US2359086A - Treatment of textile materials - Google Patents

Description

Sepi 26, 1944. H. CORTEEN 2,359,036

TREATMENT OF TEXTILE MATERIAL I Filed Dec, 27, 1940 DIV/4 Patented Sept.26,' 1944 1 TREATMENT OF TEXTILE MATERIALS Harry Corteen, Manchester, England, assignor to Tootal Broadhurst Lee Company, Limited, Manchester, England, a British company Application December 27, 1940, Serial No. 371,881

In Great Britain February 1, 1940 6 Claims.

The present invention relates to the treatment of textile materials, and more particularly to the production of a crease line therein.

It is desirable that articles such as pleated fabrics, collars, and cuifs'should have a permanent line or lines along which the fabrics readily fold'so that the original creases can be easily reproduced, for example by pressing or ironing during laundering.

It has previously' been proposed to form" a crease-line by varying the number of threads in or about the line or by differential application of acid which may or may not be followed by pressure.

The present invention consists in a method of forming a fabric having a tendency to fold along a predetermined line in which a viscous liquid containing a film-forming stiffening agent is applied to an area along and including both sides of a desired crease-line, and then applying mechanical pressure to the folded fabric first to the crease and then to the remainder of the fabric to expel more of the stifieningagent from the crease-line than from the adjacent areas on either side. v

The stiffening agent is preferably applied by the use of a viscous liquid containing a polymerized material with or without a plasticisin'g agent. Thermosetting resins are especially valuable materials. The stiffening agent may be applied to one face only of the fabric.

The linear gap of less stiffened material in the case of a collar. is preferably less than 0.25 cm. and is usually between 0.10 and 0.17 cm. Although we may-treat the whole surface, we prefer to stiffen a local area on either side of the crease-line the depth of which local area is less than half the height of the collar when folded and preferably less thanl cm. e. g. about 1 cm.

A suitable amount of film-forming solid is such as will give to the treated areasof the fabric a weft flexural rigidity at least twice and usually three to four times that of the weft of the less treated linear gap.

The film-forming solidmust besuch as produces a stiffening effect at normal temperatures afterapplication to the cloth. .Suitable solids includesynthetic, polymers which are hard rather than rubber-like and which usually have a molecular weight greaterthan 50,000; for example, we 7 v include the use of highly polymerised vinyl acetate and mixtures of highly polymeris'ed vinyl fer, however, to use far-condensed thermo-setting condensing urea and formaldehyde in presence of a catalyst for a sufficiently long time. to form a non-crystallisable colloid.

The film-forming solid, e. g., in the form of p a dispersion or solution is applied to the part of the cloth where the fold is to be produced together with the adjacent areas, for example by spreading it on one face of the cloth only, and subsequently to fold the textile fabric so that the film'-forming material lies inside" the fold. .We then apply pressure with or without heat preferably in a direction at right angles to the crease; for example, by folding the fabric along the crease-line and then either passing the creased fabric laterally through a mangle, crease first,

or hot ironing it crease first, in a direction at I right angles to th crease-line, or squeezing it between hinged plates as hereinafter described. Thisapplication of pressure helps to expel the majority of the forming material from the actual crease-line and is'assisted by the thickness of the folded cloth at this point. This effect is greatly improved by choosing a film-forming material of viscosity suitable to the nature of. the cloth being treated. For example, when the viscosity is too great or the cloth too finely woven or the cloth contains a large amount of a filler or wax the film-forming material does not pene-, trate the fabric and this tends to give a rough surface finish and when the viscosity of the filmforming material is too low or the cloth too absorbent little migration from the crease-line takes place and this is also unsatisfactory; Liquids of suitable viscosity penetrate into the fabric but not through to the other face or into the fibres of the fabric; however, ancillary components of the film-forming material such as plasticisers or solvents may do so. The stiffening agent may also be applied as a solid with hot pressing.

We prefer to apply the film-forming material in the form of a liquid having a viscosity of not less than about 1400 c. g. s. units. In some cases the. viscosity of the liquid may be increased by the additionof ammonium oleate or stearate but this tends to darken on being heated and this is undesirable. We-prefer, therefore, to increase the viscosity of the liquid by other means, for example, by increasing the degree of polymerisation of the materials. In the case of urea-formalde-- hyde condensation products this may be done by adjusting the time allowed for condensation in presence of a catalyst and using excess formaldehyde, preferably largely in the-form of paraform-' aldehyde to avoid excessive bulk. We have found resinous substances such as those produced by that whilst asis well-known the preliminary conperature to insolubilise the film-forming material after application to the cloth.

We have found that the final stiffness of the cloth can be varied by adding a plasticiser, in amount varying according to the degree of still!- ness required; this plastlciser by acting as a diluent controls the amount of urea formaldehyde resinous. material applied to the cloth. The presence of a suitable plasticiser also prevents the film-forming material from accumulating on tween hinged iron plates, the folded collar beingplaced during pressing with the crease towards the hinges thus enabling pressure to be applied to the crease line of the collar momentarily bee fore it is applied to the remainder of the collar. In this case. the plates are heated so that the squeezing and the insolubilisation takes place in parts of the machine which is used for applyin it to the fabric,

Where the film-forming solid is applied to the textile fabric from solution, for example, inan organic solvent such as toluene in the case of polyvinyl acetate and polymethylmethacrylate mixtures, the application of the material should be followed by drying at a temperature sufiicient to evaporate the solvent.

It is preferred to apply the film-forming material to one face only. of the cloth and the cloth may be treated for example with a suitable amount of filler or wax to prevent undue penetration of the solid through to the other face.

The film-forming material may be applied tothe whole of the textile fabric especially where the invention is applied to the manufacture of stiff or semi-stiff collars.

Titanium di-oxide or some other filler or colouring matter may be added to the liquid..

The following is an example of the preparation of a suitable urea formaldehyde condensation product and its application to the textile material.

Errample 60 8. of urea. is dissolved in 48 cc. of neutral 40% aqueous formaldehyde, 18 cc. of concentrated ammonia (sp. g. 0.88) added. After the urea has dissolved 94.8 g. of paraformaldehyde is added. The molecular ratio of urea to formaldehyde in this mixture is 123.8.

This mixture is then refluxed for 3 minute tartaric acid' and 60 cc. of Sextol (registered trade mark) phthalate, and this mixture is stable over a reasonable period of time and is suitable for application to the textile material. Sextol'is a mixture ofthe three isomeric methyl cyclohexanols'and the phthalate of Sextol is an emcient plasticiser for the purpose of the present v invention. Moreover its viscosity is such that its addition does not substantially alter the visa single operation, whilst the collar is still folded. This does not lead to sticking between treated areas. Alternatively, if the plates are not heated. the insolubilisation is carried out as a separate heating process. In the above example the amount of solid left on the cloth, after heating, was 17.6% calculated on the weight of cloth actually treated.

After treatment the collar has a permanent line along which it folds readily andthis effect is very fast to normal laundering processes. With a typical '2-ply collar cloth a suitable amount ,of urea-formaldehyde film-forming material to be applied to the cloth would be-between 10 and 25 mgms. per square centimetre of cloth.

The invention maybe applied to textile materials other than woven fabrics.

The invention includes the manufacture in this way of pleated or creased fabrics and the treatment of collars and cuffs to obtain a crease-line so that the pleats or crease-lines can be easily found and accurately ironed. The invention is especially suitable for use in manufacturing a collar in which the rve in the plane of the collar is produced ac rding to the method described in application No. 512,316.. In this case,

treatment according to the present process is carried out first so that the collar is creased before the production ofthe curve. Subsequently when the curve has been produced and the collar laundered the crease-line isin its correct curved form and the danger of losing the curved creaseline through subsequent washing and ironing is avoided.

An embodiment of the invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawing in which- Figure l is a, plan view of a collar before folding, and Y Figure 2 is a. diagrammatic elevation, with parts in section, showing the treated collar folded over and being pressed down more tightly at the fold edge to displace the stiifening material therefrom toward theadiacent portions of the collar;

In'Figure l of the accompanying drawing I is the inner and 2 is the outer portion of a semistiii. collar. 3' is the linear less stiflened area forming the fold line and I and I are the more stiffened areas.

Figure-2 shows the treated and folded collar l and 2 having the less stiil'ened fold line 8 and the more stiffened areas I and I being pressed between the heated iron plates A and B hinged together at C so that .when pressure 18 applied as indicated by the arrow, the-fold lineis subjmd to a greater pressure than the areas away from the fold line, whereby the stiffening material is partly discharged from the fold line toward the adjacent areas to provide the reduced stiffness described at the fold line. The plate A in the diagram is assumed to u and extended, for example at D, for increased stability.

I declare that what I claim is:

l. A method of forming a fabric having a natural tendency to fold along a predetermined line which comprises applying a viscous liquid containing a film-forming stiffening agent to an area along and including both sides of a desired foldline applying mechanical pressure to the folded fabric to expel more of the stiffening agent from the crease-line than from the adjacent areas on either side, and solidifying the stiffening agent on the fabric.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which the stifiening agent is applied to one face of the cloth only.

3. A method of forming a fabric having a tendency to fold along a predetermined line in which a film-forming stiffening agent is applied to an area along and including both sides of a desired crease-line and then mechanical pressure is applied to the folded fabric first to the crease and then to the remainder of the fabric to expel more of the stiffening agent from the creaseline than from the adjacent areas on either side.

4. A method of forming a collar having a natural tendency to fold along a predetermined crease-line which includes the steps of applying a water-fast film-forming stiffening agent to part only of the inner face only of a collar blank in a local area containing the proposed fold line, folding the blank along said fold line so that the film-forming agent lies inside the fold, applying mechanical pressure to the folded blank in such manner as to expel more of the stiffening agent from the fold line than from the adjacent areas on either side, and solidifying the stiffening agent on the blank.

5. A textile material having a pre-creased fold line containing a small proportion of a deposit of water-fast film of solid stiffening agent bordered on each side thereof with a similar deposit in increased proportion, whereby the textile material exercises a, tendency to fold repeatedly along its pre-creased fold line.

6. A collar of textile fabric having a precreased fold line and bearing a water-fast film of stiffening agent on the inner surface of the fabric along a local area near and including said fold line, said water-fast film of stiffening agent being present in a small proportion at the fold line and in larger proportions in the areas to pre-creased fold line.

HARRY CORTEEN.

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