Making soft fabric touch fasteners

A method of making a male touch fastener product, the method comprising:

• shearing distal portions of loops extending from a side of a flexible fabric, leaving fibers extending from the side of the flexible fabric in place of the sheared loops, the fibers extending to respective free distal ends, while leaving other loops extending from the side of the fabric intact;
• and then
• heating the distal ends with energy supplied by a linear energy source, such that resin of the distal ends flows to form enlarged heads on the extending fibers, while leaving at least some of the other loops intact;
• wherein as a result of the shearing and heating the flexible fabric has both headed fibers and functional loops extending from the side of the flexible fabric.

A male touch fastener product, comprising

• a flexible fabric base having a broad side;
• and
• fibers forming
• loops of fibers, each loop connected at two spaced-apart points in the base;
• and
• fiber segments extending from the base to respective distal fiber ends spaced from the base, each distal fiber end forming an enlarged head of fiber resin for snagging other fibers;
• wherein there are at least one-sixteenth as many loops as fiber segments.