US3094954A - Looping machine - Google Patents

Description

June 25, 1963 s. l. BURD ETAL 3,094,954

LOOPING MACHINE Filed Feb. 12. 1960 FIG 2 FIG 6 SAMUEL l. BU RD JOHN G. LORD INVENTORS Unite States This invention relates to a looping machine of the type shown in United States Patent No. 2,828,707 issued to Ivster on April 1, 1958 and in United States Patent No. 2,871,806 issued to Bley, on February 3, 1959.

Conventional looping machines of this type are used for closing the toe opening of a seamless stocking, for looping the edge of a knit fabric, or for joining the edges of two pieces of fabric, etc.

As is well known in the art, and as will be seen from the patents above mentioned, a looping machine includes a rotary dial having peripheral fabric supporting points on which all of the stitches to be looped must be serially impaled, a cutter for removing the fabric above the looping line, a needle for looping the stitches, and a chain cutter for severing the sewing yarn. In order to prevent laddering of a knit fabric, or other defects, it is necessary that all of the stitches be serially impaled on said supporting points. This is so difficult and time consuming that it takes several months of training to attain average proficiency to insure moderately profitable operation. In fact, the looping operation is responsible for a substantial fraction of the cost of manufacture of looped articles and impaling the stitches on the supporting points of the dial represents a major portion of the cost of the looping operation.

The object of this invention is to reduce the time and skill required for irnpaling the stitches to be looped on the supporting points of the sewing dial.

A further object is to accomplish the desired result inexpensively and with minimum modification of conventional looping machines.

These and other objects are attained by the invention as set forth in the following specification and as illustrated in the accompanying drawing in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic top plan view of a sewing dial embodying the invention.

FIG. 2 is an elevational view looking in the direction of line 2-2 on FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged fragmentary sectional View looking in the direction of line 5 on FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged perspective view showing details of construction.

FIG. 5 is a fragmentary elevational view of a stocking or other fabric provided with markings which guide the operator in impaling the stitches on the points of the looping" dial.

FIG. 6 is a reduced, highly diagrammatic illustration of the upper portion of a stocking illustrating the location of loading points on which the fabric to be looped is first impaled.

Except for being modified, as hereinafter set forth, the looping machine illustrated is conventional in that it includes a sewing dial 10, a cutter 12 for severing the fabric above the looping line, a looping needle 14 and a chain cutter, not shown. A conventional looping dial is provided with peripheral supporting points which are of uniform length, or which extend uniformly radially of the dial and on which the stitches to be looped are serially impaled by hand. This means that, if the course i of fabric to be looped, or to be joined to another course, has 150 stitches, all of said stitches must be impaled, in serial order, on 150 points.

In closing the toe opening of seamless stockings the stitches of two pieces of fabric have to be impaled with the corresponding stitches of the ice two pieces of fabric impaled on the same point. As stated,- this calls for a very high degree ofskill and because it is time consuming, the looping dial can only be rotated at a speed which is a function of the speed at which the stitches to be looped can be impaled onthe peripheral supporting points of the dial.

According to the present invention, the dial is provided with a ring gear 16 which is engaged by a pinion 18 on shaft 20 which is driven by any suitable gear train 22 which, in turn, is actuated by the shaft 24 of a prime mover, not shown, which also reciprocates looping needle 14 synchronously with the rotation of the dial. Since the manner in which this is done is old in the art and is not claimed, per se, as part of this invention, it is not shown nor described.

Instead of the uniformly projecting supporting points of the conventional looping dial, we provide the dial with points 26 which project radially outwardly of the dial to a predetermined extent and with points 28 which fill the spaces between points 26 and which extend radially outwardly to a lesser extent than points 26, as best shown in FIG. 1. It is to be understood that, except for their different lengths, or the different extents to which they project beyond the periphery of the dial, points 26 and 28 are identical and may be conventional in that they co-act with looping needle 14 in the conventional manner. It will be noted that points 26 are arranged in end groups A and B each of which preferably consists of from two to four points and intermediate groups C, each of which preferably consists of one or two points. The number of points in any group is optional in the sense that, within reasonable limits, the number of points may be varied and the same is true of the number of groups C which will vary with the lengths of the courses to be looped. It is, however, of the essence of this invention that the number of points 26 be always a minor fraction of the number of stitches in a course to be looped.

For example, if the length of the course of fabric to be looped consists of one hundred stitches, the number of points 26 should be less than fifty, and, preferably, they should be in the neighborhood of twenty-five. In other words, the number of points 26, which are the only points on which the stitches are impaled manually, should be such as to save at least one half of the time which would be required to impale all of the stitches, one by one, on an equal number of points so as to permit rotation of the dial at double the speed and thus double the production.

In practicing the invention, the operator impales the endmost four stitches B of the fabric on points 26 of group B and, while the dial is rotating in the direction of the arrow, the operator successively impales stitch groups C on point groups C and finally, the endmost stitches A are impaled on point group A.

It will be noted that the looping line may be marked by the introduction of an auxiliary yarn which forms a continuous marker, or by marks 27 which are arranged in a formation which corresponds to the formation of groups A, C and B of points 26.

In FIG. 1 there is shown a stocking S1 in the process of being hung on points 26; two stockings 8-2 which have been fully hung on points 26, and a stocking 5-3 in the process of being hung on points 28 prior to passing cutter 12.

In order to impale the remaining stitches of a stocking in the position of stockings S-2 on a corresponding number of intermediate points 28, the machine is provided with a pusher which includes a vertical blade 30 adapted to enter between the points and a horizontal plate 32 which engages and pushes the margin of fabric M above the looping line inwardly of the dial, as shown in FIGS. 1, 3 and 4. The pusher is carried by one end 34 of a bell crank lever, the other end 36 of which is pivoted at 38 to the dial.

End 34 of the bell crank lever is pivoted, at 40, to a rod 42 which is reciprocated by crank 44 on shaft 24. It will be noted that blade 30 is so oriented as to be in alignment with the spaces between successive points so as to push the yarn defining the stitches easily and accurately between the points and thus impale the stitches formed by said yarn on the points.

It will be understood that the reciprocation of blade 30 is synchronized with the rotation of the dial so that the blade will enter the spaces between each pair of points without missing any of them. The action of blade 30, combined with the engagement of plate 32 with the margin M of the fabric, above the supporting points, insures complete impalement on points 28 of all of the stitches which are not impaled on points 26 and pushes the stitches impaled on the outer portions of points 26 inwardly of said points or into alignment with the stitches on points and, lastly, the operator impales the trailing groups of stitches A on groups A of points 26. As the dial rot-ates, vertical blade and horizontal plate 32 coact to push the intermediate stitches onto points 28 and to push the stitches already impaled on points 26 inwardly of these points.

Because the operator has to impale a very small number of stitches on spaced, readily visible and accessible points, the impaling time is greatly reduced and the dial can, therefore, be rotated at a correspondingly increased speed. Experiments have shown that, in the stocking industry, the dial and the looping needle are both capable of operation at a speed much higher than they are presently operated, and that this is due to the limitation inherent in manual impalement of all of the stitches of a course, which, in the case of the toe opening of a seamless stocking, number about 150 on each side of the opening.

In manually impaling all of the stitches on the points of a conventional knitting machine, the operator first locates the endmost stitch in the course to be looped and impales it on a conventional point. Thereafter, the operator stretches the adjacent portion of the fabric (about one inch span, more or less, at a time) and irnpales the stretched stitches on corresponding points, and so on, until all of the stitches of the course are impaled. When two fabrics are to be joined, such as the two sides of the toe opening of a stocking, it is critical that the corresponding stitches be impaled on the same points and, in the absence of any indication, matching the stitches in one piece of fabric with those of another is difficult and is responsible for a large number of defects. By the present invention, the marking of key stitches indicates to the operator which stitches go on which points, thereby insuring better results regardless of whether a single, or double, thickness fabric is to be looped. For example, by impaling stitches B on points B, stitches C on points C, and stitches A on points A, the remaining stitches of the course will be aligned with intervening points 28 so as to be consecutively impaled on these needles by blade 30 in the manner set forth.

In order to prevent the fabric from sagging between point groups A, C and B, and in order to insure that a stitch pushed by blade 30 will be impaled on the intended corresponding point, even through the stitch may not be in absolutely perfect, or dead center, alignment with its corresponding point, provision is made to stretch the 'fabric lengthwise of the course. This is done by spacing the outermost or end stitches of the points calculated to receive a course a distance slightly greater than the length of the course, measured when the course is flat and relaxed. Also the intermediate groups of long points C are spaced from each other in like manner. For example, the distance between the endmost points of groups A and B is greater than the length of the course so that when one end stitch of a course is impaled on the endmost stitch of group A and the opposite end stitch of the course is impaled on the endmost stitch of group B, all the intermediate stitches of the course will be somewhat stretched. This efiect is increased when intermediate stitches of the course are impaled on the spaced pairs of points of group C. Stretching the stitches of the course insures the impalement of stitches on corresponding points, even though the stitches may not be in dead center registration with said points. Also, stretching of the fabric as a whole and the impalement of intermediate groups of stitches of the points of group C prevents or minimizes sagging so that when the remaining unimpaled stitches of the course are pushed against the short points 28, all of the stitches will be impaled and will be in a position to be sewed together. While the spacing of the groups of points relative to the fabric may be varied according to the gauge of the machine, the denier of the yarn, and the tension under which the yarn is knit, it has been found that a ratio of about sixteen to fifteen is satisfactory in connection with the looping of the opening of a stocking. This means that, if fifteen stitches of a stocking fabric span fifteen units of length, the fifteen points on which said stitches are to he impaled will span sixteen units of said length so that the portion of fabrip formed by said fifteen stitches will be stretched and each of the stitches will be more widely open than if the span covered .by said stitches were equal to the span covered by said points.

What we claim is:

l. A looping machine comprising a sewing dial, 7

' stitch supporting points which project radially and horizontally from the periphery of said dial and on which all of the stitches of the courses of fabric to be sewed are adapted to be serially impaled, said supporting points including spaced end points for receiving end stitches of said courses and intermediate points for receiving the intermediate stitches of said courses, said spaced points projecting to a' greater extent than saidinter-mediate points.

' 2. A rotary sewing dial including spaced, circumferentially spaced groups of end stitches of the courses of fabric to be sewed and an intermediate group of consecutive stitch supporting points for receiving the inter-mediate stitches of said courses, the points of said end groups projecting outwardly to a greater distance than the points of said intermeidate groups, a guard covering the points of said intermediate groups and the corresponding portions of the points of said spaced groups as they move through a predetermined arc whereby only the outer portions of the points of said spaced groups project beyond the edge of said guard and are accessible for manual impalement thereon of the stitches of said end groups thereby to align the intermediate stitches of said courses with the points of said intermediate groups, means for rotating said dial to move all of said points away from said guard, a pusher for mechanically moving the stitches of said end groups further inwardly of their respective points and for impaling said intermediate stitches on the points of said intermediate groups, and means for actuating said pusher synchronously with the rotation of said dial.

3. The structure recited in claim 2 in which the distance between the endmost points of said end groups for the length of said course, measured in relaxed condition,

whereby impalement of the endmost stitches of said course on said endmost points stretches said intermediate stitches and aligns them with the points of said intermediate groups.

4. A rotary sewing dial including spaced peripheral, radially projecting points adapted to receive the corresponding stitches of the courses of fabric to be sewed, said courses being spaced from the margin of the fabric, a pusher for impaling said stitches on said points, said push-er including a relatively narrow member engageable with the yarn forming the stitches and movable inward-1y and outwardly in the spaces between said points, and a horizontal member which is eng-ageable with the marginal fabric above said points to push said marginal fabric inwardly radially of said points, and means for rotating said dial and for synchronously reciprocating said pusher.

5. A machine for joining the corresponding stitches of two courses of knit fabric, said machine including a sewing dial,

stitch supporting points projecting radially from said dial and on which all of the stitches of said courses are adapted to be serially impaled,

said supporting points consisting of at least two end groups of consecutive points for receiving corresponding groups of stitches at the opposite ends of said courses, and at least one intermediate group of points located between said groups for receiving the intermediate stitches of said courses, the free ends of the points of said end groups being at a greater distance from the periphery of said dial than the points of said intermediate group. 6. The structure recited in claim 5 and a pusher including a first blade adapted to enter between adjacent supporting points to push adjoining stitch onto the corresponding points and a second blade for simultaneously engaging the margin of fabric above said points and pushing it radially inwardly of said points. 7. The structure recited in claim 5 and at least one additional group of points spaced from, and located between, said end group, the outer ends of the points of said additional group being located at the same distance from the periphery of the dial as the outer ends of the points of said end groups.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 400,062 Davis et al Mar. 26, 1889 1,672,021 Cohen June 5, 1928 2,548,234 Oliver Apr. 10, 1951 2,632,414 Lomax et al Mar. 24, 1953 2,948,240 Burd et al. Aug. 9, 1960

Claims (1)

1. A LOOPING MACHINE COMPRISING A SEWING DIAL, STITCH SUPPORTING POINTS WHICH PROJECT RADIALLY AND HORIZONTALLY FROM THE PERIPHERY OF SAID DIAL AND ON WHICH ALL OF THE STITCHES OF THE COURSES OF FABRIC TO BE SEWED ARE ADAPTED TO BE SERIALLY IMPALED, SAID SUPPORTING POINTS INCLUDING SPACED END POINTS FOR RECEIVING END STITCHES OF SAID COURSES AND INTERMEDIATE POINTS FOR RECEIVING THE INTERMEDIATE STITCHES OF SAID COURSES, SAID SPACED POINTS PROJECTING TO A GREATER EXTENT THAN SAID INTERMEDIATE POINTS.

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