NEEDLE-LIKE SCISSORS TOOL FOR USE IN EMBROIDERY AND THE LIKE FOR OPENWORK TECHNIQUES OF CUTWORK ADAPTED TO TRANSFORM A NEEDLE CARRIER ROD The present invention relates generally to machine embroidery intended as addition of pattern or other ornamental effects to a fabric by the use of needle and thread. In particular relates to the provision of similar effects by its ancillary openwork techniques of cutwork wherein holes are cut in the cloth and their edges and borders embroidered or decorated with needle and thread. When such openwork by cutwork was handmade the cutting in of holes of any size and shape as a rule was made by scissors before bordering or embroidering of their edges, in order to obtain neat embroidered fresh edges. Exceptionally the holes were cut in by scissors after embroidering thereof, Of course, the result of cutwork made afterwards was poor since the edges provided by the scissors were forcibly imperfect and not constant, in that comprised by the cut thread ends projecting from the finished embroidery border left by the scissors handled by an operator worried to cut not enough or too much. For obvious reasons it was impossible to cut in small holes after embroidering with needle and thread At the present state of the art the with embroidering machines openwork by cutwork is almost impossible. In particular it is impossible to cut out any cloth section. Any cutwork is to be delaied to when the uncut in goods embroidered with needle and thread leave the machine and handmade with the drawbacks hereabove set forth but with an incidence much more detrimental. In fact the market is prepared to accept the cost and the quality of completely handmade embroidery but refuses industrial embroidery whose cost and quality are highly determined by the need of having cutwork handmade cutting in a machine made pattern. The market refusal is not due only to a choice of the consumer but rather to a difficulty of the manufacturer to harmonize the big quantities of cutworkless goods obtainable from the machines and the enormous respective quantity of labour necessary to cut in by hand with scissors any embroidery hole. Once the same people who made the cutwork provided also the embroidery with needle and thread thus a manufacturer engaged a working team in agreement with the average costumer demand without worrying if the work to be made was more to be done with needle and thread or cutwork beforehand or afterward. Anything was easy and the costumer recognized the conformity of manufacturing attributes such as price, quantity, quality and delivery. On the contrary for the industrial manufacturer the attribute of delivery is a real quiz since it is calculated that for the cutwork of each machine whose production includes embroidery relatively easy to to provided with needle and thread and relatively difficult to cut in at least twenty people are necessary. However such a higher number of people could not permanently engaged since the demand of openwork embroidery is a variable. Thus only the manufacturers in a position of providing enough labour for openwork by hand by cutwork survived.

On their side the manufacturers of embroidering machines (three or four in the world), being unable to provide the machines with openwork by cutwork means, enriched the embroidering machines of heads and each head with needle bars, in order to suggest a substitution of openwork effects with a richer variety of colours and threads or combination thereof. The only finding thought out by the embroidery machine manufacturers to remedy means capable of any kind of openwork was the optional provision of a piercing tool which was called borer to be applied to one of the bars of each head. Such borer is in the form of triangular or square pyramidal sharp pointed instrument capable of boring through the cloth to be embroidered as well as its backing paper. The needle carrying bar carries on an axes parallel to the needle axes a borer carrier. The bar of the head provided with such borer is left without needle its thread detector is rendered inactive and its pressing foot operates distantly. Even the borer hole provided in plate is larger than that in the needle plate holes; thus the borer may have a cross section dimension larger than the diameters of the needle and of the needle plate hole. The corner edges of borer are arranged as blades . When the borer pierces the cloth leaves a series of flaps, whose number is the same as the sides or corners or cutting edges of pyramidal tool. When the borer is moved in the direction of its blades the flaps are enlarged. This can be made only slightly up to a maximum total dimension of ten millimetres otherwise it is impossible to embody such flaps in the embroidery satin. When the cloth and or the backing paper are rather thick with respect to the satin width the capability of the latter to contain the flaps is reduced and only the flaps strictly resulting from the mere sole boring through. Thus the borer remedies only the problem of very small hole which cannot provided with the scissors after embroidery. Any other larger openwork was to be made by hand cutwork. Since the borer provides a piercing action it is almost impossible to obtain thereby a reasonable openwork by cutwork For a reasonable openwork by cutwork a continuous cut capable of severing a cut out cloth slip is necessary. Even in case that the severing by a series of borer punching is successful difficulties arise which renders this kind of cut unpractical for any embroidery result. I.e.: a) The cut edge resulting by a series of borer punching is clearly unpresentable; b) The cut resulting by a series of borer punching severs an unwanted cloth section which must be removed c) in case that the cut is made at the beginning or before any openwork embroidery satin is provide in order to embody or hinder therein the unpresentable series of borer punching; while no means are available on known machines to remove the unwanted slip and to dispose it so that embroidery can be prosecuted.

d) in case that the cut is made as last step of the embroidery process or at least after any openwork embroidery satin is provided no problem arises to remove the unwanted slip and to dispose it . However the unpresentable cut edge stands projecting out from the finished satin; e) in both cases the advantages are largely impaired by drawbacks.

Summarizing the aforesaid about the present state of the art it is noted: 1) with the present embroidery machines and techniques it is impossible to execute any openwork by cutwork; 2) any openwork by cutwork is to be delaied to when the openworkless embroidery leaves the machine and the cutwork handmade by scissors; 3) of course it is also impossible with known embroidery machines to perform other openwork-like cutwork such as button holes, eyepocket openings, outward catting of labels etc 4) Very small openwork which cannot be cut in by scissors may be prepared by piercing the cloth with a borer applied to one bar of each head parallel to the needle whose performance is that of providing a number of cloth and paper flaps to be included in the surrounding satin. This is possible in as much as there is a certain relation between the volume of the flaps and the extension of the satin so that the latter can contain the former.

The invention as claimed is intended to remedy these drawbacks. The inventors, with ingenious perception, have conceived a needle-like scissoring tool for use in embroidery and the like for openwork techniques of cutwork adapted to transform a needle carrier rod in a scissoring device and process and means for making it and using such device, with the features contained in the claims.

In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention to improve the efficacy of needle-like cutting tool (1) its blade is made fishtail-like to provide an action equal to the action provided by scissors blade the only difference being that the scissors blade pairs operates longitudinally to the cloth to be cut instead of an upright approach and the blade closure is perfecxtly equivalent to the descending movement provided by the needle carrier bar of a stitching device. In practice in quite a lot of cases the scissors are used for cutting particularly thin sheet materials with open blades pushing the blade corner against the sheet to be cut. The arrangement is such that the scissors-like pair of blades provide a longer cutting edge so that the two sides thereof provide a joint action which is even better than the action provided by the scissors since the scissors pivoted blades edges in no case can be complanar as are those of needle-like scissors tool of the present invention. Thus the scissors-like blades of the tool of the present invention cut the fibres giving lieu to a verical force component which is reduced and centripetal in accordance with the formula: RF nF cost, Rv= FT ' COSa;RO=FT sen ; wherein FT- CT FT= cutting force RF= resistence of the thread fibres o to cutting flp = number of thread fibers to be cut a = blade angle with respect to the needle-like scissors tool axis CT = cutting coefficient (grinding) RV= Vertical reaction (perpendicular to the cloth) RO= Horizontal reaction (on the cloth plane) In accordance with another preferred embodiment of the invention when the openwork to be cut in the cloth is tortuous, the edge of the cutting blade of the needle-like cutter is made bent and is fastened to the head of the machine oriented by 900 or 45 according to the numbber of bars engaged if they are two or four Forma For making the needle-like scissors tool (1) it is started from a two-stepped cylindrical blanket 101 (figures 15-0 and 16A) made of stainless steel particularly of the series AISI 420 already tempered. Its working, shaping and finishing is obtained with grinding disc tools 201 to 220 which operate with their flat side to provide the corresponding flat sides 102, 102', 103, 103' (figs 16B to 16 E) and with tangentially shaped and operating grinders 205 to 220, providing the bilateral inlet 104, 104' or 1"', 1"". The machine comprises a platform 130 having twentyfour stations S1 to S20 A, B, C. On a central circular roundabaut coaxial with the platform twenty four needle-like blankets are singularly mounted. Thus at the same time twenty workings are performed. Upon each step of the round about a blanket is charged and a finished needle-like scissors tool (1) is removed. Thus it is estimated that the machine output may be about thousand needle-like scissors tool (1) per hour. To the finishing of the indenting are devoted sixteen steps: eight of which (the odd ones) applied to one side and eight (the even ones) to the back side thereof; starting from rough working and ending with brilliant finishing provided with felt tools. The subdivision of the grinding into a number of steps is instrumental to safeguard the hardening previously made on the blanket to avoid an hardening repetition on the finished tool. Extremely important is the accuracy of the movements of the machine contrivances in order to supply each needle-like scissors tool (1) to be worked before each machine working tool in the same position and with constant accuracy. Such accuracy and preciousness is provided through a frontal geared clutch of the so said "HIRT" kind, arranged between the trunnion roundabout and the platform to put them in agreement.

In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention specific principle informing the machine operation is that of providing, for each working, more operating heads; the first thereof for each of the two sides provides the material removal and the other the gauging with occasional or incidental removal of the small residue of the previous one (figures 17 and 18). After a number n of needle-like scissors tool (1) the first unit has removed the material corresponding to the section A of the graph and the limit of acceptability has been reached.

After nl needle-like scissors tool (1) the second unit has removed the material corresponding to the section Al about A and so on with a substantially exponential trend.

When all the units have exhausted their working capability a new setting of the machine is provided possibly by changing the working grinders.

Ways of carrying out the invention are described in detail below, with reference to drawings and examples, which illustrate specific embodiments, in which: Figure 1 is the front view in an enlarged scale of a needle-like scissors tool according to the invention.

Figure 2 is the repetition of figure 1 in an even more enlarged scale wherein only a section of needle-like scissors tool according to the invention is shown.

Figure 3 is the side view of the needle-like scissors tool according to the invention of fig. 2 in the same enlarged scale.

Figure 4 is view similar to figures 2 and 3 but with of the needle-like scissors tool of figures 1 and 2 rotated by 459; Figure 5 shows the potential penetration of the needle-like scissors tool in a cloth shown in vertical cross-sections and its respective effect on the warp or on the weft which is cut and on the weft or the warp which is simply side slipped Figure 6 is the plane view in a very enlarged scale of a cloth which was provided by three needle-like scissors tools (VOB oriented) according to the invention Figure 7 is the view from the bottom of the settling of four needle-like scissors tools on the bars hole of a head duly oriented with the help of a template according to the invention; Figure 8 a perspective composite view substantially comprising the previous figures also in order to provide a suitable significative abstract figure Figura 9 is a panoramic on the embroidery machine regarding one head and the particulars affected by the present invention.

Figure 10 is a scheme drafted to provide necessary information and parameters for the drafting of the computer program; Figure 11 is substantially a repetition of fig. 10 wherein handmade drafting of the cuts to be substantially programmed by computer are provided Figure 12 is another graph instrument to help the computer programmer; Figure 12 is an approximate menu to help the computer programmer; Figure 14 is a schematic plane view of the trunnion roundabout machine secondo la presente invenzione.

Figure 15 from 0 to 20 shows the side views of the blanket (0), of upper roughing (1), of bottom roughing (2), of upper finishing (3), of bottom finishing (4),made with even grinder as well as the indentation upper roughing and upper finishing steps 5, 7. 9, 11, 13, 15. (17, 19) and indentation botttom roughing and finishing steps (6, 8.

10, 12, 14, 16. (18, 20) and Figure 16 from A to G shows in perspective views the succession of shaping and/or rough material removal, affilatura and finishing of the needle-like scissors tool (1) according to the invention.

Figure 17 is a dimostrative graph showing the principle of task suddivision among the working units; it gives the variation of material removal in function of the number of pieces; Figure 18 shows driving catchet-gear means to rotate at least a single bar (7) in order to rotate the needdle-like cutting tool (1) fastened thereto and having complementary means associated to the pantograph (8) of coordinates Xd1, Yd1 Figure 19 shows a flow chart -discard removing means (4) comprising a pneumatic device (4'); Figure 20 and 21 show mechanic discard piercing and grappling needle-like tool (41") applicable to a needle carring bar (7) and having as complementary means associated to the pantograph (8) an arrangement (40")to remove the grappled discard (80')in a point of engagement of coordinates Xd1, Yd1 Figure 22 shows in an enlarged scale a pattern to be read with reference to the example given hereafter Figure 23 shows in an enlarged scale an handmade openworking after embroidery patterning with needle and thread Figure 24 shows in an enlarged scale an openworking after embroidery patterning with needle and thread obtaine with process and means according to the present invention Figure 25 shows in an enlarged scale an openworking before embroidery patterning with needle and thread, obtained with process and means according to the present invention Previous to referring to the drawing a clarifying example will be given. For the reason to be explained later on the following correspondences were established: V= Vertical = Violet O= Horizontal = Orange; B= Bar= blue = 45 = /=acute=' S=Slash=Silver=450-=\=grave= EXAMPLE With a conventional embroidery machine with 24 heads provided each with at least six needle carrying bars and conventional means a pattern was provided.

Such pattern was substantially quadrangular and was comprised of three sides of a square and a demicircle having a diameter equal to the square sides. On five of the six needle carrier bars were provided with threads with the colours white (W), Violet (V), Orange (O), Blue (B) and Silver (S). The pattern (figure ) was comprised by four members: one main member in turn including an imbastitura line, a ziz zag and a satin and three internal testing sewed perimeters respecvtively at a distance from the the internal edge of the satin of mm 0,1, 0,3, 0,5. The perimeter standing closer to the satin (sewn in white) was sewn with the four colours i.e.

Orange for the base (0) and the top (0'), Violet of the square sides (V, 'V) and for the arch bottom ends (V', 'V') blue for the segment arch (B, 'B) connecting the violet arch (V' with the orange top (O')and silver (S) for the segment arch connecting orange top (0') with the violet arch ('V'). When the pattern was completed in all its members twenty of the twentyfour embroidered pieces were removed and given to twenty operators for cutwork test by scissors of course recommending to them to place the cutwork between the satin internal edge and its closed coloured perimeter standing at a distance of 0.1 mm from such edge. From the four heads still carrying the openworkless embroidery the needle carried by the bars provided with the coloured thread were removed the thread control was rendered inactive and in place of the needle a scissor needle-like tool according to the invention was mounted on the corresponding bar. To comply invention provision the application was made with the help of a mask according to the invention (fig.5) In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention to improve the efficacy of needle-like cutting tool (1) its blade is made fishtail-like to provide an action equal to the action provided by scissors blade the only difference being that the scissors blade pairs operates longitudinally to the cloth to be cut instead of an upright approach and the blade closure is perfecxtly equivalent to the descending movement provided by the needle carrier bar of a stitching device. In practice in quite a lot of cases the scissors are used for cutting particularly thin sheet materials with open blades pushing the blade corner against the sheet to be cut. The arrangement is such that the scissors-like pair of blades provide a longer cutting edge so that the two sides thereof provide a joint action which is even better than the action provided by the scissors since the scissors pivoted blades edges in no case can be complanar as are those of needle-like scissors tool of the present invention. Thus the scissors-like blades of the tool of the present invention cut the fibres giving lieu to a verical force component which is reduced and centripetal in accordance with the formula: <BR> <BR> <BR> FT=RF# nF # cosα ; RV=FT # cosα;RO=FT # senα ; wherein<BR> <BR> <BR> CT FT= cutting force RF= resistence of the thread fibres o to cutting nF = number of thread fibers to be cut α = blade angle with respect to the needle-like scissors tool axis CT = cutting coefficient (grinding) Rv= Vertical reaction (perpendicular to the cloth) Ro= Horizontal reaction (on the cloth plane) In accordance with another preferred embodiment of the invention when the openwork to be cut in the cloth is tortuous, the edge of the cutting blade of the needle-like cutter is made bent and is fastened to the head of the machine oriented by 900 or 45° according to the numbber of bars engaged if they are two or four Forma For making the needle-like scissors tool (1) it is started from a two-stepped cylindrical blanket 101 (figures 15-0 and 16A) made of stainless steel particularly of the series AISI 420 already tempered. Its working, shaping and finishing is obtained with grinding disc tools 201 to 220 which operate with their flat side to provide the corresponding flat sides 102, 102', 103, 103' (figs 16B to 16 E) and with tangentially shaped and operating grinders 205 to 220, providing the bilateral inlet 104, 104' or 1"', 1"". The machine comprises a platform 130 having twentyfour stations S1 to S20 A, B, C. On a central circular roundabaut coaxial with the platform twenty four needle-like blankets are singularly mounted. Thus at the same time twenty workings are performed. Upon each step of the round about a blanket is charged and a finished needle-like scissors tool (1) is removed. Thus it is estimated that the machine output may be about thousand needle-like scissors tool (1) per hour. To the finishing of the indenting are devoted sixteen steps: eight of which (the odd ones) applied to one side and eight (the even ones) to the back side thereof; starting from rough working and ending with brilliant finishing provided with felt tools. The subdivision of the grinding into a number of steps is instrumental to safeguard the hardening previously made on the blanket to avoid an hardening repetition on the finished tool. Extremely important is the accuracy of the movements of the machine contrivances in order to supply each needle-like scissors tool (1) to be worked before each machine working tool in the same position and with constant accuracy. Such accuracy and preciousness is provided through a frontal geared clutch of the so said "HIRT" kind, arranged between the trunnion roundabout and the platform to put them in agreement.

In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention specific principle informing the machine operation is that of providing, for each working, more operating heads; the first thereof for each of the two sides provides the material removal and the other the gauging with occasional or incidental removal of the small residue of the previous one (figures 17 and 18). After a number n of needle-like scissors tool (1) the first unit has removed the material corresponding to the section A of the graph and the limit of acceptability has been reached.

After n1 needle-like scissors tool (1) the second unit has removed the material corresponding to the section A1= about A and so on with a substantially exponential trend.