Tufting?
The term “tufting” comes from English, meaning roughly “decorated with tufts,” and refers to a process of creating three-dimensional textile surfaces. The process originates from old European craftsmanship of embroidering rugs.
Tufting is defined as the act of a needle punching through a backing material in the form of a loop. Depending on loop heights, these loops can add texture, dimension, and, if cut, the “cut pile” can add a velvet like appearance to the tufted area.
The tufted rug is then spread with an adhesive & backed with a secondary backing.
What is the difference in tufting guns?
There are many types of tufting guns on the market, but the diffence lies mainly in the following primairy characteristic.
- Height of the pile
- Cut or loop
Other characteristics to consider are tufting speed, the weight of the gun and the finishing.
Pile Height
Electrical machines are perfect for the average rug with piles upto 21 mm, but air-driven machines create higher piles.
Cut or loop
A cut plie machine includes a small scissor that runs trough the needle, it cuts the loop after tufting it through the fabric. A loop pile machine, just leaves it as a loop. As it does not cut, you will have to manually cut it after each lane of tufting.
Some machines do both, and allow you to deactivate/remove the scissors from the machine.
Cut Pile
A Cut pile tufting gun has a scissor embedded inside the needle of the gun. The small scissor will push forward and automatically cuts the yarn when it is being pushed though the tufting cloth creating short tufts of yarn.
Here at Roy Rugs, we mainly use a Cut Pile tufting gun as it’s beginner-friendly and allows easy handling of the yarn. No prior experience is necessary.
Loop Pile
The Loop pile gun is often referred to as low pile height. The loop pile machine will create loops instead of open frayed yarn that the cut pile offers. For a loop pile, you’ll notice it’s an ongoing weave look as the yarn is not being cut by the gun. Instead, when you wish to start a new line, you’ll need to manually cut the yarn with a pair of scissors before starting. Otherwise it might get tangled and messy or even pull off the entire line of yarn from the fabric.
