"METHOD FOR MANUFACTURING UPPER SEMIFINISHED ARTICLES FOR SHOES, AND SHOES WITH UPPERS PRODUCED BY SAID METHOD"

DESCRIPTION

Technical field

The present invention relates to the sector of shoe production and, more particularly, the subject of the present invention is a method for manufacturing upper semifinished articles for shoes, a method for manufacturing shoes and shoes manufactured using said method.

Background art

As is known, in order to manufacture shoes, it is required to manufacture uppers which are then joined to soles.

A pair of shoes generally consists of two shoes with a symmetrical form. The two uppers have stitches and ornamental patterns in symmetrically corresponding positions. Generally the stitches and the ornamental patterns are combined with the upper before joining to the sole is performed. In this way it is possible to position stitches and patterns in the correct manner, namely symmetrically .

In the case of uppers with printed designs, these are made using pieces or strips of leather printed with the designs arranged in a repetitive manner on the said strips. The profile of the upper is formed from the piece of material ("profile" is understood as meaning the typical plan-view area over which the upper extends on the strip of leather) . It goes without saying that uppers of a same pair of shoes are unlikely to have the same symmetrically arranged designs, i.e. the shoes will not be symmetrical with each other as regards the designs on the uppers.

In order to obtain symmetrical uppers, the operator must locate on the piece of material the parts which have the same design and cut them out in order to obtain two- symmetrical parts. This operation gives rise essentially to three drawbacks. A first drawback consists in the fact that the operator loses time looking for parts in the piece of leather which are the same.

A second drawback consists in the fact that, however skilful the operator may be, cutting of the uppers is never perfectly symmetrical.

A third drawback consists in the fact that selection of identical parts from the piece of material inevitably means that cutting of the piece of leather is performed without optimizing the number of uppers which can be obtained from it, i.e. results in a large amount of material being wasted.

Object and summary of the invention

The object of the present invention is to eliminate the abovementioned drawbacks arising during the production of shoes, by providing a method for producing upper semifinished articles, and shoes using said upper semifinished articles, which is able to avoid the wastage of leather.

In connection with the abovementioned object, an important object of the present invention is to provide a method for manufacturing shoes with symmetrical uppers.

These and other objects, which will become clearer below, are achieved with a method for manufacturing shoe-upper semifinished articles with printed designs, comprising the step of printing, on a flexible backing, at least one shoe upper profile and designs inside the profile.

"Flexible backing" is understood as meaning a piece or a band or a strip or in any case a layer (or several combined layers) of a material (or several materials) which is suitable overall for being used as a shoe upper (for example cloth, fabric, non-woven fabric, natural or synthetic leather, woven backings, etc.).

"Upper profile" is understood as meaning the typical plan- view area over which an upper extends before being cut from a piece of material. An upper profile therefore has peripheral edges which define the profile; therefore, an upper profile traced on a backing has peripheral edges which visually separate the profile from the rest of the backing. A profile with a design has designs inside these peripheral edges.

"Upper semifinished article" is understood as meaning a piece or an entire flexible backing on which an upper profile or a portion of an upper is present prior to cutting or finishing required before effecting joining to a sole .

Essentially, according to the invention, a piece of material with uppers printed thereon is formed. This enables an optimum distribution on the piece of material to be achieved.

According to the preferred embodiment of the invention, advantageously the method envisages printing at least one first and one second upper profile for a same shoe model on the backing. In particular it is required to print at least one first upper for the right-hand shoe and at least one second upper for the left-hand shoe. The first upper profile has designs which are arranged symmetrically with respect to those of the second upper so that the pair of right-hand and left-hand shoes made with the uppers are symmetrical with each other.

In this way, in addition to optimising the quantity of backing material/leather used, namely reducing the wastage of backing material which is not used when locating parts with identical designs, the operator saves time in that it is no longer required to look for the designs which must be cut out, but simply cut out the uppers, which are immediately obvious since already defined.

In so doing, it is ensured that the designs on the uppers of a same pair of shoes will also be perfectly symmetrical. In order to optimise even further the cutting of the uppers, advantageously a plurality of said upper profiles for a same shoe model or for different shoe models may be printed on the backing in a programmed order and arrangement. "Different model" is understood as meaning an upper with different designs or the same upper with different dimensions, corresponding to a different-size shoe .

Suitably, the method may envisage gluing a transparent film, preferably of the glossy type, onto the printed side of said backing.

Preferably the flexible backing is synthetic, for example a leather of the synthetic type comprising a fabric or a non- woven fabric on which a polyurethane resin is spread. With this formulation of flexible backing it is possible to obtain a synthetic leather in which the printing inks manage to adhere in an optimum manner.

The method according to an embodiment of the invention envisages advantageously the fact that the flexible backing is wound in strip form and passes continuously through the printing device.

According to a particularly preferred and particularly advantageous embodiment the method envisages gluing a transparent film, preferably of the glossy type, onto the printed side of said backing. This allows the print to be protected and particularly attractive glossy effects to be obtained.

Preferably, gluing of said film to the flexible backing is performed by hot-pressing the film against the backing or vice versa, for example by passing the backing with the superimposed film inside a heated calender.

The film is preferably polyurethane-based.

With reference to the main idea of the invention described above, according to another aspect of the invention, the flexible backing is instead a transparent or at least partly transparent film, preferably of the glossy type, made of plastic. Printing onto this transparent film is followed by gluing of the film thus printed onto a further flexible backing of greater thickness than said transparent film.

Preferably this further flexible backing is synthetic and is a fabric or a non-woven fabric on which polyurethane resin is spread.

Preferably printing on the film is performed by means of a plotter type device.

Suitably, gluing of the printed transparent film to the further flexible backing is performed by hot-pressing the film against the further backing or vice versa; the film is preferably polyurethane-based; the gluing step is performed preferably in a calender or in a press depending on whether the film and the further backing are in strip or piece form.

With further reference to the main idea of the invention described above, according to a third aspect of the invention, the printing step is composed of two different stages: a first stage for printing said at least one profile on a transfer paper and a second successive stage comprising transfer of said at least one printed profile onto a flexible backing, preferably made of polyester, by hot-pressing said paper with at least one profile onto the flexible backing using a transfer technique of the type known per se.

According to the general idea of the present invention, a plurality of symmetrical pairs of said upper profiles for a same shoe model or for different shoe models are printed on the flexible backing in a programmed order and arrangement. The invention also relates to a method for manufacturing shoes, comprising the production of a semifinished article manufactured according to one or more of the embodiments described above and furthermore the cutting out from said flexible backing of an upper profile and the subsequent joining of the upper to a sole.

It goes without saying that the invention also relates to a pair of shoes manufactured according to the method described above, in which the two - right-hand and left- hand - shoes have designs of the uppers which are symmetrical with each other.

Brief description of the drawings

Further characteristic features and advantages of the invention will emerge more clearly from the description of a preferred, non-exclusive, embodiment thereof illustrated by way of a non-limiting example in the accompanying sets of drawings, in which:

Figure 1 shows a schematic view of a plant for implementing a method according to a first embodiment of the invention; Figure 2 shows a schematic view of a further plant part in relation to that shown in Figure 1, for performing gluing of a glossy transparent film to the printed flexible backing on which the upper is traced;

Figure 3 shows a schematic view of a plant for implementing a method according to a second embodiment of the invention; Figure 4 shows a schematic view of a further plant part in relation to that shown in Figure 3, for performing gluing of the printed transparent film on which the upper is traced to a further, opaque, flexible backing;

Figure 5 shows a view of a portion of a semifinished article according to the invention, with two upper profiles showing symmetrical photographic designs for manufacturing a pair of shoes with symmetrical designs.

Detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention

With reference to Figures 1, 2 and 5 mentioned above, a flexible backing according to the method is formed by a continuous strip of synthetic leather preferably consisting of a non-woven fabric on which polyurethane resin is spread. This strip is indicated by 11A and is wound for example onto a reel 12.

Preferably, the dimensions of the strip are equal to 1.4 m widthwise and 25 to 50 m lengthwise.

From this reel 12 the strip is wound towards a printing device, such as a plotter 13, through which the strip 11A is passed continuously, resulting in continuous printing on the side with polyurethane resin. The strip enters into the plotter after travelling along a section substantially at the same height as the inlet into the plotter.

It is pointed out that this polyurethane resin ensures stable adhesion of the printing inks of the plotter.

Printing on the strip 11A envisages forming images of the profiles of the uppers with the associated designs.

In particular, upper profiles with perfectly symmetrical photographic designs are formed, for example as shown in Figure 5 (in which the upper profiles have photographic designs based on newspaper cut-outs), i.e. one upper 14 for a right-hand shoe and one upper 15 for a left-hand shoe. It goes without saying that the profiles are printed in a desired order entered in a computer program associated with the plotter. For example, it is possible to print a plurality of pairs of right-hand and left-hand upper profiles for a same pair of shoes, or a first plurality of left-hand upper profiles and a second plurality of right- hand upper profiles for a same shoe model, or alternating profiles for models with different sizes, according to the operational requirements.

Advantageously, it is possible to print on the profiles information 16 indicating the type of model and the size of the associated shoe, such as to help the operator during the following cut-out step.

Once the upper profiles have been printed on the strip, the printed strip (which is now indicated by 11B) is wound up and conveyed into a covered zone where it is again unwound and fed through a heated calender 17, for example at 170°, together with a glossy transparent film 18 which is also polyurethane-based. This film 18 is superimposed on the strip 11B on the printed side before entering into the calender .

The new strip which arises therefrom is indicated by 11C and is therefore formed by a first layer of fabric or non- woven fabric, a second layer of polyurethane resin, inked designs formed on the polyurethane resin, and a top layer of glossy, transparent, polyurethane film which basically acts as a lacquer or glossy varnish for the leather.

With reference to Figures 3, 4 and 5 mentioned above, a second embodiment of the method according to the invention envisages that the flexible backing, now numbered 111A, is a strip of transparent polyurethane film. This transparent strip 111A enters into the plotter 113 (for example the plotter with the trade name "HP Designjet 9000s") which is used to print a plurality of pairs of upper profiles with the associated peripheral edges 14A, 15A having designs internally, so that each pair is formed by two profiles symmetrical both in terms of peripheral edges and in terms of designs contained inside the profile.

Preferably, the inks used in the plotter are water-based inks (known by the trade name "Latex HP").

Upon leaving the plotter 113, the transparent strip, which is now numbered 111B, will have the upper profiles. From here, the strip, by means of winding onto a reel and subsequent transportation and unwinding at another processing station or movement directly from the plotter outlet, is fed through a pressing calender 117 together with a further backing 118 such as preferably a strip of non-woven fabric on which polyurethane resin is spread, having a thickness greater than the thickness of the film 111B. In the preferred embodiment, the rollers of the calender 117 are heated to about 100°C. In this way the transparent film with the printed upper profiles adheres stably to the further backing 118 which essentially forms the most resistant substrate of the future uppers. A strip portion such as that shown in Figure 5 is thus obtained. Furthermore, according to a third embodiment of the general idea of the invention, which is not indicated by reference numbers in the figures, the step of printing of the upper profiles as described above is performed in two stages, i.e. a first stage where the actual printing is performed, for example by means of the aforementioned plotter, onto a transfer paper, and a second stage where the designs of the profiles are transferred onto a flexible backing such a fabric or non-woven fabric made of polyester, these being formed on the paper by pressing (for about 50 seconds) the latter onto the flexible backing at a temperature of between 180°C and 200°C.

It goes without saying that in all three examples described, the backing for printing may also consist of a piece, i.e. not a continuous strip, but a portion of finite dimensions both lengthwise and widthwise and not wound up in reel form.

The final strip or final piece of material which is obtained is essentially an upper semifinished article (Figure 5) , from which one or more upper profiles are cut out in order to form the uppers which are then joined to respective soles.

In the case of symmetrical profiles, the two right-hand and left-hand shoes obtained therefrom have with respect to each other symmetrical designs of the uppers (these shoes are not shown in the figures) .

It is understood that the above description illustrates only possible non-limiting embodiments of the invention which may vary in terms of the forms and arrangements without thereby departing from the scope of the underlying idea of the invention. The presence of any reference numbers in the accompanying claims has solely the purpose of facilitating reading of the claims in the light of the foregoing description and the accompanying drawings and does not limit in any way the scope of protection thereof.