Apparatus for making soft tissue products

Claim 1

A throughdrying fabric for use at the dry end of a paper making machine for carrying a moist web for conveyance through a throughdryer to form a basesheet, said fabric having a width corresponding to the width of the paper-making machine and a length in the form of a continuous loop corresponding to the length of the path of travel of the fabric through the throughdryer, and having a top pulp face and a bottom dryer face, said top pulp face producing a pattern on the confronting surface of the basesheet being formed from the moist web in the paper making machine by affording passage of the throughdrying air blown through said fabric and web comprising: a load-bearing layer adjacent the dryer face having a weave comprising warp yarns interwoven with shute yarns in a weave pattern selected to produce a desired load-bearing support for the web deposited on said top pulp face, while affording passage of the throughdrying air through the fabric and the web; and impression strand segments interwoven with said load bearing layer to produce raised warp knuckles extending along the pulp face in the machine direction, said warp knuckles being spaced apart in the cross direction to produce a sculpture layer which adjoins said load-bearing layer along a sublevel plane, said sculpture layer being characterized by said warp knuckles producing valleys therebetween above said sublevel plane, said impression strand segments producing stitch-like marks, and said valleys producing puff areas in the moist web carried by the fabric.

Claim 19

A method of making a throughdrying fabric comprising the steps of weaving the fabric on a loom with warps and shutes, manipulating the warps and shutes during the weaving process to produce a load-bearing layer consisting essentially of warps and shutes and a sculpture layer consisting essentially of impression warp segments, the warp segments in said sculpture layer being anchored by shutes in the load-bearing layer, and controlling the weaving of said warps to cause said warp segments in the sculpture layer to form impression knuckles extending warpwise in the machine direction of the fabric, the tops of the impression warp knuckles defining a top plane which is elevated above the plane defined by the highest points of the shute knuckles by an amount equal to at least 30% of the diameter of the warp components forming said impression knuckles.

Claim 20

A method of making a throughdrying fabric comprising the steps of weaving the fabric on a loom with warps and shutes, manipulating the warps and shutes during the weaving process to produce a load-bearing layer consisting essentially of warps and shutes and a sculpture layer consisting essentially of impression warp segments, the warp segments in said sculpture layer being anchored by shutes in the load-bearing layer, and controlling the weaving of said warps to cause said warp segments in the sculpture layer to form impression knuckles extending warpwise in the machine direction of the fabric, the tops of the impression warp knuckles defining a top plane which is elevated above the plane defined by the highest points of the shute knuckles by an amount equal to at least 30% of the diameter of the warp components forming said impression knuckles.