Narrow gauge hollow needle improvement
AssigneeTuftco Corporation
InventorsJason Daniel Detty, Keith England, Michael Morgante
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for tufting lower loop heights than prior art machines could tuft with a hollow needle tufting machine is disclosed. Polishing and/or rounding edges of needles, which may be smaller in diameter than prior art needles were implemented with a straight edge backing bar, and dimensionally stable woven backing fabric to provide consistently lower loops than prior art efforts.
Claims18
A method of using a tufting machine having a yarn feed selectively supplying any one, and only one at a time, of a plurality of a selection of yarns respectively to each of a plurality of reciprocating laterally spaced hollow needles having heads and opposed angled ends, wherein a selected one of the plurality of yarns is fed into the head of a hollow needle and tufted by reciprocal movement of the needle through a weave of backing fabric fed from front to back over a backing support, the selected one yarn exiting the angled end of the hollow needle being cut by a knife cooperating with the angled end to leave a yarn bight in the backing fabric, said improvement comprising the steps of:
- (a) providing hollow needles having a diameter of less than ⅜ inch;
- and
- (b) at least one of rounding edges of the hollow needles and polishing the needles whereby the needles tend to deflect the weave of the backing fabric rather than breaking fibers of the backing fabric;
- and
- (c) tufting a pattern having a uniform low loop height, and when tufting, producing the uniform low loop height consistently, said uniform low loop height no more than ⅜ inch, and said production occurring in the absence of a backing plate below the backing in a plane with the laterally arranged needles.
A method of using a tufting machine having a yarn feed selectively supplying one of a plurality of separately fed yarns respectively to each of a plurality of reciprocating laterally spaced hollow needles having heads and opposed angled ends, wherein a selected one of the plurality of yarns is fed into the head of a hollow needle and tufted by reciprocal movement of the needle through a weave of backing fabric fed from front to back over a backing support, the selected one yarn exiting the angled end of the hollow needle being cut by a knife cooperating with the angled end to leave a yarn bight in the backing fabric, said improvement comprising the steps of:
- (a) providing hollow needles having a diameter of about ¼ inch;
- and
- (b) at least one of rounding edges of the hollow needles and polishing the needles whereby the needles tend to deflect the weave of the backing fabric rather than breaking fibers of the backing fabric;
- and
- (c) tufting a pattern having a uniform low loop height, and when tufting, producing the uniform low loop height consistently, said uniform low loop height no more than ⅜ inch, and said production occurring in the absence of a backing plate below the backing in a plane with the laterally arranged needles.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.