Fabric tearing device

With many of the woven fabrics used in clothing manufacture today it is essential that spreading takes place "on grain." This ensures that when the various components are cut and made into garments, they hang correctly.

Essential to a quality finish is the automatic snip and rip action, particularly when handling the range of crepes and satins often used in women's fashions. If not executed accurately, the finish of the material tends to twist the grain.This, in turn, can be transferred to the finished garment, causing it to hang incorrectly. "On grain" spreading is not always possible with conventional equipment.

The Gerber tearing device is mounted on the synchron spreading machine in place of the conventionel cutting-off device and is plugged into the same power source.

A simple program adjustment made on the operator's panel tells the spreader that the snip and rip unit is in place.

The spreader is moved to the start end of the spread where approximately half a metre of material is fed out to enable the operator to correct the bow and/or skew of the fabric.This is then clamped under the optional manual end catcher.The operator presses the start button to set the automatic cycle in motion.The spreader drives to the other end of the lay, slows down and stops automatically in the correct position for the tearing device to take over.

A sensor picks up the leading edge of the material, causing a knife to snip through the selvedge.The tearing head proceeds across the unit, following the line of a single thread for an accurate, even rip.The far edge of the fabric is then detected by the sensor, causing the tearing head to back up to relax the fabric, and the far selvedge is snipped.

The ripped piece of material drops onto the table in a relaxed state as the spreading machine returns to the start end of the lay. Here it automatically spreads out another half-metre of fabric, and the whole operation is repeated. Until the development of the fabric tearing device, material had to be ripped by hand. Using this device, snipping and ripping is done in half the time.

The fabric tearing device weighs about 60 kilograms (125 lbs.), and can be fitted on Gerber Synchron spreaders.Two men can mount the device in about two minutes. No tools are needed.

Patent Pending
GERBERspreaderTM is a trademark of Gerber Technology, Inc.