GB2058162A

GB2058162A - Knitted or woven fabric having long hair planted therein and method of producing same

Info

Publication number: GB2058162A
Application number: GB8029505A
Authority: GB
Original assignee: Kanegafuchi Chemical Industry Co Ltd
Current assignee: Kanegafuchi Chemical Industry Co Ltd
Priority date: 1979-09-17
Filing date: 1980-09-12
Publication date: 1981-04-08
Also published as: JPS5643464A; GB2058162B; HK49689A

Abstract

A knitted or woven fabric having short hair (2) is provided with a desired amount of long hair (3) of specified length attached to the desired portion of the fabric by manual or machine planting, stitching or adhesion. Methods of producing the fabric are also disclosed. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Knitted or woven fabric having long hair planted therein and method of producing same The present invention relates to knitted or woven fabrics having short hair and provided with a desired amount of long hair of specified length attached to the desired portion thereof by planting, stitching or adhesion, and also to methods of producing such fabrics.

The term "hair" as used herein and in the appended claims refers to a hairy covering of natural or synthetic fiber, thread or filament on the surface of the fabric.

Knitted or woven fabrics having short hair include, for example, napped fabric, boa, blanket, corduroy, velveteen, velvet, high pile fabric and carpet which are usually about 2 mm to about 7 cm in the length of hair and which are used for various applications. Such fabrics are almost uniform in hair length throughout the whole sheet of the same fabric. Although fabrics are available with different hair lengths, e.g. with two different hair lengths, some of these fabrics are prepared merely by cutting the hair of a woven or knitted fabric by a required length only where shorter hair is desirable so as to produce some variation in the hair length, while others are prepared by shrinking long hair with a chemical or heat utilizing the characteristics of the hair to obtain hair of somewhat varying lengths. These fabrics require much labor and skill and are therefore costly.In view of the structure of knitted or woven fabrics, on the other hand, it is difficult to knit or weave long hair into the surface of a knitted or woven fabric having short hair not longer than one half the length of the long hair. When planted or rooted in fabrics, hair is prone to removal or will not look attractive. Thus it has been thought impossible to obtain the fabrics of the type described by mass production without resorting to a manual procedure. Although such knitted or woven fabrics with short hair have found wide use in articles, such as clothes, carpets, handicraft toys and stuffed dolls, they invariably look flat generally.

According to the present invention, there is provided a knitted or woven fabric having short hair and provided with long hair attached to a desired portion of the fabric by planting, stitching or adhesion.

The invention seeks to overcome the drawbacks and provides unique knitted or woven fabrics which have long hair planted or rooted in the desired portion thereof with great ease and which look three-dimensional, neat and natural and suited for use in stuffed toys, dolls and other articles.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, knitted or woven fabrics having short hair and provided with a desired amount of long hair of specified length attached to the desired portion thereof by planting, stitching or adhesion in conformity with the end product contemplated. The knitted or woven fabrics of the invention can be produced by various methods.

Following is a description by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings of methods of carrying the invention into effect.

In the drawings: Fig. 1 is a sectional view illustrating a knitted or woven fabric of this invention; and Fig. 2 and 3 are diagrams showing a method of producing the fabric.

With reference to Fig. 1, a knitted or woven fabric 1 with short hair 2 is provided on its front side with a desired amount of long hair 3 of desired length planted in the desired portion of the fabric 1. The long hair 3 can be planted easily as desired at a high speed by a hair planting machine (disclosed, for example, in Published Examined Japanese Patent Application No. 1 7939/1978).

The hair to be planted may have any desired colour or may be curled as desired. With the knots of the long hairs covered with the short hair 2, the fabric has an improved appearance and is prevented from releasing hairs.

The fabrics of this invention can be produced, for example, by the following methods.

Fig. 2 shows a known machine 4 including needles 5 upwardly and downwardly movable through a knitted or woven fabric 1 with short hair and each having a hook 6 at its forward end. A bundle of long hairs 8 is temporarily fixedly placed in the path of movement of the needles 5. The long hair bundle 8 is held by an elastic resin film sheet 7, carding cloth or comb so that when some hairs are picked up from the bundle, the remaining hairs will remain unseparated as a bundle. The fabric 1 is placed on the long hair bundle 8 with its short hair bearing front side 9 down. As seen in Fig. 3, the hooked needle 5 descends through the fabric 1, and a number of long hairs 3 corresponding to the depth of the hook 6 on the needle 5 are engaged by the hooked needle 5, thereby separated from the underlying bundle 8 and passed upward through the fabric 1 in a bent form.The loops 10 of the bent long hairs are raised to the upper limit position of the needle 5, whereupon the needle 5 starts to descend, releasing the loops 10 from the hook 6 and leaving the same on the fabric 1. The fabric 1 is moved by one stitch space manually or with a feeder on the machine. The needle 5 then repeats the subsequent cycles of planting operating. After long hairs have been planted along a specified line, the fabric 1 is separated from the bundle of long hairs 8, and the planting operation is resumed on another line.

The operation described above forms chain stitch resembling portions of long hairs on the rear side of the fabric 1, while the substantial portions of the long hairs extend from the front side of the fabric, with their root portions covered with the short hair. To prevent removal of long hairs, an adhesive is applied to the chain stitch resembling portions on the rear side of the fabric 1.

When the fabric 1 has a coarse structure and is unsuited for the above planting operation, a resin film or some other sheet is placed over the rear side of the fabric, and long hairs are planted in the fabric by needles which are movable upward and downward through the fabric and the sheet. When the hook on the needle is orientated in a direction opposite to the direction of advance of the fabric, chain stitches will not be formed but the loops remain on the resin film. In this case, the excessive pulled-up root portions are cut off with clippers and/or melted into beads with heater after planting without impairing the fabric. The cut portions or beads are then adhered with adhesive to prevent removal of the hairs.

Long hair can be stitched down on a knitted or woven fabric by the use of a weft by the following method. Long hairs cut to a specified length and arranged in parallel are stitched together in one or two lines transversely thereof, for example, by a known sewing machine, and the group of hairs is folded in two at the stitched portion to obtain a weft of long hairs, which is stitched down directly on the surface of a knitted or woven fabric with short hair as by sewing machine at the stitched portion.

The weft is stitched onto the fabric while dividing short hairs at their root portions with a comb or a pressing member of the machine (as disclosed in Published Unexamined Japanese Patent Application No. 65880/1976, etc.). The stitches can then be covered with the short hairs to give a neat finish to the fabric.

Claims

1. A knitted or woven fabric having short hair and provided with long hair attached to a desired portion of the fabric by planting, stitching or adhesion.

2. A method of producing a knitted or woven fabric comprising the steps of planting long hair in a knitted or woven fabric having short hair manually or by a hair planting machine.

3. A method as claimed in claim 2 comprising the steps of passing loops of long hairs through a knitted or woven fabric having short hair to expose the loops on the rear side of the fabric and adhering the loops to the fabric without or after engaging the loops with one another in the form of chain stitches.

4. A method as claimed in claim 2 or claim 3 comprising the steps of placing an elastic sheet on the rear side of a knitted or woven fabric having short hair, passing loops of long hairs through the fabric and the sheet to expose the loops on the surface of the sheet, cutting off and/or melting excessive portions of the exposed hairs and adhering the cut or melted portions to the fabric.

5. A method as claimed in claim 2 comprising the steps of stitching long hairs together as arranged in parallel, folding the resulting group of long hairs to obtain a weft and attaching the wefts to the front side of a knitted or woven fabric having short hair by stitching or adhesion.

6. A method as claimed in claim 2 and substantially as herein described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.