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Press felts (press fabrics) play an important role in the dewatering process. Formerly, they were literally ordinary natural fiber (eg: wool) felts descended from those used by the handmade papermaker. An early stage of improvement simply consisted of a soft batt layer (next to the paper) needle punched to the woven synthetic fiber base (batt on base). The high solids presses put heavy demands on felts to provide high water handling capacity, and maintain felt life, resistance to compaction and wad burns, while not marking the paper. Multibase (laminated) structures were therefore developed, with the desired properties built into 2-4 individual separate layers laminated together (batt on mesh), with a finer MD batt to improve water removal. |
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