Patent ID: 8376471

Claim:
A method of making pile articles, the method comprising the steps of: ultrasonically vibrating a horn member that comprises a contact surface; during the ultrasonically vibrating step, feeding an elongated backing member through a welding zone where a rear major surface of the backing member contacts and is fed across the contact surface; and during the ultrasonically vibrating step and the feeding-an-elongated-backing-member step, feeding a wrapped band, comprising a plurality of pile members, into the welding zone so that so that a portion of a transverse edge of the generally flat band contacts a front major surface of the backing member whereby the plurality of pile members are ultrasonically welded to the backing member with energy from the ultrasonic vibration of the contact surface of the horn member; wherein: at the ultrasonically vibrating step, the horn member is vibrated in an at least substantially linear, back-and-forth vibration direction which is not normal to the contact surface.