Patent ID: 7175727

Claim:
A method for making absorbent pads from an absorbent web material, comprising: conveying a continuous strip of the absorbent web material along a machine direction; selectively stretching longitudinally defined portions of the web material in the cross direction so as to define longitudinal sections having a wider cross-direction width and decreased basis weight alternately spaced between longitudinally extending sections of the web material having a lesser cross-direction width and greater basis weight; releasing the web from the stretching action; cutting the strip of web material in a cross direction into individual absorbent pads such that each pad of absorbent web material has at least one longitudinal section of longitudinally stretched portion having a wider cross direction width; wherein the web material is generally elastic, said method further comprising setting the stretched condition in the web material prior to releasing the web material from the stretching action; and wherein the stretched condition is set by applying heat to the web material.