Spirally wound press felt with orthagonal seam loops and method

A method of producing a seamed press felt comprising:

• providing a base fabric formed as a tube having an MD length and CD width formed by a spirally wound material strip having a width that is less than the CD width of the base fabric and including at least MD oriented yarns held in position by an additional fabric material component;
• removing the additional fabric material component from the MD oriented yarns in CD oriented fold regions at two opposing MD ends of the tube to form respective seam regions;
• interweaving respective CD yarns across a CD width of the base fabric with the MD oriented yarns in the seam regions to form respective woven regions that are adapted to be located adjacent to seam loops formed by bent-back regions of the MD oriented yarns at each of the CD fold regions in the finished seamed press felt;
• interweaving spacer yarns with the MD oriented yarns in a seam loop forming area between the woven regions at each of the CD fold regions;
• collapsing the tube such that the MD oriented yarns in the base fabric are arranged as two superimposed layers connected by the bent-back regions of the MD oriented yarns that form the seam loops at the seam regions at the two opposing MD ends;
• removing the spacer yarns from the MD oriented yarns at the seam loop forming area such that the seam loops are formed uniformly across a CD width of the press felt;
• and
• inserting a pintle through a channel defined by intermeshing the seam loops from the two opposing ends to form a seam.