Apparatus and method for forming level cut and loop pile tufts and related fabrics
First Claim
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1. In a multiple needle tufting machine of the type having a yarn feed control and transversely spaced rows of front yarn carrying needles and rear yarn carrying needles adapted for reciprocation through a backing fabric to form loops of yarn on a face thereof, a yarn seizing apparatus comprising:
- a transverse row of reciprocating front loopers adapted to seize yarns from the front yarn carrying needles when penetrating the backing fabric; and
a transverse row of reciprocating gated hooks having associated knives, and adapted to seize yarns from the rear yarn carrying needles when penetrating the backing fabric.
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Abstract
A tufting machine is provided with two transverse rows of needles, one row being associated with transverse row of loopers and the other second row of needles being associated with a transverse row of gated hooks. Novel and low pile height tufted fabrics can be created with this configuration.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. In a multiple needle tufting machine of the type having a yarn feed control and transversely spaced rows of front yarn carrying needles and rear yarn carrying needles adapted for reciprocation through a backing fabric to form loops of yarn on a face thereof, a yarn seizing apparatus comprising:
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a transverse row of reciprocating front loopers adapted to seize yarns from the front yarn carrying needles when penetrating the backing fabric; and a transverse row of reciprocating gated hooks having associated knives, and adapted to seize yarns from the rear yarn carrying needles when penetrating the backing fabric. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method of forming a tufted fabric on a multiple needle tufting of the type having a yarn feed control apparatus supplying yarns to a transversely spaced row of front yarn carrying needles and a yarn feed control providing yarns to a transversely spaced row of rear yarn carrying needles, said front and rear yarn carrying needles being mounted for reciprocation through a backing fabric to form loops of yarn on a face thereof, and said tufting machine having a transverse row of reciprocating front loopers adapted to seize yarns from the front yarn carrying needles when penetrating the backing fabric and a transverse row of reciprocating gated hooks having associated knives and being adapted to seize yarns from the rear yarn carrying needles when penetrating the backing fabric comprising the steps of:
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(a) operating the yarn feed control to feed yarns to front yarn carrying needles; (b) reciprocating said front yarn carrying needles through the backing fabric to form front loops of yarn thereon; (c) operating a transverse row of front loopers to seize front loops of yarn and retracting the front yarn carrying needles from the backing fabric; (d) reciprocating the front loopers so that front loops of yarn are dropped from the loopers to form front yarn loop bights; (e) operating the yarn feed control to supply yarns to rear yarn carrying needles; (f) reciprocating said rear yarn carrying needles through the backing fabric to form rear loops of yarn on the face thereof; (g) reciprocating the transverse row of gated hooks to seize rear loops of yarn wherein selected ones of the gated hooks are in a closed position and other selected gated hooks are in an open position and retracting the rear needles from the backing fabric; (h) reciprocating the gated hooks so that yarn loops on gated hooks in a closed position are dropped from the gated hooks to form loop bights and so that yarn loops on open gated hooks are brought into contact with associated knives and cut to form cut bights; and (i) repeating said steps of yarn feeding and reciprocation in steps (a)-(h) to produce a tufted fabric having a face comprised of front yarn loop bights, rear yarn loop bights and rear yarn cut bights. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification