Background to the Invention Although protective coatings can be applied to most fabrics including any window covering fabrics, building panels or substrates and for many applications other than for curtaining material for convenience sake the coating discussed here will be discussed in terms of its application to curtain material.

Unlined curtain fabrics require a coating on the side facing towards a window as do curtain liners in order to protect the fabric from degradation by ultraviolet light and to control the amount of light transmitted through the fabric. This protection is usually in the form of a crushed pigmented polymer foam which is applied to one side of the fabric. The pigment provides the UV light barrier while the crushed polymer foam is the carrier for the pigment.

Crushed polymer foam is the most common form of pigment carrier due to its natural softness and ability to drape naturally. It may be semi opaque or totally opaque depending on the desired degree of light transmission.

Most crushed polymer foam used in the drapery industry is a pigmented acrylic polymer which in its finished form has a somewhat plastic appearance and feel and it has been found over the years that the purchasing public finds the product more acceptable when a light coating of viscose flock is added to the crushed polymer foam surface. There are however some problems with this type of finish.

The fine flock finish can trap dust which is undesirable however it can also shed and come free from the curtain surface and fall on other surfaces in a room. There have been some concerns also that flock particles, which are easily airborne, may cause an inhalation health hazard e. g. concerns about asthma and for that reason some manufacturers and distributors are loth to use flock and have returned to producing the less appealing product without it.

Outline of the Invention It is an object of this invention to provide a means whereby a fabric surface can be provided with appearance and feel approaching that of a flocked surface, to minimise any plastic look or feel, without using viscose flocking with its attendant problems.

The invention in one aspect is a method of manufacturing a fabric coating which simulates a viscose flocked finish which method, in relation to at least one layer of the fabric coating, includes the steps of: - providing fine beads of polymer which are hollow and partially filled with selected solvents or solvent blends or other volatile substances; - adding these beads to a coating compound in its wet state; - coating the fabric with the resultant compound; - oven drying the compound on the fabric and raising the temperature of the coating to crosslink the polymer and expand the polymer beads within the coating layer ; Where the coating compound used is a polymer for foaming it is preferred that the compound be foamed after the addition of the beads to it.

It is preferred also that the coated fabric be passed through a crushing roller after oven drying and prior to raising the temperature of the coating where a polymer for foaming is used.

It may be preferred that the crosslinked, coated fabric be passed through or around cooling rollers to complete the process. In may be further preferred that the crosslinking of the polymer and expansion of the polymer beads be accomplished by heating in a second oven in line or by cooling and rewinding the coated fabric and passing it through an oven at a later time.

The invention in another aspect is a fabric coating formed by the method described above.

The quantity of beads added to the coating compound is preferably of the order of between 1% to 10% dry weight of polymer beads relative to the dry weight of the crushed polymer foam although a more preferred range is between 2% and 5%.

In order that the invention may be more readily understood we will describe by way of non limiting example a specific embodiment thereof.

Description of a Preferred Embodiment of the Invention In the embodiment of the invention described here an alternative to the viscose flocked finish common on crushed polymer foam surfaces used on fabrics is achieved by the addition of between 2% and 5% by weight of fine polymer beads to a foaming polymer coating compound prior to its application to fabric and subsequent foaming, drying and crushing.

The percentage range of beads given is a preferment and it is envisaged that an acceptable surface could still be obtained outside this range. We have found however that the best effect is achieved using a fine bead in the percentage range given above.

Where a high percentage of beads are used the effect is more pronounced.

The type of fine bead used is a hollow polymer bead which is partially filled with selected solvents or solvent blends or other volatiles. The beads are stirred into the coating compound in its liquid form and applied to the fabric usually by blade coating prior to heating and drying such that the beads are located within the coating layer. If the coating was applied as a foam then the dried foam is crushed by roller.

Passing the dried coating through a second oven either immediately or at a later time causes the polymer shells of the beads to soften while the solvent within them boils.

The elevated temperature has the effect of crosslinking the polymer used in the coating and also of expanding the beads within and at the surface and both steps can be carried out simultaneously by choosing a suitable temperature and heating time.

The expansion of the beads is retained once the coating has cooled and the operation is completed once the coated fabric passes through a cooling roller or is cooled by other means.

It is also customary to apply a silicone coating or other lubricant to the finished product in order to provide the coated surface with some slip properties however this is not an essential feature of the invention.

The resultant fabric coating obtained has a visual and textural appearance and feel which is at least the equal of conventionally flocked coatings and may be seen in fact to be an improvement and it is particularly so compared to an unflocked surface. Its most important superiority over conventional flocked surfaces however is that the fabric coating of the invention is stable and does not shed thereby avoiding any problems which may be associated with the tendency of conventional flocked surfaces to shed their flocking and any health hazard this may cause.

The fabric may be treated with a single layer of coating material incorporating the beads or, alternatively, two or three coats at least one of which would contain beads as described. If the beads are in an outer coating the resultant coating will be strongly textured, however if they are in an inner layer such a texture would be largely lost. In any event the presence of the beads impregnated in any of the layers gives the feel and cushioning effect of a thicker material and is softer than ordinary flocked fabrics.

It is envisaged that where more than one layer of coating is used these may be of different colours.

It is further envisaged that a radiatively absorptive layer of a dark colour could be used for total opacity and that this coloured layer could be sandwiched between layers of lighter colours such that the fabric colours are not affected and neither are the radiative properties of the coating surface.

Whilst we have described herein one specific embodiment of the invention it is envisaged that other embodiments of the invention will exhibit any number of and any combination of the features previously described and that variations and modifications of these can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.