Extracts from the book “Woven Fabric Production - II.”
published by the NCUTE, giving the technical information
about weaving, for the benefit of the members.)
(continued from Issue No. 02)

Terry Loom

4.3.2 Terry Fabric with Cut and Opened Pile Loops (velour)

These fabrics are produced by shearing off the tips of the loops, so that the fiber tufts protrude from the ground. Compared with loop terry, this varitey has still softer handle, better heat retention and absorbency. Nowadays the greater part of terry fabrics are produced with buckled loops.

A terry towel, frequently referred to also as Turkish towel, is a pile fabric. Terry towelling fabric is therefore an important sector of the pile fabric industry. The production of terry structures requires special mechanisms and two warp beams. Of the two warp beams one is required for the ground weave and the other for the pile effect. The warp beam for the ground weave is usually located in a loom under the one required for the pile weave and is therefore referred to as the bottom beam.

The warp threads in the bottom beam are kept under the normal tension used in weaving. The warp threads in the top beam, for the pile yarn, are tensioned lightly so as to enable them to readily respond to the formation of pile loops in the cloth. In the formation of a terry fabric, both the ground and pile warp threads interlace with the weft threads. The terry motion or mechanism can be adjusted to produce terry fabric with pile loop on the upper side of the fabric, the lower side of the fabric or on both sides of the fabric, whichever of these three possibilities is desired.

4.4 Types of Terry Pile Structures

Loops are formed by an arrangement which allows the loose-reed to go back for a definite number of picks and leaves a space between the last pick in a given repeat and the first pick in the next repeat. When the reed beats up, the pile warp is drawn forward and the loops are formed over or below the cloth surface. This kind of fabric is classified as 3, 4, 5 or 6-pick terry fabric according to the number of picks inserted to form one series of loops.

4.4.1 Basic terry pile structure

The terry pile is a class of warp pile structure in which certain warp ends are made to form loops on the surface of the cloth. Only one series of weft threads is used, but, as stated above the warp consists of two series of threads, the ground and the pile. The loops may be formed on one side only or on both sides of the cloth thus producing single-sided and double-sided structures respectively. These possibilities are shown in Figure 4.3. Any of the pile thread may alternate between the face and the back of the cloth for the
purpose of ornamentation.

A schematic diagram of a face-sided (A) and a back-sided (B) continuous terry structure gives the idea of a pile thread alternating between the face and the back, and hence the formation of pile stripes, as shown in Figure 4.4. The ornamentation can be carried further by having two differently coloured sets of threads which alternate between the face and the back of the cloth thus forming coloured stripes (D). The same principle is followed in the production of small motifs on the cloth.