Press Felt & Dryer Fabric for Paper Machines — Endless, Seamed & Spiral, OEM-Matched

Paper machine clothing engineered by the manufacturer that also builds your press rolls and dryer cylinders. We match press felts and dryer fabrics to your press and dryer sections – every paper grade, every machine make – and ship worldwide with a 24-hour quote.

Solution summary

Two families, one source: needled press felts for the press, woven and spiral dryer fabrics for the dryer.
Engineered from your base structure (single, double, laminated) and a needled batt by paper grade, speed, and nip load – we advise on selection, not just the highest gram weight.
Woven or seamed, Polyester, Polyamide, PPS and PEEK monofilaments, so the fabric stands up to temperature and hydrolysis of the dryer section.
Endless or seamed, made to your machine width, roll diameter, and seam style – fits Valmet, Voith, Andritz, as well as rebuilt or second-hand machines.

Request a Quote (RFQ)

Paper machine clothing and dryer fabrics installation

Industrial press felt and fabric engineering structure

Why the Right Press Felt & Dryer Fabric Decides Your Dryness, Speed and Steam Bill

SYSTEM SPECIFICATION / 01

A press felt is a needled fabric that conveys the wet paper sheet into the press nip, expressing water; a dryer fabric holds that sheet flat against the dryer cylinder as the final drying step occurs. Alongside the forming fabric which filters water out to create the paper web, these are the three high-engineered technical textiles that together are known as paper machine clothing – the “skin” your sheet must ride upon from headbox to reel. Correct clothing can result in a fast-drying, high-speed machine running with consistent moisture. The opposite applies, and the sheet begins to fight the rolls.

PROCESS INSIGHT

This is a vicious cycle, where most mills become trapped. When a paper machine’s bottleneck is in drying and speed is decreasing, a typical knee-jerk reaction is to increase the steam rate. However, the water which the failed press felt failed to extract does not simply evaporate, but re- wets the sheet immediately beyond the press nip, entering the dryer section already at a higher initial moisture level. The required amount of steam to evaporate this extra moisture then increases and the machine is slowed to regain its target moisture profile. Any clogged, compressed, or incorrectly specified press felt will systematically cap your production capacity and raise steam consumption without immediate alarm. Dryer fabrics can fall into a similar pattern, if an improper air permeability or hydrolysed, hardened surface creates an imbalanced drying and uneven Sheet.

SYSTEM SPECIFICATION / 02

Our engineering effort focuses on prevention of this problem. Whether we are replacing one press felt on a paper board machine, or producing a full suite of woven and spiral dryer fabrics for a tissue operation, our approach to the design process and to each specific paper grade remains consistent. We will engineer for your press and dryer sections – for your unique machine width and geometry – ensuring the appropriate base, batt weight and air permeability, with endless or seamed delivery options to best suit your scheduled maintenance windows. Here, we elaborate on the fabrics we offer and their specifications, on selection by paper grade, on the endess-or seamed andwoven-versus-spiral decisions, our materials selection and quality systems, and our ordering and delivery process.

PROCESS INSIGHT

Counter-intuitive, worth knowing: the highest-performance press felt is not automatically the right one. A dense, fine-batt felt built for a fast fine-paper machine can actually dewater worse on a slow packaging or board line, because it blinds and loses permeability before its wear life is up. The correct felt is the one matched to your grade, basis weight, speed and pressing type — which is a conversation about your machine, not a line off a catalogue.

Our Press Felts & Dryer Fabrics — Types, Structure and Specifications

We manufacture two similar but different groups of paper machine felts. Press felts are the yielding, needled cloths which remove water from the sheet in the press section, per forming the dewatering function of the paper machine. Dryer felts-often called dryer fabric or dryer screen-are open, heat-resistant fabrics that support the sheet on the dryers. Both types are woven and finished to your specific machine, rather than taken off a rack. For the shoe press positions, we also provide highly engineered press belts; and both cloths and belts are specifically tailored to the position in which they run.

Press felts — base fabric plus needled batt

A press felt is actually a two-piece garment. Its foundation is a woven fabric of polyamide and polyester yarns, its filling and warp woven either as a single or double fabric, or laminated, to withstand the press load, hold tension and rebound. We then needle one or more layers of fine staple-fiber batt onto this base structure. This batt layer forms the smooth paper side which makes contact with the sheet, and which controls water take-up and release through the nip. More open, coarse batt constructions provide high flow rate and dry faster on the heavy grades of paper machine; the denser, finer batt formulations produce a smoother sheet surface on the finer grades. Overall performance of a press felt in removing water depends on its ability to remain permeable under load-which is why two felts of the same basic weight may behave differently.

Type	Base construction	Typical weight (g/m²)	Yarn / material	Seam	Best-fit grades & speed
Standard press felt	Single or double base fabric	1000 – 1800	Polyamide + polyester	Endless	Packaging, corrugated, board · low–medium speed
Laminated press felt	Laminated multi-base + fine batt	1200 – 2000	Polyamide, fine PA batt	Endless	Fine paper, cultural, high speed · uniform pressing
Seam (pin) press felt	Pin-seam base + batt	1000 – 1700	Polyamide + polyester	Pin seam	Rebuilds & retrofits needing fast install

Dryer fabrics — woven and spiral

In the dryer section the emphasis shifts from water removal to keeping the sheet flat and permeable to the evaporative flow of moisture while protecting the sheet from contact with hot cylinders. We have two primary construction types. Our woven dryer fabrics are ideal for providing sheet support with minimum surface marking on the fine grades; our spiral dryer fabrics, built from interwoven, spiral wires, provide high airflow and superior durability for use on the fast-growing early positions of the dryers. Selection of materials is based on the temperature requirements: polyester on standard and moderate heat dryers; PPS for high-temperature or wet dryers; PEEK on high temperature positions and especially on wet applications.

Dryer fabric	Structure	Air permeability	Material by temperature	Best-fit dryer zone
Woven dryer fabric	Flat woven monofilament mesh	Medium, controllable	PET / PPS	Finishing & surface-critical drying
Spiral dryer fabric	Interlocking spiral coils	High	PET / PPS	Early & high-permeability drying zones
High-temperature dryer fabric	Woven or spiral	Medium–high	PPS (~185°C) / PEEK	Hottest / condensate-heavy positions

How to Select Press Felt and Dryer Fabric by Paper Grade

By far the costliest mistake you can make in paper machine clothing is selecting a Fabric on the basis of weight or price alone, rather than by the actual work it has to do. A felt that works beautifully on a fast tissue machine can clog up and lose its dewatering capability on a slower OCC paper production. True Selection requires correlating five Variables with one of our standard base Fabrics-your Paper grade, Basis weight, speed of your machine, your Pressing and Dryer configuration and your Cleaning Methods. You may want to use the chart below as a general guide line; but, let us tailor it to the precise needs of your equipment.

SELECTION MATRIX | FABRIC & GRADE

Paper grade	Typical speed	Press felt build	batt / paper side	Dryer fabric	Dryer material
Kraft / corrugated / testliner	Low – medium	Single or double base, open	Coarser, high water flow	Spiral (early), woven (finish)	PET, PPS in hot zones
Duplex & packaging board	Medium	Double base, medium batt	Balanced flow / surface	Spiral + woven mix	PET / PPS
Cultural / printing / fine paper	Medium – high	Laminated base, fine batt	Fine, smooth paper side	Woven	PET, PPS for coated dryers
Tissue / MG	High	Light laminated, high rebound	Fine, fast-releasing	Spiral (high permeability)	PPS / PEEK
Newsprint	High	Double base, uniform	Medium-fine	Woven / spiral	PET / PPS

View this as a decision process. Run a medium speed board or kraft machine, and currently have a working felt? Stick with a double-open-base construct and a coarser batt – thus you retain water flow and do not blind early. Beginning or rebuilding a fine paper or tissue machine and sheet surface and release quality are key? Consider a laminated base with a fine batt and, on the machine, a high permeability spiral fabric in PPS on the dryer. The mills we partner with are almost all in a hybrid configuration between their various sections, and that is why you want to partner with a manufacturer who makes all weaves rather than trying to force fit you into their house product.

Before we ever give you a price on a felt, we will always request the grade, machine speed and pressing type from you. After all, on a machine limited by its drying capacity, the price of a felt which blinds in two weeks is much lower than the lost machine speed and steam.

Endless vs Seamed · Woven vs Spiral · Full-Line Maker vs Fabric Trader

Three selections determine how fabric goes in, performs, and how long it works. No choice is “best” intrinsically.Each one is a compromise against downtime, grade, and risk. Here’s how we discuss it using facts, not slogans:

It’s that last row that buyers discount. A press felt or dryer fabric is no more than the suitability of its application in the press or the dryer. Its ‘width’ means nothing to the roll wrap, the nip, the geometry of the dryer, the seam and the drive side. Since Henan Zejiang design and manufacture full paper machines – with press rolls, vacuum rolls, couch rolls and dryer cylinders as an integral part – your cloth is selected against your own application, not a generalized ‘width.’ And should you be refurbishing sections during the same rebuild, your new Henan Zejiang dryer cylinders, Yankee cylinders and press rolls will be built to the same drawings as the cloth, from one source and to a single set of tolerances. A fabric supplier – however fine their cloth – can’t deliver this.

Not sure which combination fits your line?

GET A FABRIC COMPARISON FOR YOUR MACHINE

Paper machine fabric engineering details

Decision	Option A	Option B	How to choose
Press felt seam	Endless — no seam, most uniform pressing, longest service life	Pin-seam — installs without threading the machine, big downtime saving	Endless for high-speed & mark-sensitive grades; seam for retrofits and tight maintenance windows
Dryer fabric structure	Woven — controlled contact, fine surface finish	Spiral — higher air permeability, hard-wearing in harsh zones	Woven on finishing/coated positions; spiral on early, high-permeability drying
Supplier type	Full-line paper machine maker (us) — matches felt to the press rolls and dryer cylinders it also builds	Pure fabric trader — sells cloth, does not know your machine’s rolls or drying section	Full-line maker when fit, matching and install support matter — which on a replacement is almost always

Field Results, Applications and the Real Cost of Paper Machine Clothing

OPERATIONAL COST INSIGHT

Paper machine clothing is just another item on your PO but it’s a big driver on operating costs. You might get through months and years of the felt/fabric for far less money than you spend in lost production in the press section and a year’s worth of press clothing and still be losing far more production from low speed. Therefore you must have excellent clothing that delivers superior moisture removal at higher speeds. That’s why you’ve got to make decisions in buying clothing on the total picture of its performance in operation, not on the price alone.

THE MOISTURE CHAIN

Think about the moisture chain. Sheets spend most of their press section life at around 50-70% moisture and should leave the section at around 10-20% moisture before the dryer takes over. Every single atom of moisture that the press felt will not be extracted by the press is left to evaporate in the dryer section with steam—and evaporation costs far more than pressing. A felt that maintains its permeability and dewaters to target level will keep the dryer load down, the machine speed up and the steam bill flat. A dryer fabric that achieves the desired permeability and heat resistance will maintain even drying, which will preserve sheet quality and eliminate breaks. This is the reality behind ‘the felt saved us money’—not magic, just where the energy is expended.

Packaging & recycled board

Open, durable press felts and tough spiral dryer fabrics that shrug off contaminant load and high water throughput on OCC and testliner lines.

Tissue & MG

Light, fast-releasing felts and high-permeability PPS/PEEK spiral dryer fabrics matched to Yankee and hood drying.

Kraft, cultural & newsprint

Double-base felts and woven dryer fabrics tuned for surface, uniformity and long, stable runs.

Zejiang supplies press felts, dryer fabrics and complete paper machine clothing to paper, tissue, packaging and recycling mills in the Far East, South America and the Middle East. Because we also design and rebuild the machines the fabrics run on, we see the way a felt behaves in practice and feed that back into the next criteria for specification—a process cycle that a fabrics-only supplier fails to complete.

Materials, Standards and Quality Control

The difference in the performance of a felt that lasts its intended life and one that fails prematurely is based on the yarn quality and finishing applied—not the weave style shown in a brochure. Paper machine clothing is exposed to hot water, steam, heat and sliding motion so its selection must be based primarily on a fabrics’ ability to survive there.

Material	Key property	Where we use it
Polyester (PET) monofilament	High tensile strength, dimensional stability, abrasion resistance	Base fabrics, standard dryer fabrics
Polyamide (PA / nylon)	Toughness, elasticity, rebound under nip load	Press felt base and batt
PPS (polyphenylene sulfide)	Temperature resistance to ~185°C and resistance to hydrolysis — it keeps flexibility and strength in hot, wet dryer positions	High-temperature dryer fabrics
PEEK	Retains high strength at the highest dryer temperatures	Hottest dryer zones
Cotton / wool	Absorbency, softness — legacy fibres	Niche and specialty grades

All of our fabrics are controlled for parameters we believe will determine the service life, namely shrinkage under heat, tensile strength and elongation and air permeability, with records kept on each order to allow audit against these factors—not just take our word for it.

Quality control testing on paper machine clothing

ISO 9001 Quality management system

Tensile & elongation Yarn & fabric control

Shrinkage / heat-set Dimensional stability

Air permeability Tested per build

PPS / PEEK Hydrolysis & heat resistant

Procurement Guide — How to Specify, MOQ, Lead Time and After-Sales

The websites of most suppliers of fabric end with “contact us for a quote”. That is because most of those suppliers have to check with the yarn supplier first—the one that would tell you to send the data they never asked for, so they can be quoting based on something irrelevant to your application. This is what impacts the cost and leads to delays, so you can collate and send it all to one source once and quote through e-mail fast.

PROCUREMENT SPECIFICATIONS MATRIX

What we need from you	Why it drives the fabric & the quote
Machine width & fabric length (roll wrap / circumference)	Sets the woven size — the single most common cause of a fabric that will not fit
Paper grade, basis weight & machine speed	Drives base construction, batt weight and permeability
Position (which press nip or dryer group)	Decides press felt vs woven vs spiral dryer fabric, and material
Seam type (endless or pin-seam) & downtime window	Determines installation method and lead time
Dryer temperatures & existing fabric brand	Chooses PET vs PPS vs PEEK and lets us match your current position

Lead time on our felt and fabric orders is determined by the yarn stock, weaving, finishing, needling and heat-setting processes, as opposed to feeler stock, as we confirm it on enquiry, not quote a time that is dismissed when the actual order is presented. Pricing reflects the material (PET or PPS or PEEK), size and seam type, and is supplied with the actual order within 24 hours. Fitting out and run-in require a little time to reach stable moisture and permeability, so fitting guides are provided with every order and technical support made available—because the last thing we want to do is sell you a fabric from China without full support.

Request a quote and lead-time estimate for your press felt or dryer fabric

Fabric Engineering & Specification Tools

Utilize our digital configuration tools to determine the precise press felt and dryer fabric parameters for your paper machine. Match your machine dimensions, drying sections, and press types to build technical specifications for accurate RFQ generation.

TOOL / 01

Press Felt & Dryer Fabric Selector

Input your paper machine class, speed, and paper grade to instantly configure the ideal woven or spiral fabric structures and material specifications.

LAUNCH SELECTOR →

TOOL / 02

Fabric RFQ Spec Builder

Generate a comprehensive Request For Quotation (RFQ) document by compiling your specific machine dimensions, nip loads, and permeability requirements.

BUILD SPECIFICATION →

FAQ — Press Felt & Dryer Fabric

What is paper machine clothing, and where does press felt fit?

Paper machine clothing (PMC) is the set of fabrics that carry the sheet through the machine: forming fabric in the wire section, press felt in the press section, and dryer fabric in the dryer section. The press felt dewaters the sheet under the press nip and conveys it; the dryer fabric holds it against the heated cylinders. This page covers press felts and dryer fabrics — forming fabrics are a separate product line.

How long does a press felt last, and how often should it be replaced?

Service life depends on grade, speed, contaminant load and cleaning, and typically runs from a few weeks on aggressive recycled lines to several months on clean, well-maintained machines. The right time to change is when dewatering, permeability or sheet marking tell you the felt is done — which is why monitoring matters more than a fixed calendar. We help you plan replacement around your shutdowns.

Endless or seamed press felt — which should I order?

Endless felts have no seam, give the most uniform pressing and generally the longest life, so they suit high-speed and mark-sensitive grades. Pin-seam felts install without threading the whole machine, which saves significant downtime and suits rebuilds and tight maintenance windows. Tell us your speed, grade and downtime window and we will recommend one.

Woven or spiral dryer fabric?

Woven dryer fabrics give controlled sheet contact and a finer surface finish, which helps on printing and coated grades. Spiral dryer fabrics offer higher air permeability and durability for the demanding early drying zones. Many machines use both across different dryer groups, and material — PET, PPS or PEEK — is chosen by the temperature of each position.

Can you supply felts and fabrics for a Valmet, Voith or second-hand machine?

Yes. We build press felts and dryer fabrics to your machine’s width, roll diameter and seam type regardless of who made the machine, including rebuilt and second-hand lines. Because we also design and manufacture paper machines and their press rolls and dryer cylinders, matching clothing to an existing section is core to what we do.

What is PPS dryer fabric and when do I need it?

PPS (polyphenylene sulfide) is a monofilament with temperature resistance to about 185°C that resists hydrolysis, so it keeps its strength and flexibility in hot, moisture-heavy dryer positions where standard polyester would degrade. You need it in high-temperature dryer groups; the very hottest positions may call for PEEK.

Get paper machine clothing built for your machine

Let us know your machine width, grade, speed and the position you are clothing – or just the brand and vintage of your machine and the fabric you are replacing – and we will specify and quote your press felt or dryer fabric.