Fabric Cutting:
It is to some extent complicated to give exact definition of cutting. In garments industry, making of the garments parts by cutting of fabrics from the spread or lay of fabric accurately and fairly as per the drawing of the patterns, is called the cutting of fabrics. The job of fabric cutting is very much important, because if there is any mistake in fabric cutting, then it is difficult to get it rectified, even in some cases it may not be possible to rectify.
Requirements of Fabric Cutting:
In order to ensure that the parts of the garments are cut properly and fairly, it is necessary to full fill the following requirements as described:
a) Precession of cut: It is required to cut the correct parts of the garments as per the exact shape of the patterns. Because, if the parts of the garments are not cut in correct shapes, then the garments made after sewing of those parts will also not be in correct shape. Fabrics cutting for the parts of the garments with correct shape depends on the methods of fabrics cutting and sometimes it depends on the marker planning and its making. If the fabric is cut in manual method, then the right cutting of fabrics depends on the condition of cutter knife, skill of the cutting man and his attention to work. In case of dye cutting and computer controlled cutting, if the cutting machine is in good condition, then due to the procedural reason, right fabrics cutting is done.
b) Clean edge: After cutting of the fabrics, the end of the cut pattern should be clean and fair. It is required to keep observation so that yarns do not come out from the cut end and it is not rough. If there is no proper sharpness in the knife, then problem may happen.
c) Unfused edge: During the cutting of the parts of the garments from the fabric lay through the mechanical way, the friction of the cutting knife with the fabric creates heat. The amount of heat caused by friction is sometimes so high that the fabric along the cutting end may mett, specially in the fabrics where the amount of thermoplastic fiber is high. If the fabric is fused, the cutting ends may join with one another. As a result, it becomes very much difficult to separate them and even if they are separated, yarns come out along the cutting ends. Again sometimes, the fused polymers takes the shape of bids after cooling. Even after making of the garments, those bids remain and during wearing of the garments, they prickle in the body. In order to avoid such type of problems during cutting of fabrics, the arrangements for controlling of heat due to friction may be taken. For minimizing heat due to friction, cutting knife needs to be sharp, anti-fusion paper may be used, silicon lubricant may be used in the knife during cutting of fabrics, the height of the fabric lay may be reduced and the speed of the cutting knife may be reduced.
d) Support of the lay: How will be the surface of the table on which fabrics lay will be cut, is related to the cutting method. The surface of the cutting table needs to be able to support the weight of the fabrics lay and during cutting of the fabrics it is to be ensured so that the bottom most ply of the fabric is cut at the same time during the cutting of the fabrics. Otherwise various problems may arise.
e) Consistent cutting: In whatever methods or in whatever machines the fabrics are cut, there must have consistent cutting. Specially the shape of the cutting of all the parts from top to bottom layer, should be of same shapes. For the reason of mechanical or of manual methods, there may have inconsistent cutting. This may also happen due to lack of skill or negligence.
Methods of Fabric Cutting:
Metal blade or knife is used for fabrics cutting since hundreds of years. Study has been done since last fifty years on the question whether fabric can be cut in any other than using the metal knife and some methods have already been developed which have been discussed in this article. The use of metal knife is still in practice on a large scale for cutting of fabrics in garments industries all over the world. As the fabric is cut with metal blade, it becomes necessary to sharpen and to change the blades time to time.
During cutting of fabrics with metal blade, any cutting dust or powder of fabric do not come out but during cutting of wood with saw, along the line of cutting there comes out the dust of wood and also a gap of measuring to the thickness of the saw is created. But during the cutting of fabrics no such gap is created and during cutting of fabric the fabric layers go away in two sides due to the pressure of the blade and as soon as the blade proceeds cutting the fabric forward, the fabrics from two sides regain its earlier status. The methods which are being used presently for cutting of fabrics are listed and discussed in previous article.
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