Sheet-dyeing apparatus

A system for dyeing a textile strand in the form of a sheet of parallel filaments, said system comprising:

• a vet containing a bath of a liquid dye;
• first guides in said vat defining a first path section therein entirely underneath the surface of said bath;
• second guides outside said vat defining a second path section passing through a gas-treatment location, said first and second path sections together forming an annular path;
• supply means for feeding said strand from a supply to said path upstream of said first path section relative to a predetermined direction of travel around said path;
• and
• drive means for conducting said strand in at least two separate passes around said annular path for contacting said strand with said liquid dye bath in each of said passes and for passing said strand through said gas-treatment location in each of said passes, said passes of said strand being generally coplanar and interleaved in said first path section, said second guides including two separate sets of second guides defining two separate horizontal second path subsections together constituting said second path section, said strand passing over one of said second path subsections on one of said passes and over the other second path subsection on the other of said passes, said path formed by said first and second path sections lying generally in an upright plane generally perpendicular to said array of filaments and generally parallel to their direction of travel in said path, said second guides including deflecting rollers positioned approximately in the middle of said portions and deflecting said strand therein so each pass is of the same length.