GB1006227A - Improvements in or relating to the manufacture of fabric-covered play-balls and theircovering fabric - Google Patents

Abstract

1,006,227. Finishing fabrics; pile fabrics. HUGH KERSHAW & SONS Ltd. and SLAZENGERS Ltd. March 14,1963 [March 21,1962], No. 10813/62. Headings D1K and D1S. [Also in Division A6] A covering cloth for tennis balls is made by forming, by a stitching operation, closely spaced yarn loops 3 of a predetermined depth on one face of a preformed base fabric 1 and firmly attached to the base fabric 1, and then separating the loops 3 into individual fibres. The fabric 1 may be woven or knitted from yarns of natural or synthetic fibres or may be a non-woven fabric. The loops 3 are formed either by passing the fabric 1 through a needle loom having a substantially close pitch or gauge or by feeding the fabric through a knitting machine having a mechanism for stitching the loop forming yarn 2 through the fabric 1. Anchoring loops 4 are formed on the rear face of the fabric. The yarn 2 may be of natural fibres, e.g. wool, synthetic fibres or a combination thereof. The fabric may then be subjected to a raising operation to break the loops 3 and raise the fibres to form the pile 5, Fig. 2, or the loops 3 are cut to form tufts 6, Fig. 3, and then the fabric is subjected to a raising operation to disentangle the tufts 6. The raised pile 5 may be submitted to cropping, or piling and then cropping, as described in Specification 832,497. The cloth may be submitted to a milling or falling process to produce an entangled fibre playing surface. The whole cloth, only the pile 5 thereof or only the fabric 1 may be shrunk. The rear face of the cloth may be treated with adhesive to fix the cloth on the rubber core of a tennis ball. During the manufacture the cloth may be scoured, washed, bleached and dried at one or more stages.