Before the invention of
continuous
paper making, paper was made in individual sheets by stirring a
container of pulp slurry and either pouring it into a fabric sieve
called a sheet mould or dipping and lifting the sheet mould from the
vat. While still on the fabric in the sheet mould the wet paper is
pressed to remove excess water and then the sheet was lifted off to be
hung over a rope or wooden rod to air dry. In 1799,
Louis-Nicolas Robert of
Essonnes, France, was granted a
patent for a continuous paper making machine.
[1] At the time Robert was working for
Saint-Léger Didot,
with whom he quarrelled over the ownership of the invention. Didot
thought that England was a better place to develop the machine. But
during the troubled times of the
French Revolution,
he could not go there himself, so he sent his brother in law, John
Gamble, an Englishman living in Paris. Through a chain of acquaintances,
Gamble was introduced to the brothers Sealy and
Henry Fourdrinier,
stationers of London, who agreed to finance the project. Gamble was granted British patent 2487 on 20 October 1801.
With the help particularly of
Bryan Donkin, a skilled and ingenious mechanic, an improved version of the Robert original was installed at Frogmore Mill,
Apsley, Hertfordshire,
in 1803, followed by another in 1804. A third machine was installed at
the Fourdriniers' own mill at Two Waters. The Fourdriniers also bought a
mill at
St Neots intending to install two machines there and the process and machines continued to develop.
Thomas Gilpin is most often credited for creating the first U.S cylinder type papermaking machine at
Brandywine Creek,
Delaware
in 1817. This machine was also developed in England, but it was a
cylinder mould machine. The Fourdrinier machine wasn't introduced into
the USA until 1827.
[2]
However, records show Charles Kinsey of
Patterson, NJ
had already patented a continuous process papermaking machine in 1807.
Kinsey’s machine was built locally by Daniel Sawn and by 1809 the Kinsey
machine was successfully making paper at the Essex Mill in Paterson.
Financial stress and potential opportunities created by the
Embargo of 1807
eventually persuaded Kinsey and his backers to change the mill’s focus
from paper to cotton and Kinsey's early papermaking successes were soon
overlooked and forgotten.
[3][4]
Gilpin's 1817 patent was similar to Kinsey’s, as was the John Ames
patent of 1822. The Ames patent was challenged by his competitors,
asserting that Kinsey was the original inventor and Ames had been
pilfering other peoples' ideas, their evidence being the employment of
Daniel Sawn to work on his machine.
[3]
The method of
continuous production demonstrated by the paper machine influenced the development of continuous rolling of iron and later steel and other
continuous production processes.
[5]
(Sumber: wikipedia.org)
