Page 45 - Industrial Cutting of Textile Materials

32 Industrial Cutting of Textile Materials

4.2.5 The cutting of fabric plies

The laid fabric ply can be separated from a roll by a special lay-end cutting device
(see Fig. 4.5, Sections 5.5.2 and 6.3.3), by shears, by a knife, or by tearing the fabric
along the weft (see Section 5.2.2.1). Sometimes, fabric plies are folded at the ends of
a spread (see Section 4.3.5).

4.2.6 The use of interleaving paper
2
Interleaving paper (20–40 g/m in weight) may be spread between plies at fixed inter-
vals (see Fig. 4.6). It is used to separate fabric plies from different rolls (which may
have shade variations; see Section 2.6.2) or to make it easier to separate the cut com-
ponents into manageable bundles.

4.2.7 The length of a spread

The length of a spread depends on the length of the marker. It is not efficient to lay
short spreads as this increases the time spent in fixing and cutting the ends of the
spreads. Where markers are short, they may be joined and laid in one spread to form
either a traditional or a step spread (see Section 4.4).

4.2.8 The number of fabric plies in a spread
The number of fabric plies in a spread depends on the number of garments in an order, the
fabric properties (thickness, smoothness, friction between the fabric and a cutting device,
etc.), and the technical limits of the cutting devices or the automated cutting systems.
If the number of articles ordered is small, the spread is performed without reach-
ing the maximum practical number of plies (see Table 4.1, first position). If the order

Fig. 4.5 Lay-end cutting device of a spreading machine.