Lettiere Neto, Rafael (Rua Mário Soares, 23 Barra da Tijuca Rio de Janeiro, RJ, BR)
| 1. | A process for producing a tufted rug comprising a base web and tufts, the bottom side of the base having been subjected to underfinishing, characterized by the fol lowingsteps: obtaining a piece of carpeting (6) prior to underfinishing; removing the tufts (3) from a surface region of the base web (2) of the piece of carpet; and retufting said surface region of the base web (2) with tufts (9) of a different na ture. |
| 2. | A process according to claim 1, characterized by the additional step of apply ing a stitch line (7; 8) which delimits said region prior to the step of removing the first men tioned tufts. |
| 3. | A process according to claim 2, characterized in that said stitch line is applied inzigzag. |
| 4. | A process according to claim 2 or 3, characterized in that the removal of the first tufts is carried out by pulling them out of the region delimited by the stitch line. |
| 5. | A process according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the application of said other tufts is carried out by using a handoperated tufting machine. |
| 6. | A process according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that said region comprises the outer border of said piece of carpeting (6), so that the said other tufts define the border of the carpet. |
| 7. | A process according to claim 6, characterized in that there is more than one region from which the tufts are removed and in which other tufts are applied. |
| 8. | A carpet or rug comprising a base web and tufts, characterized in that it is produced by the process according to any one of claims 1 to 7. |
| 9. | A carpet or rug comprising a base web and tufts, characterized by comprising a piece of carpeting (6) having an outer border tufted by a handoperated tufting machine. |
| 10. | A carpet or rug in accordance with claim 9, characterized by having an inner region away from said border, said inner region being tufted by a handoperated tufting ma chine. |
Processes for the semi-manual manufacture of carpets or rugs are known, in which gauze webs are tufted in hand-operated machines, thus receiving a high quality fin- ish. This also provides the possibility of producing a variety of colors and patterns. However, production continues to be basically artisanal, which impairs production capacity and main- tains costs relatively high.
Tufted carpeting can also be made in large-scale production machines without individual needle command, the carpeting being produced in rolls at a reduced cost, but with the limitation that it is not possible to produce carpets having a large variety of colors and patterns along the length of each roll.
Finally, there is a technique of producing rugs by joining pieces of rugs and car- pets and making a base in order to join the pieces into a single rug thereon. Although this method is practical, it results in a product of doubtful quality, since the lack of continuity at the joins between the various pieces of rug results in folds and cracks.
The present invention provides an intermediate solution for the production of carpets or rugs, so as to take avantage of both the high degree of mechanization and the low cost provided by the production of carpets in rolls, and also the quality of semi-manual production associated with hand-operated carpet tufting machines.
According to the present invention, a process for producing tufted carpets or rugs having a base web and tufts, the bottom side of the base having been subjected to under-finishing and optionally other finishing steps, comprises the following steps: -obtaining a piece of unfinished carpeting, which may come from a roll of car- peting tufted by a large-scale production machine; -removing the tufts from a surface region of the base web of the piece of car- peting; and -retufting said surface region of the base web with other tufts of a different na- ture.
The step of applying other tufts may be carried out by using a hand-operated tuftingmachine.
In a preferred embodiment, the region mentioned above comprises the outer border of the piece of carpeting, so that the other tufts will define the border pattern. There may be more than one region from which tufts are removed and substituted by other tufts.
For the purposes of the present specification and of the claims only,"tufts of a different nature"means tufts of any color, type, material, texture or other characteristic which differentiates them from the original tufts of the carpet or rug.
Preferably, in particular when the tufts are either in"loop"or in"boucle", the step of applying a stitch line delimiting said region is included, prior to the step of removing the first mentioned tufts. Said stitch line, preferably in zigzag, serves to prevent tufts from being removed outside the chosen area, besides reducing the risk of these tufts loosening during the later steps. Thus, the removal of the tufts is carried out by pulling them from the region delimited by the seam line.
The present invention further refers to a carpet or rug produced in accordance with the above-defined process.
Further according to the invention, a carpet or rug having a base web and tufts comprises a piece of carpeting produced on an automatic tufting machine, surrounded by a border tufted by a hand-operated tufting machine.
In one embodiment, the carpet or rug may have an inner region away from the border, tufted by a hand-operated tufting machine.
The process described above enables one to obtain a rug of any size from a piece of carpeting, with the option of varying colors, shapes, textures and patterns, at a cost and production capacity that are between those of large-scale production and semi-manual production, by virtue of the fact that avantage is taken off a piece of already tufted carpet- ing produced on a large scale.
Another important improvement introduced is the fact that the new tufts are ap- plied immediately after the stitch line, which ensures a natural continuation of the existing tufting, without the occurrence of any division or crack in the tufting.
To end the process of manufacturing the carpet, starching (or latexing) and maybe other finishing is applied thereto. For instance, among others, a layer of latex foam may be applied to the bottom surface of the rug to provide an anti-skid effect.
The invention will be better understood from the following detailed description, given by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a perspective view of a roll of unfinished carpeting; Figure 2 is a detailed view of the tufts of the roll of carpeting of Figure 1; Figure 3 is a front view of a piece of carpeting cut out of the roll of Figure 1, showing stitch lines; Figure 4 is a front view of the piece of carpeting showing the regions from which tufts have been removed; Figure 5 is a detailed view of Figure 4, showing the tufted region and the un- tufted region with the base web being visible; and Figure 6 is a front view of the carpet with tufts of a different nature, tufted in the region in which the base web was visible, as shown in Figure 4.
Referring now to the drawings, Figure 1 shows a roll of carpeting 1, produced by the conventional process in a large-scale production tufting machine. Carpeting 1 may be of
any type. However, the illustrated example is formed from a polypropylene base 2 with tufts in"loop" (or in"boucle") 3, as shown in greater detail in Figure 2.
As already mentioned, the present invention deals with a new technique of ef- fectively transforming a piece of carpeting 6 into a semi-artisanal carpet or rug. For this pur- pose, the roll of carpeting 1 is cut out along lines 4 and 5, precisely in accordance with the dimensions of the carpet or rug to be manufactured.
The process of manufacturing the carpet or rug from a piece of carpeting 6 cut out of the roll comprises a first step of defining the region or regions of the piece that should be subjected to the semi-artisanal process. This is done by the zigzag stitching of lines 7 and 8, which mark the region or regions to be worked. As can be seen from Figure 3, the stitch line 7 delimits the outer border region of piece 6, where the border of the rug will be made. Similarly, stitch line 8 delimits a central triangular region where a decoration may be applied in the center of the rug, if desired.
Once the stitch lines have been applied, the tufts 3 in the delimited border and center region are pulled out, either by hand or by any adequate means, stitch lines 7 and 8 serving to prevent the tufts from being removed outside these regions and to reduce the risk of the tufts on the other side of these lines falling out later.
After the tufts have been removed from the delimited regions, the base web 2 remains visible in said regions, as shown in Figure 4 and in greater detail in Figure 5, where the stitch line 7 surrounding the tufted region 3 is also visible.
In this way, the regions where the base web 2 is visible are ready for the appli- cation of new tufts 9, different from those that were removed, so as to differentiate the end product"rug"or"carpet"10 from the original"carpeting", as shown in Figure 6. Thus, for instance, one can use a hand-operated tufting machine to tuft base webs in the defined regions with tufts that are different from those used in carpeting 1. Since the retufting begins at stitch lines 7 and 8, there is continuity of tufting throughout the whole carpet or rug, with- out any spacing at the edges of the differently tufted regions.
At the end of the manufacture of the carpet or rug, under-finishing is carried out for the definitivey gluing or fixing of tufts 3 and 9 to the base web 2. One can also apply, for instance, a base onto the bottom surface 11 of base web 2. This base may be any layer
which imparts more resistance to the product, and/or may inclue, for instance, a layer of synthetic or natural foam to provide the rug with anti-skid characteristics.
Another embodiment of the present invention consists in that the tufts 3 are "cut", in which case the formation of stitch lines 7 and 8 can be substituted by the simple marking of the base web 2 by means of a pen or pencil, by virtue of the fact that the tufts are substantially loose in the base web 2 prior to the under-finishing (for example, latexing) step, for which reason pulling out the tufts by hand and delimiting the regions to be worked on become simple.
It will therefore be understood that the process according to this invention en- ables one to obtain carpets or rugs of excellent quality and with many of the features of a semi-artisanal rug, but with the avantage of having a substantially reduced manufacturing cost, by virtue of the fact that one makes use of large scale production carpeting.
It will also be understood that the present invention is not limited to the embodi- ments described in detail with reference to the drawings, but rather solely to the scope of the claims. For instance, the invention also relates to the production of carpets or rugs adorned only with outer borders of a single color or texture, rugs with border designs, rugs with inner regions of different colors or textures, rugs with inner regions carrying designs and the like, provided that one does not depart from the principal concept of the invention, namely the combination of large scale production techniques used for manufacturing car- peting with the semi-manual techniques used in the production of carpets or rugs.