Note : Les descriptions sont présentées dans la langue officielle dans laquelle elles ont été soumises.
Netting Having a Stitched Base Net
The present invention relates to a camouflage netting
having a base net, i.e. a flexible netting consisting of a base
net and a so-called plastic foil and/or -tex-tile trimming
material attached thereto, said trimming material at least
having a camouflaging effect against visual detection but even
a~ains-~ infrared reconnaissance as well as9 if desired, against
radar reconnaisance. Said trimming material can consist of a
con-tinuous foil or fabric with or without holes or incisions or
of separa-te loose foil or fabric patches. The trimming
material can, for example, consist of a continuous foil having
so-called leaf cutting according to the known Ru-ter patent
(mutually correspondirlg Swedish patent 19~ 025, German patent
1 088 843, US patent 3 069 796 and others) or camouflaging
per~orations in the form of numerous round or oval holes.
The word "sheet" used below relates to all kinds of foil
or foil-like material such as textile fabric or the like.
; "Fabric" relates to all kinds of natural or synthetic fiber
material such as woven fabric, knitted fabric, pile and felted
material. The word "felted" relates to all kinds of fabrics
which are not woven, knitted, crocheted or in any other manner
consist of threads (yarn~ i.e. which do not form a more or less
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regular pat-tern so as -to Eorm a continuous ~abric. Rather,
they essentially consist of fibers or pieces of -thread in
irregular orientation 9 said fibers or pieces of thread being
bonded to each other by means of friction, binder, heat treat-
ment (plastic welding and the like) and~or o-ther similar
manners whereby, if desired, several such bonds can be used
simultaneously with eacll other, normally bonding by means of
both gluing and friction. The expression "auxiliary seams"
relates to a seam which is not intended to fasten together
fabrics and the like or pieces of fabric.
For various reasons, most camouflage sheets are provided
with a base net. In certain cases, camouflage sheets without a
base net or having a reinforcement in the form of a base net or
mesh embedded in the sheet are suitable. However, the present
lS invention does not relate to such sheets.
The attachment of the trimming material to the base net
is a well~known problem which has been solved in various
manners. A camouflage sheet and base net shall be able to be
dragged over uneven terrain containing sharp s-tone blocks, tree
2 n stumps, sharp pieces of ice and the like, and shall also be
able to be drawn over objects which are to be camouflaged and
which have projecting edges, etc. These and other factors -
entail that great demands must not only be placed on the
camouflaging sheet as such, but especially on the a-ttachment of
the trimming material to the base net, especially if the
trimming material - which is almost always the case - shall be
and is provided with incisions (leaf cutting or the like~ or
; holes or intermedia-te spaces between separate trimming material
~ patches. Furthermore, the trimming material and the base net
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usually consist o~ different materials, for example polyvinyl
chloride and polyes-ter~ respectively.
It is previously known to fasten the trimming material
to the base net by means of gluing, welding, metal clamps and
by means of knotting or "sewing" the trimming material to the
base net by means of a single needle wire in such a manner that
it forms a helix around a base net thread and the trimming
material portion,fastened to the same. This type of attachment
is more or less similar to stitch -types 205, 214 or 306
according to Swedish standard SIS 85 01 01, proposal of April
10 1977, edition 1, which corresponds to an international
standard proposed under No. 15 by ISO, Technical Committee 38,
Subcommittee 10 (standard class 687) and to British standard
BS 3870:1965 a~d the standards of several other countries.
When describing different types of sti-tches, reference is made
below to said s-tandard which both describes and illustra-tes
stitch types and thread guiding patterns.
Often, the need arises for a camouflage sheet and base
net in which the sheet does not have -to be used very many times
or does not have to have a long life span, that is, it does not
have to be removed from and drawn onto the object to be
camouflaged very many times. Such cases are very common and do
not require any further explanation. In such casesg the usual
camouflage sheets having strong, external or embedded base nets
are both unnecessarily expensive and unnecessarily heavy~ said
latter factor being of special importance in those cases in
which the sheet shall be carried for a longer period of time or
under di~ficult outer conditions (difficult terrain, over ice,
etc.) or in cases in which it shall be discarded after use.
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Ihe present invention makes it posslble to create a light and inex-
pensive camouflage netting for these and other purposes.
In accordance with the invention there is provided camouflage net-
ting having a base net and a camouflaging trimming material attached to the
same, said trimming material consisting of natural and/or synthetic textile
material, characterized in that the base net consists of unravellable auxiliary
seams which are stitched across the trimming material and opening in the same.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention there is provided
method of manufacturing a camouflage netting consisting of a base net onto
which a camouflaging, sheet-formed trimmning material is attached, character-
i~ed in that sturdy unravellable auxiliary seams are stitched across the trim-
ming and openings in the same so as to form the base net.
Quite simply, the invention can be said to entail that instead of
being stitched or tied onto a base net in a known manner, the trimming materi-
al is provided with so-called auxiliary seams in more or less the same manner
as quilted ("stitched") textile products, said seams being such that they
simultaneously function as a base net.
An embodiment of the invention is iLlustrated in the drawing which
shows a camouflage sheet with auxiliary seams which function as a base net.
In the embodiment illustrated the trimming material 2 of a camouflage
sheet 1 consists of a thin, felted sheet (as defined above) of polypropylene
or polyester fibers spin-bonded with binder bonds. The fibers are suitably of
different colors and intermixed with each other, and the sheet is suitably pro-
vided with, for example, a sprayed-on camouflage pattern. The camouflage
sheet 1 is continuous, but sli*ted in many places with a leaf cut pattern 4
according to Ruter. Said trimming material can, in a known manner, also be
prepared for infrared camou~lage and radar camouflage according to United
States patent 3,733~606, German patent 2,151,349 and others, the electric
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sur:fac~ res:istance re(~ i.rcd by sa:id patents (the resistance measured between
two parallel side edges of a square surface piece of arbitrary size) being
the :finished slit and/or punched -trimming material's radio frequency resist-
ance for radar frequencies (wavelengths below approximately 20 or 15 cm).
Thus, naturally, the trimming fabric has a lower resistance than desired prior
to its being slit or the like.
Auxiliary seams 3 are stitched across said trimming material 2, said
auxiliary seams 3 being seams which are essentially
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not intencled to fas-ten a fabric -to any-thing else, nor to itself
by means o~ For example., hemming. Such seams are stitched at
a suitable distance from each other and in different directions
so that they cross each o-ther and form a square or rectangular
grid pattern or a pa-t-tern composed of -triangles, in the latter
case 7 i desired, in such a manner that an apparen-t hexagonal
pa-t-tern composed of triangles is obtained. Other patterns are -.
also feasable in special cases~
Depending on the size of the camouflage sheet and the
nature of the trimming material and -the stitching thread (yarn),
-the distance between two consecutive~ non-intersecting seams in ~
square or rectangular or rhombic seam patterns can be selected .:
between approximately ~ and approximately 50 centimeters, .
suitably between 7 and 15 centimeters, in which case the side :
length of the squares or lozenges and the longitudinal length
of the rectangle should lie within the same dimensional range.
In -the majority of cases, rectangles of approximately 8 -times
12 cm are very suitable. In the e~ent of three seam directions
ir~ triangular patterns, the side leng-th of equila-teral triangles
and the longest side length for non-equilateral triangle~
should be selected within the above-mentioned range.
As the camouflage sheet should most often be rather large ~ -
and preferably be able -to be manufactured in long webs, the
seams cannot consist of any arbitrary stitch type. Fur-thermore,
the seams shall meet with other demands or at least desires.
For reasons of, i.a.~ manufacture, but not solely for said
reasong seams having underthreads (shuttle threads) are often
less desirable. The seams may not be unravelled. Above all 9
they should be able to be stitched across the heavily slitted,
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so[-t an(i t~lerewith limp -~rimming fabric - which ~here~ore
canno-t be -to-tally flaL over its en-tire surface during the
sti-tching operation ~ without giving rise -to -the risk of inter-
rupting said s-ti-tc}ling operation. When it comes to this kind
of trimming material~ one must especially bear in mind that -the
seam shall also ex-tend througll -the openings in -the trimming
ma-terial and, thus 9 must be able to be s-titched "through air'l.
Furthermoreg the seam, like the actual seam thread (the yarn),
must meet with rather great demands concerning durability,
light and wea-ther resis-tance~ etc.~ in more or less the same
manner as a conventional base net in known camouflage nettings.
An especially suitable seam consists of a three-thread
or~ if desired, two-thread chain-stitch seam of monofilament of
polypropylene or polyester or dark~ preferably black, polyamide
(undied or light polyamide does not have sufficient light
resistance)~ said seam no-t having any shuttle thread. The
separate threads can have a diameter of approximately 0.L~-0.~
mm. Spun or -twis-ted threads (mul-tifilaments) can also be used.
In such a case~ -they shoulcl have a somewha-t larger diameter
than monofilament for the same camouflage sheet~ unless -the
required rigidity of the seams9 said rigidity not being allowed
to be to great or -too low depending on the case, becomes too
low.
Other suitable stitch types are -those in stitch classes
2~ 100 (simple chain stitch), 3no (shuttle stitch) and L~00 (two
or multi-thread chain stitches) according to the above-mentioned
standard. However~ i-t s]-lould be observed tha-t sti~tches
according to class 300 are shuttle stitches requiring under-
threads (bobbin threads) and, i.a., a more complicated sewing
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machine than stitches not }~aYing any underthreads. When
stitching large -trimming fabrics which are very limp due to
heavy folding andt or other reasons, it can be more ra*io~al
or even necessary -to rnove the sewing machine or its operative
portion in relation to the trimming material fabric~
The invention can also be used for a trimming material
consisting of numerous separate loose patches of fabric or
plastic foil or other sheet material. Unless special measures
are taken 9 it would be very difficult and require grea-t skill
to produce a camouflage sheet according to the invention having
such trimming material. Said problem can be solved according
to the following.
The trimming patches are fas-tened, preferably glued~
onto paper in -the desired arrangement, after which the seams
an be stitched in more or less the same manner as lf the
trimming material were continuous. The paper can be of a very
inexpensive kind and of such quality tha-t it can either be
easily torn away or dissolved after -the camouflage net-ting has
been finished, or by means of it wearing itself out as the
camouflage netting is used, in which latter case -the paper
should be provided with a camouflaging pa-ttern or have a
camouflaging or environmentally neutral color~ that is, a
color approximately similar to -the environments (-terrains)
average color (for example~ gray-green or, in desert areas,
khaki). Known machines exist which are suitable for attaching
loose paper or fabric patches onto a support in a desired
arrangement.
If desired, a plastic film of easily-destroyed plastic
can be used instead of paper. Alternatively, thin, rather
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:loose -tex-tile pi:le suc~l as ~,auze or loose chiffon can be usedO
T)le mesh wid-th can be greater than in cus-tomary gauze~ chiffon
or similar -tex-tile material. Such a woven fabric does not
necessarily have to be removed after the manufacture of the
sheetO Rather~ it can be of such a quality -that i-t does no-t
impair the camouflaging effect and, to the extent the woven
fabric is worn out during use a can even inhance the camouflaging
effect by means of being -tattered during and due to the
camouflaging netting being put to its purpose.
Finally, i-t is also possible to a-ttach loose trimming
material patches at a desired mutual distance from each other
on-to a cord (yarn) or band. If a larger number of such bands
or a single :Long flat meanderingly-folded band is procluced,
said bands or straight band portions, respectively~ can be
connected to each other by means of stitching seams across the
same in the manner described above. These bands or cords can
then replace the auxiliary seams in one coordina-te direc-tion or
can alternatively be easily des-tructable~ if desired~ self-
destructable, as described above. In such a case, -they shall
be supplemented with seams according to -tha-t which has been
described above.
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