US3261183A

US3261183A - Method of tucking on upper cylinder needles

Info

Publication number: US3261183A
Application number: US432993A
Authority: US
Inventors: England George Edward
Original assignee: MIDLAND HOSIERY MILLS Ltd
Current assignee: MIDLAND HOSIERY MILLS Ltd
Priority date: 1961-07-18
Filing date: 1965-02-16
Publication date: 1966-07-19
Anticipated expiration: 1983-07-19

Description

July 19, 1966 G. E. ENGLAND METHOD OF TUCKING ON UPPER CYLINDER NEEDLES Original Filed July 18, 1961 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 flo July 19, 1966 G. E. ENGLAND METHOD OF TUCKING ON UPPER CYLINDER NEEDLES Original Filed July 18, 1961 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 United States Patent Oil dce 3,251,183 Patented July 19, 1966 3,261,183 METHOD F TUCKING 0N UPPER CYLINDER NEEDLES George Edward England, Glenleld, England, assignor to Midland Hosiery Mills Limited, Leicester, England @riginal application July 18, 1961, Ser. No. 124,938. Divided and this application Feb. 16, 1965, Ser. No. 432,993

3 Claims. (Cl. 66-14) This invention is for improvements in or relating to hosiery footwear, the present application being divided from U.S. application Serial No. 124,938, filed July 18, 1961 (now abandoned). One object of the invention is to provide a method of forming open work fabric structure on circular rib knitting machines suitable for use in knitting hosiery.

The invention provides a method of performing knitting on a circular independent needle rib knitting machine of the opposed needle cylinder type, wherein selected needles whilst in the top or rib cylinder are caused to pass a knitting point whilst their latches .are held open by a latch guard. Such a method may be performed by causing needles whereof the latches .are to be held open to be raised as they approach the knitting point so as to prevent their latches from becoming released at a notched portion of the latch guard.

The method according to the invention may be ernployed for knitting an Iarticle of hose formed at least partly of a circularly knitted rib fabric incorporating tuck stitches in certain of the rib wales, more particularly in the sole part of the foot. For this purpose needles used for knitting the sole part of the foot may be organised for knitting rib fabric with certain of the needles arranged periodically while in the top or rib cylinder to pass a knitting point whilst their latches are held open so that certain ribV wales will be produced with tuck stitch structure.

By an appropriate sequence of periodic tucking in certain rib wales an attractive fabric of open work construction is produced having longer th-an normal rib Wale stitches partly concealed by tuck loops appearing as spaced bars and presenting eyelet holes between each succeeding pair of tuck loops on each side of the rib Wale. Since the rib wales from the Wale wise depressions in the face of a rib knitted fabric, the eyelet holes form throughways to the inside of the fabric leading from external ducts formed by said depressions. Thus particularly good aeration is provided making the fabric suitable for incorporation at the sole portions of the feet of articles of hose. The formation of the eyelet holes also causes the rib structure to open out more in a course wise direction providing wider wales differing strikingly in appearance from ordinary rib wales and thereby presenting useful ornamenting or patterning possibilities.

It is found in practice that a particularly convenient form of laerated fabric structure is `a 1 X 1 rib fabric wherein alternate rib Wales are knitted with tucking in alternate courses. Such Ia structure may be varied by varying the number and incidence of the wales in which the modified structure with tuck stitches is provided. The formation of the tuck stitches causes the Wales wherein they are formed to occupy a width about three times that of a normal rib Wale so that wider and very distinctive Wale wise furrows appear in the face of the fabric. By varying the particular wales in which tucking is effected patterning effects produced by groups of Wider than normal rib wales separated by plain and normal rib wales and interposed between groups of normal rib wales sep-arated by plain wales can be obtained. Further patterning possibilities exist by links-links selection of Wales in which rib tuck stitches are to be formed.

Certain preferred Ways in which the invention may be carried into practice will now be described more particularly with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIGURES l, 2 and 3 show mens socks constructed in different ways in accordance with the invention,

FIGURE 4 is an enlarged fabric diagram illustrating the tuck ribstructure employed, and

FIGURE 5 is a development view of part of the cam system used for the upper or rib cylinder.

Referring firstly to FIGURE 1 there is shown a mans sock having the usual 1 x 1 rib top 10, panel or leg 11, instep 12 and foot bottom 13 as well as reciprocatorily knitted heel and toe pouches 14 and 15. The sock of FIG. l has the leg 11 and instep 12 of patterned fabric for example in broad rib construction and the foot bottom 13 is knitted of open work tuck rib fabric as later described.

The socks shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 differ from that of FIG. l merely in the structure of the leg 'and instep. Thus in FIGURE 2 the leg 11 and instep 12 are knitted of unpatterned 1 x 1 rib structure Whilst the foot bottom 13 is knitted as before of open work tuck rib fabric. In the case of FIGURE 3 the open work tuck rib fabric is used not only in the foot bottom 13 but also throughout the leg 11 and instep 12.

. FIGURE 4 shows on a greatly enlarged scale the fabric structure used for the foot bottom 13 of the socks of FIGS. l and 3 land Ialso in the leg and instep of the sock of FIG. 3. This preferred fabric structure is a 1 X 1 rib fabric wherein alternate rib wales are knitted with tucking in alternate courses. The needle wales are indicated at 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22,

wales

16, 18, 24D and 22 being rib wales and

wales

17, 19 and 21 plain wales. Courses of knitting are indicated at 23, 24, 25 and 26, courses 23 and 25 being those in which tucking occurs at alternate rib w-

ales

18 and 22, and

courses

24 and 26 being those in which knitting occurs on all needles. As a result long held loops 27 and tuck loops 28 are formed in alternate rib wales such as 18 and 22 and on relaxation of the fabric the wales 18 Iand `22 lare caused to occupy a wi-dth about three times that of a normal rib Wale so that wider and very distinctive walewise furrows appear in the face of the fabric. The tuck loops 28 are lanchored in sinker wales indicated at 29 and 30 between the rib and plain stitches in such a way that the tuck loops 28 appear on the technical face of the fabric in front of the held loops 27.

The tuck rib structure of the 4fabric causes the wales 18 .and 22 to have longer than normal stitches partly concealed by the tuck loops 28 which appear as spaced bars and present eyelet holes 31 between each succeeding pair of tuck loops 28 on each side of the held loops 27 forming the rib stitches. The form of fabric illustrated in FIG.

4 is found to be a particularly attractive Iand effective open work fabric giving good aeration. Obviously, however, the tuck stitches may be formed in the rib wales at different spacings both Wale wise and course wise to suit particular tastes or requirements.

FIGURE 5 illustrates in development view a portion of the cam system for the top or rib cylinder of an orthodox sock knitting machine of the opposed needle cylinder type and shows how such a machine may be modified to produce the rib tuck fabric. The cams shown are those in the region of one feeding station of a machine equipped with two or more feeding stations. Thus the normal stitch cam is shown at 32 and a clearing cam lat 33. A normal latch guard indicated at 34 has a notch 35 formed in its lower edge. An upper cylinder slider is shown at 36 having a double ended needle 37 equipped with lower latches 38 and upper latches 39. During normal rib knitting a needle in the upper cylinder has its lower latch 38 held open up to the knitting point by the latch guard 34 and an extension 34a thereof the tip of the latch being caused to follow a path approximately as indicated at 40. When a knitting butt 41 on the upper slider 36 encounters the stitch cam 32 the top of the latch 38 has normally reached the notch 35 and being no longer restrained by the latch guard 34 commences to close tand, during the stitch drawing movement of the slider 36 by cam 32, becomes fully closed being then retained closed by the latch guard.

In practising the present invention the upper sliders 36 of needles required to perform tucking when in the rib cylinder are equipped with additional butts 42 at high level and a bolt cam 43 is provided to co-operate when required with the butts 42. Thus when the bolt cam is inserted upper sliders 36 having butts 32 will be raised by cam 43 immediately before their butts 41 encounter the stitch cam 32. The action -of cam 431 is such as to raise the needles on the related sliders 36 so that the tips of their bottom latches 38 move along an upwardly inclined path 44 before encountering the notch 35 so that they do not become released by the notch. The latches thus remain open while the needle pass the related feeding point and receive yarn in their hooks without performing knitting, the old held loop being retained between the open latch and the needle stem. The path of the tips of latches 38 which miss the notch 35 in the latch guard continues as indicated at 45 so that the latches are held open until the needles have passed the knitting station. For knitting the fabric structure of FIG. 4, such needles are lthen caused to knit at the next knitting station to complete the tuck stitches. If desired the needles could be caused similarly t-o miss knitting at the next following knitting station also when it is required to form tuck stitches having more thon one tuck loop.

It may be found desirable in certain cases for the latch guard 34 to be recessed on its inner face above the notch 35 to enable the latches 38 when held open by the guard to occupy settings removed slightly from their fully open positions and thereby avoid any tendency to cut or damage Ithe yarn loops held behind the open latches. The manner of forming tuck loops is particularly suited to use when knitting bulked yarns possessing stretch properties and can be employed in this case without any adjustments to the normal knitting action since the stretch properties of the yarn prevent it from having excess localised stresses applied to it.

The particular structure of the fabric required can be determined by a lay out of the needle sliders 36 in the rib cylinder by suitably providing some or all of the sliders with butts 42. If desired the modilied operation of needles in the rib cylinder to produce tuck stitches can be arranged to be applied selectively to rib needles in accordance with patterning dictates by the use of an appropriate selecting mechanism by means of which the selection of needles in the rib cylinder for modified actuation is variable to conform to a preselected pattern set up on appropriate selecting mechanism.

The invention is not restricted to use with mens socks as it can also be applied to childrens hose and to a ladies hose or anklet.

What I claim is:

1. A method of performing knitting on a circular independent rib needle knitting machine of the opposed needle cylinder type comprising the steps of causing some needles to be placed in the rib cylinder while others are placed in the plain cylinder for the purpose of knitting rib fabric, causing selected ones of the needles in the rib cylinder to pass a knitting point whilst their latches are held open by a latch guard, and performing knitting at said knitting point so that tuck stitches are formed on said selected ones of the needles in the rib cylinder.

2. A method according to claim 1 comprising the step of causing the said selected ones of the needles in the rib -cylinder to be raised as they approach the knitting point so as to prevent their latches from becoming released for closure at a notched portion of the latched guard.

3. A method according to claim 2 wherein raising of the said selected ones of the rib cylinder needles is effected by causing additional butts on the top cylinder sliders associated with such needles to co-operate with a raising cam in the vicinity of the knitting point so as to raise the needles and prevent their latches from being released by the latch guard.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,252,769 8/1941 Houseman 66-14 2,412,248 l2/l946 Bristow 66-14 2,464,126 3/1949 Fregeolle 66-14 2,819,599 l/1958 Burdett 66-14 X FOREIGN PATENTS 827,287 2/1960 Great Britain.

DONALD W. PARKER, Primary Examiner.

R. FELDBAUM, Assistant Examiner.

Claims

1. A METHOD OF PERFORMING KNITTING ON A CIRCULAR INDEPENDENT RIB NEEDLE KNITTING MACHINE OF THE OPPOSED NEEDLE CYLINDER TYPE COMPRISING THE STEPS OF CAUSING SOME NEEDLES TO BE PLACED IN THE RIB CYLINDER WHILE OTHERS ARE PLACES IN THE PLANE CYLINDER FOR THE PURPOSE OF KNITTING RIN FABRIC, CAUSING SELECTED ONED OF THE NEEDLED IN THE RIB CYLINDER TO PASS A KNITTING POINT WHILST THEIR LATCHES ARE HELD OPEN BY A LATCH GUARD, AND PERFORMING KNITTING AT SAID KNITTING POINT SO THAT TUCK STITCHES ARE FORMED ON