Textiles: knitting – Fabrics or articles – Articles
Patent
1996-08-08
1998-11-17
Calvert, John J.
Textiles: knitting
Fabrics or articles
Articles
66176, 66177, D04B 124
Patent
active
058361790
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to the manufacture of knitted brief blanks from which briefs are produced.
By briefs is meant a garment comprising a body portion adapted to cover the lower portion of a wearers trunk from the waist downwards to and beneath the crotch, and having therein two leg openings at respectively opposite sides of the crotch portion which closes the garment at its lower end.
Traditionally, knitted briefs were manufactured by a process known as cutting and sewing in which a blank of the shape illustrated in FIG. 1 of British patent no. 1 485 952 was cut manually from flat knitted fabric. The blank was then side seamed into a brief proper. Clearly this process was time consuming and thus expensive.
The invention disclosed in British patent no. 1 485 952 represented a significant step forward in that a brief blank of the required form was produced from a seamless tubular blank on a circular knitting machine. This tubular blank was then slit, flattened and side-seamed.
European patent no. 0 211 641 provided a further step forward in that it enabled a row of brief blanks to be knitted in the form of a tube which blanks were interconnected in side-by-side relationship. FIG. 5 of the European patent illustrates an unslit waisted tube having walewise separation positions 22 which, when slit, provides two brief blanks for side seaming into briefs proper.
The method described in the European patent has worked well commercially save that, especially when three or more blanks have been knitted in a row, when walewise separation has been effected there has been a tendency for the crotch portion not to shrink sufficiently laterally between the points AC and A1-C1 as viewed in FIG. 2. This has meant that it has been necessary for an operator to cut away fabric between the lines A-A1 and C-C1 which is clearly undesirable since it slows down production. Even when only two blanks have been produced it has occasionally been necessary to cut away fabric as described above.
The present invention seeks to reduce the amount of yarn wasted in knitting a blank, more especially a brief blank, when knitted as one of a row of blanks as described in European patent no. 0 211 641.
In accordance with the present invention there is provided a method of knitting a plurality of brief blanks in a row in side-by-side relationship in the form of a tube, which method comprises knitting a said tube on an electronically controlled circular knitting machine having full electro-mechanical needle to needle selection and stitch length control, and comprising the steps of shaping by needle selection the tube at positions between brief blanks more especially to form apertures which are to provide leg openings by taking out of action needles which would otherwise knit yarn across said apertures whilst simultaneously cutting and trapping yarn fed to said inoperative needles whereby said apertures are formed between brief blanks with end portions of the latter remaining interconnected, and slitting the tube walewise at positions between said blanks to provide a plurality of separate brief blanks of the required form for brief manufacture.
One advantage of the present invention is that it enables the amount of yarn wasted by cut loss in the method of European patent number 0 211 641 to be reduced by 15 to 20% dependent upon the number of brief blanks produced in a row.
A further advantage of the invention is that the shaping of the leg opening is facilitated considerably enabling each blank to be shaped and styled for a particular end use, e.g. fashion, sports or medical applications. In this connection it will be seen that different types of briefs, e.g. a sports brief and a fashion brief can be produced in the same row of a tube .
The invention will now be described further by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
FIG. 1 shows, in diagrammatic form, an unslit waisted tube as taken down from a circular knitting machine;
FIG. 2 shows an opened out flat knitted brief blank produced from the knitted tube sh
REFERENCES:
patent: 3985003 (1976-10-01), Reed
patent: 4531525 (1985-07-01), Richards
patent: 4887439 (1989-12-01), Tenconi
patent: 4920769 (1990-05-01), Rickerl
patent: 5031424 (1991-07-01), Peleg et al.
patent: 5081854 (1992-01-01), Lonati
patent: 5590548 (1997-01-01), Osborne
patent: 5605060 (1997-02-01), Osborne
Integrated Brief Production: A New Approach; Dennis R. Goadby, FTI, AMBIM; Knitting International, vol. 83, NO. 996; pp. 51-52, Dec. 1976.
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