FLOOR-CLOTH, a coarse canvas coated on both sides, and partly saturated with thick oil-paint, one side having usually a colored pattern printed upon it in oil-paint. The canvas basis for floor-cloth is chiefly manufactured in Dundee. As it is required to be without scam, and of sufficient width to cover considerable spaces of flooring, special looms are required for weaving it. It is made from 18 to 24ft. in width, and in lengths from 100 to 113 yards.
'The first step towards converting this canvas into floor-cloth consists in stretching it on a frame. This is a work of some difficulty, on account of the great size of the pieces. Some of the frames are as much as 100 ft. in length by 24 ft. in height, and the canvas must be stretched over it as tight as a drum. The back or plain side of the cloth is first operated upon, by priming it with a solution of size, and scouring it with pumice. The object of this is to prevent too much of the paint from penetrating the canvas, and rendering it brittle, and to make an even surface to receive the paint, which is mixed with linseed oil, with very little or no turpentine, and is consequently thicker than common paint. This is thrown or splashed upon the surface with a brush; and then with a long steel trowel the workman spreads the dabs of paint, and produces a tolerably smooth surface. This is left for 12 or 14 days to dry, and then another coat is laid on in a similar manner; and this completes the back or under side of the floor-cloth.
While the first coat of the back is drying, the front is primed and pumiced, and a coat of trowel-color laid on. As more care is required on this side, this coat of color is scoured quite smooth with pumice, and two more trowel-colors are added, and each scoured like the first. Another coat is now carefully laid on with a brush, and is called a This forms the ground upon which the pattern is to be printed.
The printing is clone by means of wood-blocks. The pattern is first drawn and painted, in its complete form and colors, upon a piece of paper; another piece of paper is now laid under this, and the outlines of that portion of the pattern included in one color are pricked through to the lower paper. In like manner, pricked 'outlines of each of the other colors are prepared. Each of these pricked sheets is laid upon a block of pear-tree wood, and dusted over with powdered charcoal or lampblack, and thus the pat tern is drawn in dots upon the wood; the carver cuts away the wood surrounding the pattern, and leaves it standing in relief.
The pear-tree blocks are backed by gluing them to a piece of deal, and this piece again to another, with the fibers at right angles, to prevent warping.
The colors are spread by boys upon paddled cushions covered with floor-cloth, and each printer dabs his block upon that containing the required color, and then places it upon the floor-cloth, and striking it with the handle of a short heavy hammer, prints his portion of the pattern. Ile then proceeds with a repetition of this, and as he advances, he is followed in order by the printers of the other colors, who place their blocks accurately over the pattern the first has commenced. The first printer's chief care is to keep the repetitions of the pattern accurately in line.
The quality of floor-cloth depends mainly upon the number of coats of paint, the kind of medium used for the color, and the time given to drying. For the best qualities, a fortnight must elapse between the laying on of each coat, and finally, several months' exposure in the drying-room is necessary. As the rental of the space thus occupied, and the interest of the capital left stagnant during this time, amount to a considerable sum, there is a strong inducement to manufacturers to hasten the processes, which may easily be done by using gold size or boiled linseed oil, or other rapid "dryers," instead of raw linseed oil; but just in proportion as the drying is hastened by these means, the durability and flexibility of the floor-cloth are deteriorated. In order to secure the maximum of durability, floor-cloth should still he kept three or four years after it has left the drying-room of the manufacturer, and purchasers should always select those pieces which they have reason to believe have been the longest in stock. Narrow floor cloth, for stair-carpeting, passages, etc., is made as above, and then cut into the required widths, and printed. It usually has a large pattern in the middle, and a border of a smaller design.
The laying of lobbies and passages with encaustic tiles has led to the superseding of floor-cloth in such situations, while for some other purposes, such as covering the floors of churches, reading-rooms, and waiting-rooms at railway-stations, it is superseded by the material called kamptulicon (q.v.), or vulcanized india-rubber cloth, which is im• pervious to wet, soft and quiet to the tread, and warm to the feet. This material is made plain or figured to resemble painted floor-cloth. See also LINOLEUM.