Flocked expanded-plastic fabric and method
AssigneePervel Industries, Inc.
InventorRobert J. Frank
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The invention contemplates expanded-plastic coated fabric wherein the exposed surface of the expanded plastic is characterized by a random distribution of torn cellular pockets and by a random distribution of projecting free ends of flock elements which are rooted to the plastic at their other ends. Various methods of making the fabric are described, with different "hand" or "feel" depending upon the method and upon the materials and their dimensions.
Claims25
The method of continuously making an elongate fabric-reinforced flock-textured plastic-coated sheet, which comprises continuously applying a mix of liquid expandable plastic to a release sheet, and mix including a predetermined fraction of flock material that is bondable to the plastic, allowing the plastic to gel and to begin to expand and thus begin to orient a substantial fraction of the flock generally normal to the release sheet, continuously laminating a fabric to the plastic, allowing the plastic to complete its expansion, curing the fabric-laminated expanded plastic, stripping the release sheet from the plastic-coated fabric to expose a skin, and continuously removing said skin from said plastic-coated sheet to expose both the cellular pockets of the expanded plastic and the free upstanding ends of flock that were less securely bonded to said skin than to the remainder of said plastic-coated sheet.
The method of continuously making an elongate fabric-reinforced flock-textured plastic-coated sheet, which comprises continuously applying to a casting sheet a mix of liquid expandable plastic, said mix including a predetermined fraction of flock material that is bondable to the plastic, allowing the plastic to gel and to begin to expand and thus to begin to orient a substantial fraction of the flock generally normal to a skin region at the casting sheet, continuously laminating a fabric to the plastic, allowing the plastic to complete its expansion, curing the fabric-laminated expanded plastic, transiently applying heat essentially localized to the skin region of the plastic coat, whereby skin-localized adhesion to flock is locally weakened and whereby skin tear strength is also locally weakened at a relatively shallow depth into the adjacent expanded region, and tearing the skin from the flock and from the expanded plastic at said locally weakened regions.
The method of continuously making an elongate reinforced flock-textured plastic-coated sheet, which comprises continuously applying to a casting sheet a mix of liquid expandable plastic, said mix including a predetermined fraction of flock material that is bondable to the plastic, allowing the plastic to gel and to begin to expand and thus to begin to orient a substantial fraction of the flock generally normal to a skin region at the casting sheet, casting a second coat of a liquid plastic material to said flock-admixed coat when the latter has at least partially gelled, curing the second coat while curing the flock-admixed coat, whereby the second coat becomes a reinforcement for the expanded side of the flock-admixed coat, transiently applying heat essentially localized to the skin region of the flock-admixed coat, whereby skin-localized adhesion to flock is locally weakened and whereby skin tear strength is also locally weakened at a relatively shallow depth into the adjacent expanded region, and tearing the skin from the flock and from the expanded plastic at said locally weakened regions.
The plastic-coated sheet article which comprises a reinforcing fabric base, and an expanded plastic adhered to one side of said base, the outer exposed side of said expanded plastic being characterized by a randomly distributed plurality of cellular pockets, and a randomly distributed plurality of flock elements rooted at one end in the expanded plastic and projecting at the other end clear of and above the general plane of the outer exposed side of said expanded plastic.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.