Claim- 1n this speciication and the accompanying drawings We have shown and. described a pre ferred embodiment of our invention and suggested various modifications thereof; but it is to be understood that these are not intended to be exhaustive nor limiting of the invention but, ou the oontrery, are elven for purposes of illus-l tration order that others skilled in. the art may fully understand the invention and the principles thereof and the manner of applying it in various forms,y each as may be best suited to the conditions of a particular use.`

In. the drawings:

Figure 1 is a schematic representation of a cross-section through a dockingv apparatus embodyng our invention;

.a marquisette or other relatively sheer, semitranslucent leno Weave'. Strip 2li passesv around: a roller 24 and, in the embodiment; disclosed, moves horizontally through a ocllringf assembly indicated at,28, a iiocl:v curing assembly 28', and' ultimately reversely through a multicolor printing assembly indicated at 3b; The` stripl then passes around another roller 32 and proceeds to afplace, of storage;

Elgocloing assembly 26, as: indicated, is of conventional form and includes a'I printing' roll 34' which; carries upon its surface,A the design to bei ilocked upon the textile fabric. A suitable flocking cement 36 is applied to roll 34 from a supply trough 38 by means of a cement roller 40 disposed in rolling contact with the surface of printing roll 34 and arranged so that a portion of it, as it rotates, passes through cement 36. Assembly 26 further includes a conventional flock blasting unit 42 which provides a blast of flock against the surface of strip 20 so that the portion of the strip surface which bears fresh cement, as applied by printing roll 34, will be covered. The curing assembly 28 in the present embodiment includes a series of heating -pipes 44 and a shell 46, together forming a lehr-like passageway 48 through which-the flocked fabric passes and in which the flocking cement is permanently set. It will be appreciated that the form taken by the curing assembly will depend upon the medium by which the flock is fixed upon the fabric as well as other considerations such as the type of backing fabric, type of flock, etc. At-the end of assembly 28 thereis afiock removing unit 56 using an air blast in a well-known manner to removeexcess -flock-not-cemented to strip 20. -Y Y y The printing assembly isvof a known multicolor type and the present embodiment Aincludes three printing rolls- 52,454l andl 56,- each ofwhich is supplied with a suitable dye by one of the dye rollers 58,'66 and62,`respectively. The dye rollers are fedwith'dye 'from dve troughs 64, 66 and 83. respectively. In the illustrative' form; trough 64 contains a blue dye,Vl trough"66 'ared dye and trough-68 a yellow dye; It will be understood that the various dye printing rolls are provided with'printing surfaces corresponding Vto the conf lffura'tions vori' the flocked srface whichv are'V to be 'impressed' with the respective colors. "Accordingly, it will'be understood that the marquisette strip, during normal operation, proceeds downwardly from supply 22, under roller 24, throughflocking assembly 26 where flock is applied to its surface, and thereafter throughY curing passageway 28., excess flock is removed by unit Eiland the strip thereafter passes through the multicolor printing assembly where colors blue, red and yellow are applied to selected portions of the flocked areas. The-colored strip thereafter is led from the apparatus over roller 32 and proceeds to a point of storage. It is apparent that the product will be satisfactory only if the various rollers of the printing assembly apply the dyes to the flocked areas accurately and inI accordance with some predetermined pattern. flocking assembly lays flock upon the strip in the design of a flower, the printing assembly should be synchronized with the flocking assembly so that colors shall be printed upon the strip only in the flock-covered areas and so that the flower stems and leaves shall be correctly colored in shades of green, for example, and further so that the petals and other bright co1- ored portions of the flower Vsha-ll also be printed with suitable dyes. In the past, because of the stretchable character of marquisette and theother backing materials commonly used in. flocking, `Vit has notbeen possible `to maintain. orientation cfa' dye printing assembly -so thatit would surelyapply thev dyes in the intended'. manner to the intended areas. -Not only is such. a backing strip -diflcult to control andalign. along its lengthwise dimension but alsoit tends to creep and warp and stretch unevenly-across. its widthwise dimension,.thus `increasing the dif-- flculties of printing the various colors so that,

For example, if the they invariably coincide with the appropriate flocked areas.

According to our invention, we provide an endless belt 'l of flrm, relatively nonstretchable material which is tensioned between an idler mandrel 'I2 and a drive mandrel 14. The drive mandrel is rotated in a clockwise direction, as viewed in Figure 1, by means of a belt 16 and power supply generally indicated at 18. The outer surface of belt I0 in the illustrative form is covered with a pressure sensitive dry adhesive coating (see Figure 3) of the general type commonly used on Scotch tape as manufactured by the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. Accordingly, when strip 20 is brought into contact with the surface of belt 10 by roller 24, it adheres to the surface of the belt and is carried by the belt through the flocking and curing and printing assemblies until it reaches roller 32, where it is stripped from the surface of the belt. The adhesive surface of the lbelt secures the strip in surface-to-surface contact with the belt so that the strip, while it is passing through the processing assemblies, assumes the nonstretchable characteristics of the belt and so that there is no relative movement between various surface portions of a given flocked area and so that the spacing' between the repeated flocked patterns remains constant,

We have found experimentally that there are several common commercial cements which are satisfactory for. our purposes in securing the flocking'strip to the carrier belt and in some instances it is possible to secure the strip to the belt by means of a differential in air pressures maintained on the two sides of the belt. Where an air differential is relied upon, the belt should be somewhat foraminous so as to permit air to pass through the interstices and hold the strip against the outer surface of the belt. Where the belt is to carry a pressure sensitive adhesive coating it may be made of rubber or heavy canvas or other conventional belting material. Where differentials in air pressure are relied upon the belt may comprise a short nap mohair or even a ne wire mesh. It is desirable, of course, that the coefiicient of friction between belt and strip shall be high.

As shown in Figure 2, each marginal edge portion of belt 'i0 is provided with a series of spaced, sprocket-like openings 82 suitably reinforced as by grommets or otherwise. As shown in Figure 1, printing roll 34 carries on each end a series of sprocket-like teeth 84 which register with openings 82; likewise the dye printing rolls are provided with similarly spaced teeth 84. This arrangement of sprocket teeth and sprocket openings effectively gears the various printing rolls to the nonstretchable belt 'I6 as a datum and once the various assemblies are oriented and synchronized with respect to one another they remain in mutual registration. Thus, as shown in Figure 2, a circular design generally indicated at 86 is shown flocked upon strip 20. The drawing is lined to indicate the circle 88 as being yellow, the vertical crossbar 90 as being blue. and the horizontal crossbar 92 as being red. During manufacture, flocking assembly 26 lays upon the strip the circular design 86 and when this design reaches roll 52 the synchronizing coupling arrangement, which includes the sprocket openings 82 and sprocket teeth 84, assures that roll 52 shall print the blue crossbar inexact registration with the flocked vertical .grossbar laid down by the flocking assembly.

Likewise roll 54 correctly prints crossbar 92 in red so that it is exactly superimposed upon the horizontal crossbar as flocked in the circular device. And roll 56 imprints in yellow upon the circle 88 as flocked by the flocking assembly.

In some instances when starting a machine in operation it is desirable to run a leader strip through the apparatus and attach the leading end of the flocking strip to the trailing end of the leader strip. In this way any excess pressure sensitive coating cement on belt will be removed by the leader strip so that none of the flocking strip is spoiled. The alignment and registration of the various assemblies will also be checked and, if need be, adjusted, while the leader strip is passing through the machine.

From the foregoing it will be seen that a flocking process and apparatus carried out in accordance with the present invention is well adapted to attain the ends and objects hereinbefore set forth and to be economically exploited since both the product and the process are suited to common production methods and are susceptible to a wide latitude of variations as may be desirable in adapting the invention to different applications.

As various embodiments may be made of the above invention and as changes might be made in the embodiments above set forth, it is to be understood that all matter hereinbefore set forth or shown in the accompanying drawings is to be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

We claim:

The process of printing with standard inks or dyes on noniirm flocked materials in such a way to form accurate and intricate designs having color ranges limited only by the colors of the inks and dyes obtainable which process includes the steps of adhering the unflocked fabric in facetoface relationship with a firm backing provided with an adhesive outer surface, applying an adhesive to the working surface of the fabric according to the design to be flocked, applying the flock to the adhesive-coated areas on the fabric, removing any excess ock, xing and drying the adhesive to set the flock permanently on the fabric, running the fabric and backing through a multicolor printing unit synchronized to print on the flocked areas of the fabric, and separating the fabric from the backing.

JOSEPH ARONSTETN. MITCHELL ARONS'IEIN. JOSEPH A. SOLOMON.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the le of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,944,528 Prifold Jan. 23, 1934 1,975,542 Forsdale Oct. 2, 1934 2,194,487 Thompson Mar. 26, 1940 2,206,570 Johnston July 2, 1940 2,320,744 Ormond June 1, 1943 2,369,290 Foard Feb. 13, 1945 2,441,940 Rohdin May 18, 1948

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