US3109397A

US3109397A - Sewing machine attachment

Info

Publication number: US3109397A
Application number: US157362A
Authority: US
Inventors: Mervin L Gehringer
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1961-12-06
Filing date: 1961-12-06
Publication date: 1963-11-05
Anticipated expiration: 1980-11-05

Description

Nov. 5, 1963 M. L. GEHRINGER SEWING MACHINE ATTACHMENT 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Dec. 6, 1961 a MW. M n O H T A W M 2 Na 5 1L. m 0,. .m v Q S m mm M on N 2 E Q. 2: I. 1., A W/ mm A 0m" .\rH I! 1 M L A 9 0* W L il l i A Q a i 1.1 I I HOA 1 H 3 6f m Q m 1963 M. L. GEHRINGER 3,1 7

SEWING MACHINE ATTACHMENT Filed Dec. 6, 1961 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 F I g. 6

53 39 INVENTOR A Mervin L; Gehringer VIII/1110711111114 lb Ia a his ATTORNEY Nov. 5, 1953 M. GEHRINGER 3,109,397

SEWING MACHINE ATTACPWIENT Filed Dec. 6, 1961 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 INVENTOR Mervin L. Gehrmger TT R Y .4

United States Patent 3,109,397 SEWIN G MACHINE ATTACHMENT Mervin L. Gehringer, 86 Noble St., Kutztown, Pa. Filed Dec. 6, 1961, Ser. No. 157,362 3 Claims. (Cl. 112105) This invention relates to an attachment for button sewing machines to enable rapid sewing of hooks.

Hooks and eyes have generally been sewn on garments by hand, which is very tedious and time consuming and which increases cost appreciably.

Another disadvantage of hooks sewn by conventional methods is that hooks, being sewn only through two eyes, pivot readily and make it extremely diflicult to slip the hook through the cooperating eye. Moreover, hooks, after predetermined use, will finally become detached from the garment and lost.

An object of the present invention is to provide a novel attachment for use on a conventional button sewing machine which will automatically sew both eyes and the shank portion of the hook so as to overcome the abovementioned disadvantages, that is, to enable rapid sewing of the hook in a manner so as to firmly hold it against the garment without allowing it to pivot, therefore greatly facilitating hooking to the eye and preventing detachment from the garment.

A more specific object of the invention is to provide an attachment for use on a button sewing machine, which attachment has jaws for holding the eyes of the hook and jaws for holding the loop or hook portion of the hook, one of which latter jaws having an upstanding slip stitch finger which rests on the loop of the hook to cause the stitch to slip down over the finger and to be pulled back under the loop to enable sewing of the shank part of the hook portion despite overhanging of the hook.

A further object of the invention is to provide a novel attachment for a button sewing machine to enable automatic sewing of eyes of hook and eye pairs.

Other objects and advantages will become more apparent from a study of the following description taken with the accompanying drawings wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective, side View of a portion of a standard button sewing machine equipped with a hook sewing attachment embodying the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a front perspective view of a portion of the machine and attachment shown in FIG. 1 illustrating jaws of the attachment in position to support a hook while its eyes and shank portion are sewn in the manner shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view taken from the opposite end of that shown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a plan view of the jaws of the attachment, shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, illustrating in dash and dot lines the open position of the jaws;

FIG. 5 is a plan view showing how a hook is sewn to a garment by use of the attachment illustrated in FIGS. 1 to 4 inclusive; and,

FIG. 6 is an enlarged, fragmentary cross-sectional view taken alongside slip finger 39.

Referring more particularly to FIG. 1 of the drawing, numeral 1 denotes a bed having slidably mounted thereon a cloth plate 1a and numeral 2 denotes a needle head having a holder 4, stiff wire 6 and needle 5, the latter adapted to penetrate a central hole in plate la-all forming part of a conventional 2 and 4 hole button sewing machine, such as Lewis Model 200-1, Union Special, manufactured by Lewis Invisible Stitch Machine Co. of St. Louis, Mo., and shown and described in Nelson U.S. Patent 2,511,367 dated June 13, 1950.

As described in said patent, the button sewing machine also includes a vertically moving lever 3 supporting a rod 10 engageable with arm 13 secured to boss 14and includes a stud 8 depending from underneath the head supporting arm, which stud is encircled by return spring 9. Bracket 15, having a slot therein, is adapted to slide horizontally relative to a stationary pin extending upwardly therethrough mounted on bracket 22. Bracket 15 has arms 16 pivotal about pivot pins 17 to enable sliding back when bracket 22 is lifted. The parts described so far are conventional parts of a button hole machine, which are described in greater detail in Patent No. 2,511,367, therefore further detailed description herein is deemed unnecessary.

Suffice it to say that the button sewing machine, as shown and described in said patent, includes stitchforming mechanism for effecting the formation of stitches successively, some mechanism for effecting relative lateral movement of the button with respect to the stitch-forming mechanism, and mechanism for effecting a cyclic operation of the stitch-forming mechanism. These mechanisms are conjointly operated to efiect a series of stitches with the thread passing in successive stitch-forming operations through difierent holes of the button and in consequence over the portion of the button between the holes. In this manner the button is sewn or bound to the fabric.

In the button sewing machine described in the patent, relative lateral movement between the button and needle to sew thread through different holes in the button on successive strokes is eflFected byshifting the button, by means of a button clamp having jaws, in timed relation with respect to the needle. This mechanism serves to vibrate the button clamp so that first one and then another pair of holes is aligned with the needle. At the end of the operation, the last several stitches are effected through the same hole to prevent unravelling of the thread.

The present invention employs the same motion for sewing hooks and eyes as used for sewing buttons. However, sewing of the shank or hook portion presents a very difficult problem, which has been solved by devising a special slip-stitch finger 39 that operates in a unique manner to sew about the shank of the hook.

The present invention relates solely to an attachment, denoted generally by numeral 12, to adapt a button sewing machine so as to sew the eyes and shank of a hook to a cloth in the manner illustrated in FIG. 5.

As shown more clearly in FIGS. 2 and 4, the main purpose of the attachment, embodying the present invention, is to operate a set of

jaws

33, 34 and 35, which are adapted to hold the eyes 53 of the hook of FIG. 5 within the triangular, grooved notches at the ends of these jaws also for operating a pair of

jaws

36, 40 having at the ends thereof an attachment 38, secured by screws and an end portion 42, respectively, for holding the hook or loop portion of the hook shown in FIG. 5. The attachment 38 has an integral upstanding slip-stitch finger 39 which forms a very important part of the invention and which rests on top of the loop of the hook. As the needle shifts up over the top of the slip-stitch finger 39, the stitch slips down over the finger and is pulled back under the loop of the hook as it sews stitches 55b (see FIGS. 5 and 6).

When the sewing operation is completed, the jaws, such as 36, and 40, are moved outwardly to the dot and dash outline position, shown in FIG. 4, and in so doing, levers 37, and 41, respectively, pivot about pins 30, extending through split cylinders 29, so as to move backwardly arms of adjustable length containing knurled adjusting nuts 23 as well as split

cylinders

20 and 24 pivoted at 21 and 25, respectively. In so doing, they efiect backward sliding movement of carriages 19, which movement is resisted by the compression of helical springs 19a, serving a? as return springs for normally holding the jaws in the clamping position.

Turning of the knurled adjusting nuts 23 lengthens or shortens the distance between

pivot pins

21 and 25, so as to adjust the swing of

jaws

36 and 40.

Lever 44, which is pivotally mounted on bracket 22, has a slot 47 and thumb screw 46 for holding the lever in clamped position at either extremity of movement, and which lever may be moved by pushing against a thumb piece 45. ,Turning to FIGS. 2 and 3, the button sewing machine intermittently pushes the wedge element 51 downwardly, thereby turning lever 49 downwardly about its pivot so as to swing lever arm 14b in a direction to efiect compression of springs 19a and openings of the

jaws

36 and 40, through intermediate linkage including those having adjusting nuts 23. v

yln operation, the eyes of a hook 53 are slipped into and held by the grooved ends of

jaws

33, 34 and 35.

Jaws

33, 34 and 35 and

jaws

36 and 40 are automatically oscillated laterally in unison by the machine so as to sew a row consisting of six horizontal stitches 54 (see FIG. '5).

The button sewing machine mechanism then automatiorally longitudinally shifts both sets of levers approximately V of an inch, leaving one cross over stitch 54a, and automatically oscillates the levers laterally and sews the second row of six stitches 55b approximately inch long. Afterwards the threads are automatically cut-0E. This completes the machine cycle. Thus, although the needle laterally traverses the hook portion of hook 53 in sewing one row, the thread will be slipped underneath it by slip finger 39 to enable sewing the shank of the hook to the cloth supported On plate 1a.

Thus it will be seen that I have provided an efficient attachment for automatically sewing hooks by the use of a button sewing machine, which attachment can be easily and quickly substituted for the button sewing attachment thereof; furthermore, I have provided a novel slip-stitch finger which enables sewing of the shank portion of the loop or hook even though the hook overhangs it while sewing, thereby very tightly sewing the hook so that it will not pivot away from the garment when it is attempted to pass the hook through the eye; furthermore, I have provided a hook sewing attachment which greatly speeds the time for sewing hooks and which considerably reduces the cost of sewing a garment.

While I have illustrated and described a single specific embodiment of my invention, it will be understood that this is by way of illustration only, and that various changes and modifications may be made within the contemplation of my invention and within the scope of the following claims.

I claim:

1. A hook sewing attachment for a four but-ton sewing machine, comprising supporting means shaped to snugly receive the eyes of a hook and providing open spaces adapted to extend along both sides of the shank of the hook throughout the length of the hooked portion thereof, means for causing relative reciprocating movement between said supporting means and the needle of said machine adapted to cause the needle to reciprocate from one to the other of the eyes of said hook thence to a new position reciprocating from one side to the other of the hooked portion of the hook so as to direct the stitching from the eyes of the hook to the end portion of the shank portion underneath the hooked portion of the hook, including a slip stitch finger mounted on said supporting means and having a downwardly inclined, substantially hook shaped portion overlying and in the same vertical plane as the hooked portion of the hook, the extremity of said hook shaped portion of said finger adapted to be substantially in contact with the extremity of the hook so as to guide the thread over the end of the hook and back underneath the hook shaped portion thereof, during said reciprocation, and in so doing, enabling stitches to be formed on the end of the shank portion underneath the hooked shaped portion of the hook, so as to firmly attach the hook onto a garment without any possibility of pivoting about the eyes as a center and effecting nonalignment with a separate eye fastener.

2. A hook sewing attachment as recited in claim 1 together with spring means for yieldingly holding the hooked shaped portion of the hook in place.

3. A hook sewing attachment as recited in claim 1 wherein said supporting means is mounted on a pair of spring closed, openable jaws adapted to support the eyes of the hook and a second pair of spring closed, openable jaws adapted to support the hooked portion of the hook.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 884,629 Wilkinson et al Apr. 14, 1908 1,032,017 McComb July 9, 1912 1,101,134 Lyons June 23, 1914 1,288,101 M-asterson Dec. 17, 1918 1,294,927 McCann Feb. 18, 1919 2,788,756 Cushing Apr. 16, 1957

Claims

1. A HOOK SEWING ATTACHMENT FOR A FOUR BUTTON SEWING MACHINE, COMPRISING SUPPORTING MEANS SHAPED TO SNUGLY RECEIVE THE EYES OF A HOOK AND PROVIDING OPEN SPACES ADAPTED TO EXTEND ALONG BOTH SIDES OF THE SHANK OF THE HOOK THROUGHOUT THE LENGTH OF THE HOOKED PORTION THEREOF, MEANS FOR CAUSING RELATIVE RECIPROCATING MOVEMENT BETWEEN SAID SUPPORTING MEANS AND THE NEEDLE OF SAID MACHINE ADAPTED TO CAUSE THE NEEDLE TO RECIPROCATE FROM ONE TO THE OTHER OF THE EYES OF SAID HOOK THENCE TO A NEW POSITION RECIPROCATING FROM ONE SIDE TO THE OTHER OF THE HOOKED PORTION OF THE HOOK SO AS TO DIRECT THE STITCHING FROM THE EYES OF THE HOOK TO THE END PORTION OF THE SHANK PORTION UNDERNEATH THE HOOKED PORTION OF THE HOOK, INCLUDING A SLIP STITCH FINGER MOUNTED ON SAID SUPPORTING MEANS AND HAVING A DOWNWARDLY INCLINED, SUBSTANTIALLY HOOK SHAPED PORTION OVERLYING AND IN THE SAME VERTICAL