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AssigneeVelcro Industries B.V.
InventorsWilliam H. Shepard, Paul R. Erickson
Estimating the term…
Lightweight, non-woven loop products for hook-and-loop fastening are disclosed, as are methods for making them and end products employing them. The products are non-woven webs of entangled fibers of substantial tenacity, the fibers forming both a sheet-form, bonded web body and hook-engageable, free-standing loops extending from the web body. The product is, in important cases, stretched before bonding to produce spaced-apart loop clusters extending from a very thin web of taut fibers. In important cases a binder is added to stabilize the product in its stretched condition. An example of the loop product is produced by needle-punching a batt of staple fibers in multiple needle-punching operations, applying a foamed acrylic binder, and then stretching the needled batt and curing the binder with the batt stretched. Other forming techniques are disclosed and several novel articles employing such loop products are described.
A method of forming a fastener product having loops at an exposed front surface for hook-and-loop fastening, employing as a starting material a nonwoven web of fibers of substantial tenacity that are capable of forming said loops, the web having a front and back surface, the steps of:
A method of forming a loop product for a hook-and-loop fastener, the method comprising the steps of entangling fibers to produce a non-woven fabric of fibers joined at entanglements, with loops of some of the fibers extending from at least one side of the fabric;
A method of forming a loop product for a hook-and-loop fastener, the method comprising the steps of
A method of forming a loop component of a hook and loop fastener comprising forming a stretchable non-woven fabric comprised of entangled fibers, some of the fibers forming hook-engageable loops that extend from entanglements, thereafter stretching the thus formed fabric at least 10 percent each in two perpendicular directions thereby tightening at least some of the entanglements into knots, and, while said fabric remains in said thus stretch state, binding the stretched fabric to give it stability.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.