13 things to ensure while cutting

Cutting Room Procedures ( Image Source)

 1. Knife guard should be adjusted according to the height of the lay.

2. The correct position of the blade, its sharpness and the reciprocating speed of the machine should be ensued.

3. Cut the lay of fabric by propelling the cutting machine on the marking line with accuracy.

4. Projections for each pattern section should be provided to facilitate the sorter in numbering the cut sections.

5. Provide notches at appropriate places with required depth.

6. Mark the position of pockets, embroidery, logo etc. by drilling small hole through the lay with correct drill bit .

7. Frayed, serrated, fused or scorched edges, ripped or pulled yarns, overcut and undercut should be avoided while cutting.

8. On Bend knife machine, use ready patterns aided by appropriate fixtures for carrying out precision cutting.

9. Sections which need to be cut individually (e.g. checks to be aligned in the front panel) are to be respread and folded by aligning the checks/stripes.

10. Use appropriate fixtures to ensure the matching of the folded sections.

11. Discard the cut scrap into the caster bins positioned near the table.

12. Tie the cut lay along the cut sections of the master marker in a bundle.

13. Erase the splicing and the end marks after the spread is cut and bundled.

Safety Instructions in Handling Cutting

a. Areas near cutting tables should be clearly marked, and their access restricted should be restricted by barriers.

b. On motorised and automatic cutting tables the warning signals should be fitted to indicate when blade is in motion.

c. The machine ideally should be fitted with automatic adjustable guards to fully cover the exposed part of the cutting blade.

f. The five finger chain blades should be available to all the operator working on knife and should be worn on all times during cutting work.

g. There should be a regular check on the condition of the light, guard, and table fittings.

h. Only fully trained operatives should be allowed to work on knives.

i. The operators' standards should be checked against the published operating practice on a regular basis and should be corrected wherever a deviation is found.

j. There should be an effective cleaning system in operation that prevents build up of fluff, fly and off cuts, thus reducing fire, health & trip hazards?

A complete of list of safety measures can be found here


For those who want to go in for technical details they can click here for round knife and here for straight knife .

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8 Things to Remember While Spreading Fabric

Things to remember While Spreading

1.      Mark the Splice Zone on the Spreading Table

Spreading is an operation in which bolts of fabrics are unrolled on a table in such a way in order to produce a multi-layer stack, so as to facilitate cutting.

Fabrics usually contain many defects. The defects in pieces which are cut into patterns are highly undesirable. To avoid this, the spreading operator must identify and cut out defects as the material is being spread on the table. However, if the material is cut in the mid of the pattern, it will lead to more material wastage.

To avoid this, zones are defined called splice zones, where cuts can be made by the spreading operator. Also it is also required to decide about the overlap of the next section of cloth. Thus there are two lines in a splice zone: One line shows how far the previous piece of cloth must extend, and one line shows where the next piece of the cloth must begin, ie how much overlap is needed.

Thus when a flaw is encountered, the spreader is stopped, the operator moves back to the nearest splice point, cuts the flaw out and moves the spreader back to overlap the cut line with the required overlap.

Apart from cutting out defects, splices are also used to achieve proper shade matching when starting a new roll of cloth.

Thus the splicing points are marked by means of a chalk or paint.

2.      Use Paper for the first ply in case the table surface is rough or when fine fabrics are being spread

3.      Identify the defects noticed in the fabric by means of stickers

4.      Use lubricated paper for separating layers

a.       To prevent scorching in the natural fibers ( coarse fabrics)

b.      To prevent fusing in the synthetic fabrics

5.      Ensure that decided number of ply count and height of the spread is achieved.

6.      How to spread

a.       Mount the bolt on the machine

b.      Pull the fabric to far end position

c.       Position the fabric at the far end ( with our without weight or pins)

d.      Align the ply ( width on one side)

e.       Cut the ply after each lay

f.       Repeat this process from b-e until the entire bolt is spread.

g.      Check ply count

h.      Repeat a and then b to g till the decided number of ply are spread

i.        Mark the remnants of the bolts with length in meters and bolt number and stack separately at the given place.

7.      How to Splice

a.       When the ends of the patterns in a marker are joined on both sides by straight line then use the single line splicing. Make sure that overlapping at this point should be about 2”

b.      When the ends of the patterns in a marker interlock at a common vertical line across the width then use two line marking with a diagonal indicating common area that must be overlapped when patterns in a marker interlock at a common vertical line across the width.

8.      When the required height of lay is achieved, place the marker on the spread and secure it by means of brass pins on each pattern section.

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Additional Reading: Indian Textile Journal

fabric spreading

Please refer to this link

Spreading methods

Please refer to the link here