Production process
Once the customer has signed the order and the deposit paid the manufacturing process can commence. The production sheet is produced detailing the specification and design of the product to be made.
Step 1
Spools (A cylinder of wood, plastic, cardboard, or other material on which wire, thread, or string is wound) of the selected colour and denier yarns are placed onto a fixed creel (A frame for holding bobbins or spools in a spinning machine) behind the tufting machine. The number of spools varies with the gauge of the machine. Eg; 7.94mm gauge machine tufting to a width of 3.66M required 462 spools.
Mechanical adjustments called machine settings are made to the tufting machine to establish the required pile height, tuft length and stitch rate, which all together with the tex of the yarn will produce the total yarn weight.
Step 2
The yarn is threaded throughout the system of rollers on the machine and passed within a needle. The needle will punch the yarn through the primary backing to form a loop over a looper (An instrument such as a bodkin for forming a loop in the yarn or cord, etc), which is then sliced with a knife to form a cut pile surface.
Step 3
The tufting machine is run until the desired length of product is achieved and the finished product is then lapped onto a trolley ready for application of the secondary backing.
To create the tuft lock the product must pass through the backing plant whereby the application of the latex is performed by a lick roller.
Step 4
Drying of the latex is critical for the final quality of the product. It is during this process that the latex will cross link (To join (adjacent chains of a polymer or protein) by creating covalent bonds) giving the final product increased strength and water resistance.
Once dry the product is rolled up onto a core and packaged ready for despatch.
