Wire Guide Folder

pinshape

This is a custom tool that I designed for my work, a specialized folder used on a 1" double needle sewing machine to join two pieces of fabric together. The bottom piece, which is 2" wide, emerges from the folder flat and unchanged, while the top piece, 2 7/8" wide, forms a tent shape with turned-out edges as it exits the folder and gets sewn on both sides by the double needle sewing machine. This process involves a fabric puller attached to help pull the sewn piece as it's being sewn. A string is also pulled through the inside of the "wire guide" to be used for pulling wires through the finished part. Normally, we run 3-4 rolls of 600' material through this tool at a time. The final product is cut into various lengths ranging from a few inches to about twelve feet in length. This tedious process was previously done by a sewing machine operator using a single needle machine that sewed one side at a time. Now, thanks to this tool, the operator can focus on more pleasant and less tedious tasks, saving 60% of the time it takes to make the part. The tool shown in the picture is the actual production model, which has already produced over 15,000 feet of the sewn part without showing any signs of wear. The tool was designed at home using Autodesk 123D Design, sliced with Simplify 3D, and printed with a Flashforge Creator Pro using PLA filament. The all-black folder in the video and picture is actually a prototype that I tested; you can see that the cover was just taped to the upper base with duct tape for the test. I've taken this design and made modifications to it so that it can accommodate different widths of fabrics for other parts, some using narrower bottom pieces and others having narrower top pieces to produce smaller tent effects. Print Settings: Filament: PLA Layer Height: 0.2mm Infill: 20% Supports: Yes, dissolvable supports are a big plus with this print due to the narrow slots that the fabric has to pass through; it can be difficult to clean out without them. I didn't have dissolvable supports, so I made a little tool to fit in the slots to clean out the supports. Temperature: Extruder 200c Build Platform: 0c Print Speed: 63mm/s Videos: Prototype Folder and Folder Used in Production