Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/341

 F L O F L O December 1791. He left .5000 a year to Trinity College, Dublin, part of which was to found a professorship of Irish and furnish prizes for English and Irish composition, but this destination of the bequest was set aside. FLOOR CLOTH is a covering for the floors of lobbies, halls, passages, and other situations where there is much traffic and heavy wear. Originally floor-cloth consisted of a heavy canvas coated with painters colours and ornamented with patterns executed with the brush. At a later period stencilled ornaments took the place of hand-painted patterns, and now ornamental designs are applied solely by means of hand-blocks. Kirkcaldy, in Scotland, is the leading centre of the oil floor-cloth manufacture, in which town it was firmly established by the energy of the late Michael Nairn the operations of the firm founded by him being, it is understood, the most extensive in the trade. The brief outline of the manufacture which follows represents the processes as conducted in the extensive establishments of iShephcrd and Beveridge of Kirkcaldy, where the mechani cal and other arrangements have reached the highest per fection suggested by skill and experience. The size of the canvas operated on, which must be free from all seams and joinings, is 8 yards wide by 25 yards long. The huge webs from which these canvasses are cut niv, woven, chiefly in power-looms, in lengths of 150 yards, from which six floor-cloth pieces are obtained. For the cheaper qualities of floor-cloth jute canvas is employed, but in the best kinds the material is woven of stout tow yarn. The pieces of canvas in sizes above indicated are mounted on a series of stout wooden stretching frames, ranged about 30 inches apart from each other in a lofty, well-ventilated hall. The back or under part of the floor cloth is first dealt with, the first operation being to coat the whole surface with thin size, which fills up the interstices and prevents the oil of the pigment from penetrating and rotting the fibres. The paint, which is next applied, is of the consistency of a thin plaster, and is made up of raw oil, some turpentine, and ochre, umber, and other earthy pig ments. It is laid on, not with brushes, but with long trowels, the operation being called &quot; trowelling,&quot; and the workmen go over a large surface with great expedition. When the operation is complete, the iron doors of the hall are closed and streams of heated, slightly moist air are blown by a fan blast into the apartment, a temperature of from 78 to 90 Fahr. being then maintained. The moist ure in the heat is essential for keeping the paint while drying from shrinking, cracking, and scaling off. When the paint is dry the whole surface is smoothed with pumice, and the back is finished with a coat of thinner colour, in which boiled oil without turpentine is employed, thereby securing a glossy surface and finish. As soon as the back is dry the face or upper side has to be turned to the work men, an operation which demands great caution aud pre cision to prevent the canvas from being torn and destroyed. The lower edge being carried up and secured along the top of the frame, the upper part is suddenly detached and let down to the floor. The face receives, in succession, a coat of size and three &quot; trowelling &quot; coats, with pumicing between, and on the conclusion of these operations it is ready for printing. The printing is a costly process, owing to the great store of blocks which it is found necessary to provide and keep up; and the colours used are also expensive, consisting as they do of thsfine bright pig ments with a foundation of white lead. The blocks have a printing surface of 18 square inches, cut either of pear tree or other wood, or with faces of type metal cast in wood matrices, the interstices being filled up with felt. The cost is further increased by the laborious and tedious nature of the operations, the printing of an eight-colour pattern over a full piece requiring no less than 7200 separate applications of the set of eight colour blocks and one finishing block. The cloth is brought to the printing room by a kind of overhead tramway arrangement, where it is passed over a long narrow table. At the side of this tands the printer, and the colour table, on which is spread the colour he is to print, is mounted on rails which run parallel to the table over which the cloth is spread. Guide bars are arranged over the cloth to secure that the various impressions fall on their proper places with the utmost precision, and overhead are suspended from a spring beam screw presses which travel from end to end of the table. The block having received the needful amount of colour, and being laid in position over the cloth, receives by means of the movable screw press a tight elas tic squeeze, which secures a uniform impression of the portion of the pattern brought out by one colour. The various colours are so printed in in succession, and there after the whole is gone over with a finishing block, the surface of which is cut into fine straight grooves or lines. Finally, the finished cloth is moved to a drying room, where, suspended by the two extremities face outwards, it is left to harden and season. Oil floor-cloth is open to the objection that it has a hard, cold, and uncomfortable surface, while it is almost as noisy to the tread as ordinary wooden flooring. Many substances have been proposed to supplant it, in which these objection able features have been more or less overcome, while they retain its advantages of resistance to wear, cleanness, and freedom from damp. Of these bodies linoleum has proved most successful in experience, but various other materials of a similar kind have been introduced and used to a con siderable extent. Kamptulicon is a variety of floor-cloth, which, although invented about 1843, did not receive prominent public notice till the London International Exhibition of 18G2. The materials and processes employed in its manufacture vary considerably, but it is essentially a preparation of india-rubber masticated up with ground cork, the prepara tion and mixture being effected by repeated passing of the material between grooved rollers. When thoroughly incorporated the preparation is rolled out into sheets, some times over a backing of canvas, by passing it between pairs of wide and heavy steam-heated rollers. In addition to the substances above mentioned, gutta-percha, sawdust, peat-dust, ground leather, boiled oil, resins, pitch, asphalt, tar, chalk, and fibrous residues have all been used in kamptulicon making. The rolled sheets are ornamented by printing simple patterns on their surface, but, as much of the peculiar advantages of kamptulicon would be lost were its whole surface covered with oil pigments, the kamp tulicon surface is, as far as possible, left exposed. Kamp tulicon forms a warm, pleasant, soft, and noiseless floor cloth, but the higher qualities, in which india-rubber and ground cork are the main ingredients, are rather expensive, and the manufacture has been curtailed since the introduc tion of linoleum. Linoleum. This substance consists of oxidized linseed oil combined with ground cork, treated and rolled very much in the same manner as kamptulicou, to which, in appearance and properties, it bears a close resemblance. The manufacture was first conducted under a series of patents secured by Mr F. Walton, the essential feature of his process his method of oxidizing linseed oil having been patented in January 1 860. The oxidation was effected by mixing the oil, perfectly clear and bright, with a suit able drier, by preference from 5 to 10 per cent, of acetate of lead being used, and spreading it in thin films on sur faces of considerable extent, which films were exposed to currents of heated air. In this way a rapid oxidation was induced, the oil being transformed into linoxein, a slightly IX. 42