US388991A - Alexander mitscheelich - Google Patents

Description

NITED STATES ALEXANDER MITSOHERLICH, OF FREIBURG, BADEN, GERMANY.

MANUFACTURE OF FIBERS F WOOD FOR SPINNING PURPOSES.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 388,991, dated September 4, 1888.

Application filed September 6, 1886. Serial No. 212,837. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ALEXANDER-MITsoHER- LICH, a subject of the King of Prussia, residing at Freiburg, Grand Duchy of Baden, German Empire, have invented new and useful Improvements in the Manufacture of Fibers of Wood for Spinning Purposes, of which the following is a specification.

The object of my invention is to produce a fiber from wood which can be spun.

The invention consists in the special process, hereinafter described and claimed, for produclng a sort of pliable fiber, capable of being spun from wooden boards or strips.

The wood preferably used to carry out my invention is taken from fir-trees, or it may be pine or the softer parts of larch. Thin boards or laths free from knots, but of any desired width, are cut into strips in the direction parallel with the grain, and are then boiled in a holler containing a solution of a chemical reagent, as, for instance, a solution of sulphurous acid or bisulphite. This boiling of the wood effects disintegration of the same without requiring that the wooden strips or boards should be reduced into very small pieces. After boil- 1ng the wood it is dried in the open air or in specially-constructed drying-rooms. By thus drying the product the fiber, which is originally very weak and tends to break at the slightest strain, becomes comparativelystrong and does not resume its very breakable condition on the addition of water. The above described perfectly-dried masses would require for their reduction into separate fibers the employment of considerable mechanical power, which, however, is completely avoided by softening the masses by saturating the same with water. The fibers have then received the requisite strength and allow of a mechanical separation.

These operations are carried out as follows: The damp masses on the frame are transferred to a traveling endless cloth, which leads them to a pair of rollers, which may be plain or provided with corrugations in the direction of their length, the ribs of the one roller being made to gear into the recesses of the other one, whereby they effect a simultaneous strong bending and squeezing of the masses. The cutting of the material in passing through the corrugated rollers is avoided by causing the endless cloth to pass over the lower roller and by placing a canvas covering around the upper roller. The pressed masses fall from these rollers onto a second endless cloth, which conveys them to a second pair of rollers, from which they are conveyed to a third pair, and so on, they being preferably pressed in this way six times. This general construction of apparatus is well known in the art of preparing fibers. By a continued treatment of the wood the fibers become at length so pliable and isolated from each other that they can be employed directly for coarse filaments. For obtaining a perfect isolation of the fibers, however,without material deterioration thereof, these operations alone are not suitable, and their special purpose is to loosen the fibers in the transverse direction, so that in thefollowing operation a thin long fiber may be obtained. For this purpose the boiled and pressed masses are completely dried. After drying they are combed in the direction parallel with the fibers by means of devices provided with pins or teeth, in a manner similar to the operations for combing flax, cotton, &c., but with the difference that the pins or teeth of the apparatus for the above purpose must be made very strong. The separation of the extractable matter from the fiber produced by boiling the gums and soluble organic mat ter can be effected at any time. It is, however, preferably effected after the fiber has been spun into threads, 820.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. The process herein described for preparing wood fiber for spinning, which consists in, first, boiling the wood in length in a chemical solution, as described, until the fibers have become loosened and separated; secondly, toughening the fibers by drying and softening the same in water, and thirdly, subjecting the toughened fibers to repeated mechanical pinchings, substantially as and for the purpose described.

2. The process herein described for preparing wood fiber for spinning, which consists in, first, boiling the Wood in lengths in a chemical solution, as described, until the fibers have becomeloosened and separated; sec0ndly,tough- In testimony whereof I have signed my name ening the fibers by drying and softening the to this specification in the presence of two subsame in water; thirdly, subjecting the toughscribing witnesses. ened fibers to repeated mechanical pinchings, ALEXANDER MITSOHERLIGH. 5 and, fourthly, combing the toughened fibers \Vitnesses:

longitudinally to their filaments, substantially JEAN GRUND, as and for the purpose described. ALVESTO S. HOGUE.