GB2053992A - A method for making pattern cutting lines on fur fabrics - Google Patents

Abstract

A pile fabric has a pile which is discontinuous over the backing substrate surface thereby providing essentially pile-free areas which define cutting areas.

Description

SPECIFICATION A method for making pattern cutting lines on fur fabric lengths produced therefrom The invention relates to pile fabrics and to a method of manufacturing such pile fabrics. The invention is especially concerned with fur fabrics for imitation hides, skins and furs.

Imitation hides, skins and furs are used, for example, in the toy industry for making toy animals provided with a skin or hide covering, and also in the clothing industry for making fur coats, fur jackets and fur linings as well as fur collars and other accessories.

In the case of fur fabrics for making toy animals, for example, it is important to be able to obtain the fabric in lengths which, after the fabric has been cut up and sewn together to form the animal body, will provide colour and relief designs appropriate to the desired shape of the animal. In the case of clothing, fur jackets are commonly made of natural skins with the collar, back part and sleeve similar as regards colour and any carried design.

However, these various parts are nevertheless made up in different ways. This is done in order to obtain stylistically and aesthetically satisfying effects and appearances adapted to current demands of fashion.

It has been normal practice in the past when making imitation animal hides and skins of fur fabrics to print the pile side with the necessary pattern (e.g. skin image) and at the same time to print on the pile side, by means of coloured marking ink, pattern cutting lines for the necessary cuts. This has the disadvantage, however, that the pattern cutting lines are not visible from the back of the material, through which the cut is normally made. The material has therefore to be cut from the pile side, making it impossible to achieve a reliable and accurate cut. In addition, pile fibres are cut off and the pressure of cutting usually produces a defect in surrounding pile which is visible on the sewn-together animal body, article of clothing or other product.Furthermore, a relatively large amount of waste is produced since a large quantity of pile fibre material has to be cut away and the pattern cutting lines, on account of the cutting guidance inaccuracy, must not run too close to one another. Above all, this method of making imitation animal skins and hides is technically unsatisfactory since it is very timeconsuming and costly and is therefore not economically feasible on a large scale. Also, the hitherto employed full overprinting of woven goods and textiles is not satisfactory since although in this way patterns, for example ocelot spots or tiger stripes, can be produced, the patterns in the sewn-together toy animal body or article of clothing do not produce convincing colour patterns on the imitation animal skin, such as occur in natural animal hides and skins.

Although in theory the pattern cutting lines could be printed on the back of the material, the two sides of the material would have to be printed absolutely synchronously and identically over the whole length of the fabric since even deviations of a few millimetres at any point would lead to distortion of the material on the animal body or article of clothing being made up. Such a method of printing cannot be carried out in a technically satisfactory manner, especially in the case of fur fabrics, and is moreover very time-consuming and costly.

According to the invention, there is provided a pile fabric comprising a substrate carrying a pile which is discontinuous over the substrate surface so as to provide essentially pile-free areas which define a cutting path following a predetermined pattern according to which the fabric is to be cut.

In a second aspect, the invention provides a method of manufacturing a pile fabric which method comprises applying a pile to a backing substrate for the pile, the pile being applied so as to be discontinuous over the substrate surface thereby providing essentially pile-free areas which define a cutting path following a predetermined pattern according to which the fabric is subsequently to be cut.

The fabric may in particular be one in which the pile-carrying regions are provided with a printed and/or relief pattern.

The fur fabrics are preferably produced according to weaving, knitting, sewing, or similar techniques for making fur fabrics, and may also be produced, for example, on circular knitting machines.

Any known machine for fur fabric production, but which is equipped with a patterning device for making pile-free areas can be used. The patterning device may be a conventional Jacquard machine operating with punched cards, though control systems such as the "scitex control system" known for use with knitwear, are also suitable and "Moratronic" technology can also be used to control the process. Control can thus be effected either mechanically via punched cards, electronically, or by means of computers.

In a particular embodiment of the invention, fur fabric is made by the following steps:- (a) forming a fur pile on a backing substrate by weaving, knitting or sewing of pile-forming threads; and (b) controlling said pile-forming procedure by automatic means which operates to discontinue said procedure with respect to portions of the backing substrate corresponding to predetermined pattern cutting lines.

If the pile fibres are woven to the base material, the pile threads can be interlaced or otherwise incorporated with the base material via the desired pile-free- areas, or can also be led away "floating" over the base material. In the latter case, if the pile threads float over the back of the material, they can be removed by teasing or rubbing. In each case, the pile-free areas can clearly be recognised from the back of the material and cutting can then be carried out. A significant technical improvement in the practicability and use of fur fabrics is thus achieved by the invention, since the working of material sold by the metre is facilitated and less waste is produced. The pilefree areas forming the edge of the individual finished cut sections also facilitate the subsequent sewing together of the said cut sections.The time involved and the technical and' economic expense in producing the cut sections is significantly reduced compared with the known state of the art since the production of material by length and also the subsequent cutting thereof can be carried out without any problems in a simple and accurate manner, with the result that the invention constitutes a technically and economically satisfactory solution to the afore-mentioned problem. In this connection, it is immaterial whether the design on the pile covering is produced by printing or by the production technique used to make the pile covering.

The pile-free areas may be strips of approximately uniform width in the pile covering.

Alternatively, regions of the material between adjacent pattern cutting lines may also be pilefree, i.e. all the waste pieces formed by the cutting do not carry any pile covering at all. In this way, pile fibre material which would otherwise be thrown away can be saved in the production of material to be sold by the metre.

In producing fur fabrics according to the invention, improvements can be achieved compared with the hitherto conventional full overprinting or full overpatterning procedures since mosaic-like surface patterns with convincing animal skin markings surrounded by pattern cutting lines can be provided over the whole width of the material, which surface patterns form, for example, legs, paws, parts of the head, backs, ears, tails, etc., when the material by the metre is cut up into individual sections, and which can then be sewn together and stuffed for example with filler material if it is intended to make a toy animal.

In this connection, the skin markings of the toy animal thus produced are not uniform, but are adapted to a specific model or-pattern of the toy animal. The same is true if the material for sale by the metre contains different patterned sections for articles of clothing, from which articles can be sewn together that will appear like articles made from a natural hide or skin.

The invention will be described in more detail by the following description of an embodiment of a fur fabric length according to the invention, reference being made to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 is a longitudinal section through a fur fabric length, no attempt being made to provide either a true-to-scale reproduction nor a relationship of the sizes of the individual parts and sections of the fur fabric length corresponding to reality, and Figure 2 is a pian view of the back of such a fur fabric length.

The fur fabric length 1 has a base material 2, which is, for example, a fabric or some other substrate for fur fabric, to which a pile covering 3 is applied, formed, for example, from pile fibres woven into the base material 2 or bonded thereto by other techniques. Pile-free areas 4 are located on the pile side of the base material 2, and are formed during the production of the pile covering.

These form a boundary for the sections provided with the pile covering 3 and thus constitute pattern cutting lines. The pile-free areas 4 may be strips of approximately uniform width or can also extend between two adjacent sections, as can be seen in particular from Figure 2.

It can be seen from Figure 2 how the pile-free areas 4 clearly stand out on the back of the fur fabric length 1 and thereby form pattern cutting lines defining the cutting sections 5. The cutting sections 5 contain patterns 6, which can likewise be recognised on the back of the material, but which are unimportant as regards the cutting procedure.

It will be appreciated from the foregoing that the invention enables a cutting path to be provided on a pile fabric under economically practicable conditions, in particular on patterned fur fabrics which make up imitation hides, skins and furs. It will be seen that such a cutting path can be recognised from the fabric rear and can be made to conform exactly to the areas of the pile bearing a relief and/or printed pattern so that cutting from the rear can be effected without deleterious effects on the patterned pile areas.

Claims (16)

1. A pile fabric comprising a substrate carrying a pile which is discontinuous over the substrate surface so as to provide essentially pile-free areas which define a cutting path following a predetermined pattern according to which the fabric is to be cut.

2. A fabric as claimed in Claim 1 and comprising a backing material and woven, sewn or knitted pile-carrying threads.

3. A fabric as claimed in Claim 1 or Claim 2, wherein the pile is fur.

4. A fabric as claimed in any one of Claims 1 to 3, wherein the pile and at least the pile-carrying surface of the substrate are of different colour.

5. A fabric as claimed in Claim 4, wherein the substrate and the pile are of contrasting colour.

6. A fabric as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein adjacent cutting paths are defined in a common essentially pile-free area of the fabric.

7. A fabric as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein pile carried by the substrate is provided with a relief and/or printed pattern.

8. A fabric as claimed in any preceding claim and comprising an essentially uniformly wide tract of said pile-free areas.

9. A fabric as claimed in Claim 1 and substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to, and as illustrated in, the accompanying drawing.

10. A method of manufacturing a pile fabric which method comprises applying a pile to a backing substrate for the pile, the pile being applied so as to be discontinuous over the substrate surface thereby providing essentially pile-free areas which define a cutting path following a predetermined pattern according to which the fabric-is subsequently to be cut.

11. A method as claimed in. Claim 10 in which said pile is applied ta said substrate by weaving, knitting or sewing.

12. A method as claimed in Claim 10 or Claim 11 in which said pile is applied to said substrate by a weaving procedure carried out using a double plush loom and controlled by Jacquard punched cards or by electronic means.

13. A method of manufacturing a fur fabric comprising the following steps:- (a) forming fur pile own a backing substrate by weaving, knitting or sewing of pile-forming threads; and (b).contrnlling said pile-forming procedure by automatic means which operates to discontinue said. procedure with respect to-portions of the backing substrate corresponding to a cutting path following a predetermined pattern cutting line.

14. A method as claimed in Claim 13 in which control of said pile-form-ing- procedure is-effected by punched. card means or electronic means.

1.5. A method as claimed in Claim 10 and substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawing.

16. pile fabric whenever obtained by a method as claimed in any one of Claims 10 to 1 5.