Patent ID: 8353252

Claim:
A process for preparing a seam area for a paper machine clothing (PMC) base fabric, the process comprising the steps of: providing a PMC base fabric including a plurality of warp yarns extending in a machine direction (MD) and a plurality of interwoven weft yarns extending in a cross machine direction (CD); removing a plurality of adjacent said weft yarns from said PMC base fabric to define a window of warp yarns not interwoven with said weft yarns, said plurality of warp yarns being interwoven with a plurality of weft yarns on opposite sides of said window; folding over said PMC base fabric at said window such that each said warp yarn substantially aligns with itself in the MD, and at least one said weft yarn on one side of said window substantially aligns with a respective said weft yarn on an opposite side of said window; and bonding together a portion of the PMC base fabric adjacent said window.