Apparatus for the manufacture of reinforced panties

Claim 1

In an apparatus for the automatic manufacture of a reinforced, peripherally contoured fabric blank adapted to be folded over and sewn to form a finished panty, a fixed substantially cylindrical support, a turret rotatably mounted coaxial with the fixed support, plurality of work stations disposed in circumferentially spaced relation around the turret, a plurality of turret arms individually extending radially from the turret at circumferentially spaced positions therealong, means for cyclically indexing the turret to individually position the outer ends of the respective turret arms in registration with the respective work stations, a movable conveyor having an output end terminating at a first one of the work stations, means for loading, onto the input end of the conveyor, a spaced succession of first blank-forming fabric segments each having a peripheral surface larger than the periphery of the contoured blank to be manufactured, means for advancing a reinforcing strip onto the conveyor below and in contact with the lower surfaces of the first segments so that the reinforcing strip is advanced on the conveyor with the first segments, means associated with the conveyor for sewing the edges of the reinforcing strip to the overlying portions of the first segments to reinforce the first segments as the latter and the reinforcing strip advance on the conveyor, associated with the conveyor for cutting the reinforcing strip intermediate the reinforced segments to separate the reinforced segments from the remainder of the reinforcing strip, fabric segment holder means individually rotatably supported on the outer ends of the respective turret arms for receiving and capturing the successive reinforced first segments from the output end of the conveyor, the holder means having a first lower plate and a second cooperating upper plate for selectively capturing the received first segment therebetween, the first and second plates having contoured peripheries corresponding to the contour of the blank to be manufactured whereby an outer area of the captured first segment projects beyond the peripheral surface of the first and second plates, means carried by the turret for rotating each holder means within the associated arm over a prescribed angle as the turret is indexed into prescribed successive second ones of the work stations following the first work station to expose different portions of the holder means periphery to the successive second work stations, and contour sewing machine means operatively disposed at each of the successive ones of the second work stations and cooperable with the then-exposed portion of the holder means periphery for cutting away the associated region of the projecting outer area of the captured first segement and for forming edge seams on said first segment along the periphery of the then-exposed portion of the holder means periphery.