Improvements in Machines for Making Tufted or Buttoned Fabrics, and in Button Setting Mechanism for use therein.
Year: 1898

page_text: Date of Application, 22nd Nov., 1898-Accepted, 11th Feb., 1899
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Machines for Making Tufted or Buttoned Fabrics,
and in Button Setting Mechanism for use therein.
I, CHRISTIAN SOFIAN ERNEST SPOERL, of 416, Adams Avenue, Scranton, Lacka-
wanna County and State of Pennsylvania, United States of America, Manu-
facturer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention, and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by
the following statement:
This invention relates to the class of devices employed for making stuffed
fabrics, such as cushions, which are tufted with buttons having prongs clinched
on the underside of the fabric; and the invention has for its object a machine
for making such a fabric in a continuous manner, the latter being cut off in
lengths suited to the requirements.
The accompanying drawings illustrate embodiments of the invention.
Figure 1 is a side elevation of the machine.
Figure 2 is a fragmentary plan.
Figure 3 is a vertical, longitudinal section at line in Figure 2.
Figure 4 is an enlarged sectional view of the clinching device.
Figure 5 is a view illustrating the button, the button-feeding devices, and the
button-holders on the plungers.
Figure 6 is a view illustrating a modified form of the machine; and Figure 6*
is a plan view of the roller 22" in Fig. 6.
Referring to Figs. 1 to 5, 1 is the machine frame; X is the continuously
made, finished, tufted fabric; a is the bottom sheet; y is the cover sheet, and
(Fig. 3) is the filling material. The sheets and y may be drawn conveniently
from rolls, as shown. The materials are fed intermittently to the point where
the rows of tufting buttons are set, and the fabric X is produced continuously
and may be cut off in suitable lengths. The feeding and button-setting
mechanism comprises the following elements.
Extending across and over the machine-bed is a rotatively mounted hollow
shaft, 2, provided with properly spaced, circumferential sets or series of tubular
tufting and feeding arms, 3, which may be connected transversely of the bed
by shaping webs, 4, and roundwise by shaping webs, 5. On the machine bed is
an upright guide-frame, 6, in which slides a bar, 7, carrying a plurality of
plungers, 8, adapted to pass down through the vertically disposed tubular arms 3
of the respective series, as seen in Fig. 3; and each plunger is provided at its
end with a suitable clip or holder, 9, to receive and hold (see Fig. 5) a tufting
button, b, having clinching prongs. The buttons are carried down through the
tubular arms 3, forced through the material and y, and clinched on a clinching
anvil or die. Fig. 4 illustrates the preferred form of this device. Across the
aperture in the machine bed at the tufting point is a prong-spreader, 10, and
below this spreader is a clinching die, 11, which moves up. at the proper time
and clinches the button-prongs on the base sheet .
All the movable parts may be driven from a shaft, 12, mounted in the frame

page_text: and driven from any source of power, as by a belt or strap on a pulley, 13. On
the ends of the shaft 12 are fixed cranks, 14, for operating the plunger-bar,
through connecting-rods, 15; and on one projecting journal of the shaft 2 is a
ratchet-wheel, 16, which serves to impart intermittent rotation to the shaft 2
through a pawl, 17, on a loose, radial, pawl-arm, 18, this arm being operated
by a branch arm, 19, on one of the connecting-rods 15, as seen in Fig. 1. The
die 11 is moved upwardly by a cam, 20, (Fig. 3) on the shaft 12, and is retracted
by a spring, 21, on its stem, or by other suitable means.
In order to provide a passage through the filling material z at the clinching
points means may be employed such as are shown in the principal views. On
or over the bed of the machine, at the end where the materials are fed in, are
situated vertical partitions, 22, raised above the sheet, extending lengthwise
of the bed, and aligned, respectively, with the several circumferential series of
tubular arms 3. These partitions keep the masses of filling material z separated
laterally up to the tufting points, so that the prongs of the button may pass,
after which they co-alesce by lateral junction.
The buttons may be fed to the holders on the several plungers by a feeding
slide, 23, mounted in guides on the upright frame and having slots, one opposite
to each plunger, in which the buttons are placed by hand. This slide 23, is
pushed in so as to transfer the buttons to the plungers at the proper time by a
suitable mechanism. That herein shown consists of a ca, 24, on the shaft 12,
which acts to push upward a rod, 25, coupled at its upper end to an arm on a
rock-shaft, 26, this shaft having two arms, 27, which engage and actuate the
slide 23. There may be two cams 24, and two rods 25.
1.
To crease the cover fabric or sheet y, the guides, 28, about which it passes, may
be wavy, as seen in the plan. This, however, is not absolutely essential.
The operation will be easily understood; the materials, y and z are drawn or
fed into the machine in a continuous manner, but intermittently, by the rotating
arms 3, and when the rotative part is at rest, the buttons are introduced, set and
clinched. The fabric X thus issues continuously and may be cut off, as produced,
in convenient lengths.
Figs. and 6 illustrate a slightly different construction of the rotary button-
setting device wherein the plungers 8 do not pass down through the hollow
arms 3; but transmit their effect through spring tracker-pins, 3", in the several
tubular armis 3. In this case, also, the buttons are put into the outer ends of the
arms by hand, and are not passed down through the arms by the plungers.
In this view is also shown a means for avoiding the use of the partitions 22,
this means comprising a compressing and creasing roller, 22", for the filling
material and vertically reciprocating cutting punches, 29, adapted to form ways
for the passage of the prongs on the buttons b. These punches are operated by
a cam, 30, on the main shaft 12, through suitable mechanism as shown, and they
punch only through the filling material z, the fabrics and y being held out of
their way.
The pressing and shaping roller 22" will be so formed with disk-like edges (seen
in Fig. 6) aligned with the respective sets of arms 3, as to crease the mass of
filling material, or separate it partially into strips, though not so completely as
the partitions 22.
There may be a transverse row or rows of the tubular arms 3, adapted to move
un and down and not to rotate; but in that case an intermittent feeder for the
fabric X, as an endless chain device, for example, will be required. In the con-
struction where the arms rotate about the axis of the shaft 2, they serve in them-
selves as a feeder for the fabric.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said in-
vention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is:
1 A machine for making tufted fabrics in a continuous
mon A

page_text: by mechanism for feeding the materials and fabric intermittently and mechanism
for setting and clinching the buttons at the tufting points.
2. A machine for making tufted fabrics in a continuous manner, characterized
by mechanism for feeding the materials and fabric intermittently and comprising
intermittently rotating sets of tubular arms 3, and means for setting and clinch-
ing the buttons at the tufting points.
3. A machine for making tufted fabrics in a continuous manner, characterized
by a bed over which the materials and fabric pass, means for providing ways
through the filling material z at the tufting points, and mechanism for feeding
said materials and fabric and for setting and clinching the tufting buttons.
4. In a machine for making tufted fabrics in a continuous manner, the com-
bination with mechanism for feeding the fabric and materials intermittently, of
means for opening ways in the filling material for the passage of the button-
prongs, means for setting the buttons, and means for clinching the prongs of the
buttons when set.
5. In a machine for making tufted fabrics, the combination with movable,
tubular button guides or arms, of reciprocating plungers which carry the buttons
down through said guides to the fabric and setting them therein, and a clinching
device for clinching the buttons as set.
6. The combination, in a machine of the character described, of the plungers
provided with button-receivers, and the mechanism for placing the buttons in
said feeders.
7. The means for separating the filling material so as to provide a free way for
the buttons, the same consisting of the partitions 22 on the bed of the machine.
8. The hollow shaft 2 provided with tubular arms 3, in several circumferential
sets, and the shaping webs 4 and 5, between said arms, for the purpose described.
Dated this 21st day of November 1898.
STEPHEN WATKINS,
Wolverhampton, Agent for the Applicant.