Textiles: weaving – Pile tufting – Portable supply
Patent
1996-07-22
1998-04-28
Falik, Andy
Textiles: weaving
Pile tufting
Portable supply
D03D 3900
Patent
active
057433062
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for loading tufts into a tuft carrier for use with a gripper loom, in particular but not exclusively, an Axminster gripper loom.
The present invention also relates to a loom incorporating the tuft loading apparatus and a method of weaving on a loom.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Usually for the weaving of a Jacquard Axminster carpet, a large creel of bobbins is employed to provide the necessary number of colors and yarn ends for each tuft in the carpet. The large number is necessary to allow a complete row of tufts to be woven into the carpet simultaneously. For example, a typical 4 yard wide loom with a pitch of seven tufts per inch would weave 1008 tufts into the carpet across its width. An alternative method of yarn supply is used in the Spool Gripper loom, where a smaller number of bobbins are used to supply an off-line spool winding process. Each spool in the complete set has a pre-selected set of colors appropriate to a particular row in the carpet. The advantage of this method is that more yarn colors can be used but weaving on a spool loom consumes a greater quantity of yarn than on a gripper loom and therefore is more suitable to larger batch quantities. A further disadvantage is that the pattern repeat length is limited to the number of spools in the supply system.
Alternative systems to the creels or spools have been used but the large number of yarn sources are still created, along with the associated bulk, complexity and potential for waste. The ideal solution to the creation of woven patterned Axminster carpet would be to reduce the number of yarn sites required during all stages of the process and only create the full set of tufts just when they are required.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore a general aim of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for providing rows of tufts for a gripper loom which may contain a wide variety of colors and yet which uses a small number of yarn sources.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a tuft carrier loading apparatus for loading individual tufts into tuft retention sites spaced along an elongate tuft carrier, the apparatus including:
guide means for guiding longitudinal movement of the tuft carrier along a path of travel,
a plurality of individually selectively operable tuft forming means spaced along said path of travel,
each tuft forming means being operable when selected to feed an individual tuft to a tuft retention site on said carrier,
drive means drivingly connected to the carrier for moving the carrier along said path of travel, the drive means being operable to intermittently move the carrier through a series of successive positions whereat predefined tuft retention sites are moved temporarily into registry with each tuft forming means, and
control means for controlling selection of the tuft forming means, the control means being operable to actuate selected tuft forming means to feed tufts to those sites in registry with the selected tuft forming means while the carrier is located at each successive position.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of loading an elongate tuft carrier with tufts, the elongate tuft carrier having a plurality of tuft retention sites spaced along its length, the method including guiding longitudinal movement of the tuft carrier along a path of travel, arranging a plurality of individually selectively operable tuft forming means in spaced relationship along said path of travel, driving the tuft carrier intermittently through a series of successive positions so that predefined tuft retention sites are moved into temporary registry with each tuft forming means and operating selected tuft forming means to feed a tuft into a site presented thereto while the carrier is located at each successive position.
The present invention involves a new way of pre-selecting the required number of yarns in a sequential manner, thus avoiding the need to ha
REFERENCES:
patent: 3387577 (1968-06-01), Spanel et al.
patent: 3415209 (1968-12-01), Ellison et al.
patent: 3807459 (1974-04-01), Tolley
patent: 4039007 (1977-08-01), Coleman et al.
Griffith John Dalton
Stewart Richard Donald
Falik Andy
Skillman Henry H.
Ulster Carpet Mills (Holdings) Limited
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