BELT HAVING CORRESPONDING FRONT AND BACK SURFACES

COURROIE A FACE ET REVERS DE MEME CARACTERISTIQUE

English Abstract

ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE
The present invention provides a belt and method of
making same formed from single strips of inner and outer
belting material folded upon themselves to provide identical
characteristics at both the front and back sides of the belt.

Claims

THE EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION IN WHICH AN EXCLUSIVE
PROPERTY OR PRIVILEGE IS CLAIMED ARE DEFINED AS FOLLOWS:
1. A belt having front and back sides formed from a first
single strip of material doubled upon itself and presenting a
single fold at a first edge and a pair of folds at a second
edge thereof, said belt being secured at said second edge to
hold said front and back sides together with one another and a
second single strip of fabric material also folded upon itself
interiorly of said first strip of material and secured thereto
at said pair of folds of said second edge of said belt.
2. A belt, as claimed in Claim 1, wherein said first
strip of material comprises a cloth fabric.
3. A belt, as claimed in Claim 2, wherein said second
strip of material comprises a non-woven felt fabric.
4. A belt, as claimed in Claim 1, including an adhesive
on said second strip of material folded upon itself to assist
in holding said front and back sides of said belt together with
one another.
5. A belt, as claimed in Claim 4, wherein said second
strip of material is somewhat porous to allow some penetration
of said adhesive to said first strip of material.

6. A belt, as claimed in Claim 4, wherein said first
strip of material is wider than said second strip of material
and wherein said adhesive extends into said pair of folds for
securing said pair of folds overlapping and adhesively securing
said second strip of material.
7. A method of making a belt having corresponding fabric
material outer and inner surfaces comprising folding a single
strip of the fabric material upon itself to provide a first
single fold at one edge region and a pair of free material
edges at the other edge region of the folded strip, folding the
free material edges inwardly upon themselves to provide side by
side second folds and securing the side by side second folds to
one another, said method further including fitting a fabric
lining of smaller width onto said strip of fabric which then
presents uncovered fabric margins to either side of said
lining, applying an adhesive to said lining and uncovered
margins, folding said margins to partially overlap and adhere
to said lining and then folding said strip and lining which
adheres to itself to shape said belt.
8. A method, as claimed in Claim 7, including stitching
said side by side folds to one another.
9. A method, as claimed in Claim 8, including
additionally stitching along said first single fold.

Description

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FIELD OF THE INVENTION
1 The present invention relates to a double thickness
belt and in particular a cloth belt having substantially
identical front and back side surfaces.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The standard construction for a cloth belt is to make
the belt wi-th characteristics which differ from the front to
the back of the belt. For instance, the most widely available
cloth belt is formed using a cloth material at the front side
of the belt and a relatively inexpensive plastic material at
the back or hidden side of the belt.
Unfortunately, when using dissimilar materials the
belt often does not have a high quality appearance and may be
subject to problems such as crimping where the backing material
does not have the same flex properties as the cloth front side
of the belt.
SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
The present invention provides a belt in which the
front and back sides are made of identical construction
overcoming the drawbacks discussed above. More particularly,
the present invention provides a belt having front and back
sides formed from single strips of inner and outer material
both pieces doubled upon themselves and presenting a single
fold at a first edge region and pair of folds at a second edge
region of the belt. The belt is then secured at the second
edge region to hold the front and back sides -together with one
another.

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1 The belt of the present invention due to its
corresponding construction at both the front and back sides or
faces not only has an extremely appealing appearance but in
addition has durability qualities not found in presently
available two piece standard belt constructions.
BRIEF DISCUSSION_OF THE DRAWINGS
The above as well as other advantages and features of
the present invention will be described in greater detail
according to the preferred embodiments of the present invention
in which;
Figures 1 and 2 are perspective and cross-sectional
views respectively of a standard prior art two piece belt
construction.
Figure 3 is a perspective view of a section of a belt
according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
Figure 4 is an end view of the belt construction of
Figure 3 and
Figures 5 through 7 show various assembly steps in
arriving at the belt construction of Figure 3.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION ACCORDING TO THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF
THE PRESENT INVENTION
The prior art belt shown in Figures 1 and 2 shows a
construction generally used in making cloth belts. This
construction comprises a forward cloth surface 1 and a

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1 plastic or paper like rear surface 5. The cloth wraps around
as indicated at 3 onto the rear surface 5 where the two pieces
are stitched together as indicated at 7.
Figure 3 shows a belt construction which is
particularly applicable to a cloth belt in accordance with the
present invention. In this construction the belt has a forward
cloth surface 13 as well as a rearward cloth surface 15 both of
which have identical inner liners giving the belt both a
uniform appearance and a consistent flex characteristic which
substantially enhances the life of the belt.
Before dealing with the entire belt construction
reference is had to, figures 5 through 8, showing the assembly
of the belt. The initial components used in the belts
formation are a single strip of cloth material 12 and a strip
of interior lining material 22. In the preferred form this
lining is of a felt like material which is readily deformable
without creasing as is the outer cloth material used in forming
the belt.
As seen in Figure 6 lining 22 is laid over the inner
surface of cloth strip 12 and the cloth strip being wider than
the lining presents margins or edge regions 18 and 20 to either
side of the lining. At this point an adhesive is applied over
the entire arrangement so as to cover both the lining and the
outer margins.
The next stage in the formation of the belt is to fold
the margins 18 and 20 onto the adhesive bearing edge surface of
liner 22 to provide a pair of folds 19 and 21 as seen in Figure
7. These folds are maintained in their secured positions

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1 because of the adhesive binding indicated at 27 and 29
respectively between the margins and the lining. Also, it
should be noted that some of the adhesive due to the porous
nature of the lining will seep through to the cloth fabric to
provide a further binding between the lining and the cloth to
the opposite side from the folds. However, the amount of glue
applied relative to the porousity of the liner is such that
there is no heavy flow of adhesive through the lining which
might otherwise rnark the cloth strip.
From the Figure 7 position the now assembled cloth
strip and inner lining are folded as shown in Figure 8 to
provide a single fold 17 at one edge surface of the shaped belt
with folds 19 and 21 aligning side by side with one another at
the other edge surface of the belt. At the center of the belt,
between its forward and rearward surfaces, the inner lining
adheres to itself to hold the belt in a position which then
allows it to be stitched as indicated at 31 in Figure 3 to hold
it in its assembled form. Additional sti-tching 33 is provided
at the other edge surface to give the belt a finished look.
In the completed version of the belt the two folds 19
and 21 are held so tightly against one another that without a
detailed examination of the belt they appear to present a
single fold edge consistent with fold 17 at the other edge of
the belt.
When the belt is fully constructed, as shown in Figure
3, it comprises forward and rearward fabric surfaces 13 and 15
respectively with forward and rearward inner lining surfaces 23
and 25 adding body to the belt.

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1 It will now be seen from the description above how a
belt constructed in accordance with the present invention is
made from a simple yet extremely efficient method to produce
identical surfaces at both the front and back sides of the belt
adding both to its appearance and to its durability. In
addition, although various preferred embodiments have been
described herein in detail, it will be appreciated that
variations may be made without departing from the spirit of the
invention or the scope of the appended claims.