Patent GB-727883-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to a circular knitting machine and method of knitting
IPC: D05B7/00
Filed: 1950-05-24
Abstract: 727,883. Knitting-machines. GETAZ, J. L. May 24, 1950, No. 13010/50. Class 74 (2). [Also in Group VII] A stocking or like toe knitted on a circular machine, is closed by raising the knitted loops of fabric at the toe above the sinkers by raising the needles with their latches closed, placing adjacent the needles and below their latches a band having on one side spaced projections which register with the needles, depressing the loops over the latches and on to the projections, lowering the needles to shed the loops from the needles, bringing together portions of the fabric and sewing through the opposed pairs of loops. The final loops of the toepocket and of the instep section are automatically transferred, in the knitting machine, to points 27 on pieces of flexible band 26 which are automatically fed into the machine to lie against the outside of the needle cylinder. When the transfer is to be made, the machine is placed in low gear and, while the short butt needles, on which the pocket has been knitted, are passing the knitting point at line 2, Fig. 1, cams 21, 22, 30 and 32 are made operative and a bell-crank 59 is lowered into the path of a pin 55 on the ring gear 56. When the pin 55 engages the bell-crank 59, the latter swings an arm 38 into the chain-dotted position, Fig. 10. A disc 39 is thus freed from a projection 47 and projections on it, which pass through openings 29 in the band 26, engage in the spaces between the shanks of the needles 15. The disc 39 is thus rotated and band 26 is drawn off a reel on another disc 41 and stripped from disc 39 by a guard 45, which holds it against the needles. Meanwhile, a knife 51 on a disc 40, of half the diameter of disc 39, cuts the band at two places to provide sections for the toe pocket loops on the short-butt needles and the instep loops on the long-butt needles. When disc 39 has made one revolution, projection 47 again enters notch 46 and locks it, the bell-crank 59 having been previously raised again. The needles are raised by cam 21, but the latches are held up by guard cam 22, so that the fabric is lifted until the position of line 4 is reached; the first of the points 27 is placed against the first 28 of the long-butt needles, when it reaches this position. The top of a point 27 is then below the corresponding latch 17 but, when the latch has fallen open, the point will lie between the needle shank and the spoon of the latch. After the needles have passed cam 22, the loops 19 thereon come into contact with the toothed edge of and turn a disc 23 which is of such diameter and so inclined that its edge follows the circle of the inside of the needles from point 24 to point 25 and carries the loops down with it, over the latches 17 and the points 27, into openings 29 in the band. The needles are then drawn down by cam 30 and shed their loops, which are thus transferred to the band. The cam 30 catches the first 28 of the long butt needles and, after the needle has passed, the cam is moved in against the cylinder so that it will engage the short butt needles when the long-butt needles have passed. Those shortbutt needles in advance of needle 28 are drawn down by cam 32, with the loops below the latches and when the short-butt needles 31 have passed the knitting point again they take the path previously taken by the long-butt needles, so that their loops are similarly transferred. The two pieces of band are then transferred to a linking machine (see Group VII).