| 摘要 |
A felting needle, with thousands of its counterparts, must be identically reproducible and uniform so that consistent duplication of the finished product of felted material is possible. The method of the present invention, as well as the apparatus of this invention for practicing the method, have the capability, for the first time, of exact duplication of a felting-needle barb, with rounded contours on all faces and edges which contact the fibers, and with uniform size, shape and finish, all produced by a method which is essentially a one-step process reducing the number of steps of the manufacturing procedure to a minimum. Thus the apparatus and process provide a barb-forming tool which has a recess or cavity formed therein which is the exact mirror image or mating counterpart of the shape or outline of the barb and barb-recess to be formed in the needle, and which, with such contour-controlling and material-constraining cavity, produces an exact cavity, throat and barb each time the tool strikes the needle. Moreover, the complete forming of the throat and barb, including the depth, barb angle, face width, face angle, kickup (if any) and radii on the edges of the adjoining surfaces is accomplished simultaneously, in a single stroke of the forming tool.
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