Sewing – Special machines – Positionable work carrier
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-27
2001-09-04
Izaguirre, Ismael (Department: 3765)
Sewing
Special machines
Positionable work carrier
C112S475120
Reexamination Certificate
active
06283055
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for automatically feeding tubular articles, particularly hosiery, to a sewing machine adapted to close the tubular articles at one of their axial ends.
It is known that the toe of hosiery articles is generally still open when said articles are unloaded from the machine that forms them, and that said hosiery articles must be subjected to subsequent darning or looping of the toe in order to form the finished product.
The darning or looping significantly affects the overall production costs of the hosiery articles, mainly owing to the fact that it requires manual loading of the hosiery articles onto the darning or looping machine.
In order to reduce the production costs, machines which can produce hosiery with the toe already closed have been designed in recent years. However, these machines are more expensive than conventional machines and their production cycle is inevitably longer than that of conventional machines. For these reasons, the advantages achieved with these machines, in terms of hosiery production costs, are not relevant.
Devices have also been provided for mechanically transferring the hosiery article, at the end of the production cycle, from the machine that produces it to a sewing or looping head, by removing from the machine, one loop at a time, the last row of knitting formed, which constitutes the toe of the hosiery article to be closed. These devices allow to achieve very precise sewing or looping of the toe, but they too have the problem of slowing the production of the hosiery knitting machine.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The aim of the present invention is to solve the above problems, by providing an apparatus and a method for automatically feeding tubular articles, particularly hosiery, to a sewing machine adapted to close the tubular articles at one of their axial ends.
Within the scope of this aim, an object of the invention is to provide an apparatus which can be completely independent, in its operation, of the machine that produces the tubular articles, so as to avoid penalizing even slightly the productivity of said machine.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus which can fully utilize the productive potential of current sewing machines for closing the toe of hosiery or an axial end of tubular articles in general.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus which is highly reliable and precise in feeding the hosiery articles, or tubular articles in general, to the sewing machine.
These and other objects which will become better apparent hereinafter are achieved by an apparatus for automatically feeding tubular articles, particularly hosiery articles, to a sewing machine adapted to close the tubular articles at one of their axial ends, characterized in that it comprises:
means for feeding an article, which are adapted to fit an axial end of the article which is provided with a border which is thicker than at least one adjacent portion of the article on grip means which can be actuated in order to engage within said axial end so as to support said article in a substantially vertical arrangement and in order to produce a spacing of two diametrically opposite regions of said axial end transversely to an axial extension of the article;
means for supporting the article, which form a first slit-like passage arranged substantially horizontally and adapted to receive a portion of the article arranged below said border;
means for tensioning in a downward direction the article inserted in said first slit-like passage, said supporting means and said tensioning means being movable on command in order to insert the portion of said article that lies directly below said border along a second slit-like passage formed by two side-by-side guides for feeding a sewing machine.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3738294 (1973-06-01), Christiansen
patent: 4957051 (1990-09-01), Maegawa et al.
patent: 5014634 (1991-05-01), Hodges et al.
patent: 5373977 (1994-12-01), Migliorini Pier et al.
patent: 5398626 (1995-03-01), Rosso et al.
patent: 5511501 (1996-04-01), Bell et al.
patent: 0 889 153 (1999-01-01), None
Conti Complett S.p.A.
Izaguirre Ismael
Josif Albert
Modiano Guido
O'Byrne Daniel
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