APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR HYDROPATTERNING FABRIC

摘要

An hydropatterning apparatus conveys a sheet of fabricthrough a patterning station along a machine direction on aconveyor, preferably a drum, having a support surface formed with apattern of raised or solid areas and lowered or void areas, and hasone or more manifolds of hydrojet nozzles disposed above theconveyor for directing a continuous curtain of fluid downwardly toimpact on the fabric so that properties of the fabric become alteredin correspondence to the pattern of the support surface. Fabriccolored with a non-colorfast dye is hydropatterned by subtractivecolor removal to obtain a patterned washout effect. Alternatively, asupport surface having raised or embossed areas is used to obtain afiber displacement, lace-like effect in light fabrics. The disclosedhydropatterning technique is particularly suitable for producing acolor washout effect in indigo dyed denim.