Method of making a mechanical fastener using a crowned surface

A method of making a mechanical fastener, the method comprising:

• providing two slit webs having mechanical fastening elements and lengths in a machine direction, wherein each slit web includes a plurality of laterally separated interrupted slits that are interrupted by intact bridging regions of the web, wherein the interrupted slits extend in a first direction that is non-parallel to a cross-machine direction, and wherein for at least some adjacent interrupted slits, the intact bridging regions are staggered in a direction transverse to the first direction;
• applying tension to the two slit webs in the machine direction;
• and
• spreading the two slit webs in a cross-machine direction by moving the two slit webs over an apparatus having two crowned surfaces to provide two spread mechanical fastening webs, wherein each spread mechanical fastening web comprises multiple strands of the slit web attached to each other at least at some of the intact bridging regions and separated from each other between at least some of the intact bridging regions, and wherein
• at least a portion of the two crowned surfaces is a low-friction surface, and the two crowned surfaces and the two slit webs are not moving at the same speed in the same direction.