A mechanical take down device in a circular, particularly double cylinder knitting machine. The device includes two circular parts, one being full and solid and fitting into the other part, while the fabric passes between them. One of the parts has a screw-threaded surface and the neighboring surface of the other part is circular in shape and its slant equals that of the screw-threaded surface. One of the parts does not rotate, while the other rotates and is coupled with the needle cylinder.
A takedown unit includes a set of takedown rollers arranged around tubular fabric hanging downward from a needle cylinder of a circular knitting machine. The takedown rollers rotate to draw down the hanging tubular fabric, and a floating guide mechanism is within and encircled by the hanging tubular fabric, so that the low-friction guide mechanism interacts with the high-friction takedown rollers to facilitate the drawing down of the fabric. A set of cams extends at least partially around the hanging fabric, and the cams and the takedown rollers are mounted to allow relative rotation therebetween, with the relative rotation being around the hanging fabric. Actuators are positioned for interacting with the cams in response to the relative rotation, so that the cams actuate the actuators which in turn rotate the takedown rollers.
A programmable system and method for dewrinkling, or removing wrinkles from, a hosiery article in a circular knitting machine comprise a dial head movable between a down position and an up position, a means for moving the dial head downward and upward, and a dial head locking mechanism for locking and unlocking the dial head. When the dial head is unlocked and moved to the up position, wrinkles are removed from the hosiery article. A dewrinkling system and method of the present invention are particularly well-suited for removing wrinkles from hosiery articles having thick cuffs, such as quarter socks.
