Wraparound fabric article and method of making the same
AssigneeRaychem Corporation
InventorDonald Peacock
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of making wraparound fabric article comprises positioning a closure member(s) at an edge portion of a sheet of fabric (1), and welding or bonding (a) fibres of the fabric adjacent to the closure member so as to trap the closure member by preventing of reducing relative movement of fibres at the edge portion (2). Preferably, the method involves attaching two closure members to the fabric, by which the article can be held in a wrapped around configuration.
Claims20
A method of producing a wrap-around article comprising a fabric and having a first closure member fixed with respect to the fabric at an edge of the article by means of which member, edge portions of the article can be held together to maintain the article in a wrapped around configuration, which method includes:
- (a) positioning said first closure member at said edge thereby forming a region of the article of increased thickness, wherein said positioning is carried out by a positioning selected from the group consisting of interweaving said first closure member into the fabric during the production of the fabric, inserting the first closure member into a pocket woven into the fabric, or mixtures of said positioning procedures, said region of increased thickness formed without turning back the fibres of the fabric around the closure member towards the edge opposite thereto;
- (b) affixing the fibres of the fabric to one another adjacent said first closure member, said affixing occurring on the side of the closure member closest to the edge adjacent to which the closure member is positioned, and wherein said affixing is selected from the group consisting of welding, bonding, or mixtures thereof;
- and
- (c) optionally the step consisting of cross-linking the weld or bond or mixtures of the weld or bond;
- thereby steps (b) and (c) locating said first closure member at said edge by preventing or reducing relative movement of fibres at said edge.
In a method of producing a wrap-around recoverable article comprising a recoverable fabric, said article having at least one closure member fixed at an edge of the article, the improvement which comprises:
- weaving a closure member into the fabric during the fabric fabrication and prior to affixing the fibres of the fabric at the edge;
- and affixing the fibres of the fabric at the edge.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.