Traditionally, gloves such as work gloves are manufactured in a seven step method which comprises:
1. Spreading the cloth; PA1 2. Cutting the glove pattern or pieces; PA1 3. Sewing the pieces together; PA1 4. Closing the glove body; PA1 5. Attaching the cuff to the glove body; PA1 6. Turning the glove inside-out; PA1 7. Inspecting the finished glove.
In the above method, the cut pieces are carried to seamstresses where the pieces are joined together using conventional sewing equipment and the glove body is closed by further sewing operations. Both of these steps designated (3) and (4) above involve considerable manual work and are time-consuming and costly.
The objective is to improve on the traditional manufacturing process first by reducing the basic number of manufacturing steps and further by eliminating a great amount of the time-consuming manual labor which was involved primarily under steps (3) and (4) of the traditional method. As a result, the method embodied in this invention is much more economical in the overall. Steps (1) through (4) of the traditional method have been eliminated and have been replaced by only two operations or steps which are performed automatically, thus eliminating the manual labor previously involved in the sewing operations. The new and simplified method of manufacturing gloves comprises the following steps:
1. Quilting two layers of cloth or other material preferably by embroidery stitching to produce multiple repetitive glove body outlines or patterns integrally in the quilted material.
2. Die cutting around the margins of the multiple glove bodies immediately outwardly of their stitching lines to cleanly separate pre-sewn glove bodies from the quilted layered material.
3. Attaching cuffs conventionally to the pre-sewn glove bodies.
4. Turning the gloves inside-out.
5. Inspecting the finished gloves.
It can be observed by comparing the traditional and improved methods of manufacturing gloves that the principal difference lies in the fact that the main method steps are reversed in the new method. In the traditional method, the individual glove body pieces are first cut out of sections of material and are then sewn together to produce glove bodies. In the present method, the glove bodies are sewn first in the quilted layered material and are then cut and separated from the material in a substantially completed state, needing only to have the cuff attached and to be turned and inspected.
While the invention is applicable to work gloves formed of cloth, it is not limited to this type of glove and can be employed to produce leather gloves or gloves formed of plastics or other suitable materials. In some cases, lined gloves can be produced by the method merely by inserting lining layers of material in the lay-up prior to the quilting operation.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent during the course of the following description.
The below-listed known prior art patents of general interest only are made of record herein under 37 C.F.R. 1.56:
U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,538,262; 1,538,263; 1,811,570; 2,847,676; 3,866,245; 3,945,049.