Cutting department is an itegral part of the garment manufacturing process. In the cutting department (cutting section), fabric is cut by means of cutting machines. While someone is working in a garment factory, it is necessary to know the basic terminologies of the cutting department. In cutting room number of technical terms and trade terms are used to communicate processes, components, and tools.
In this article, I have made a list of these terms and explained those in the following.
Band knife: An endless blade vertical knife, around which the work is moved over the large cutting table.
Bias Cut: ‘Cut on the Bias’ – cut at an angle to both the warp and the weft of the cloth, at 45 degrees.
Baker’s Trolley: A wheeled rack used to transport sections of the lay from the cutting table to the band knife and from the band knife to the sorting operations.Block Cutting or Blocking out: Cutting roughly around a part which is subsequently cut very precisely, by various means. Also for splitting the lay, to assist handling to the band knife.
Bowing in fabric: A fault in woven cloth in which the weft is not straight across the piece but has a curve.
Clicker Press: Used for parts of intricate nature and repetitive, also for parts requiring a high degree of accuracy.
Cross: ‘Cut on the crosses – Cut at right angles to the grain of the cloth (On bias).
Damage fabric: A fabric fault. It may be generated during handling fabric inside the factory or faulty fabric sent the fabric supplier.
Die Cutting: This is acutting equipment used to cut garments components. This machine is used where accuracy is important and there is enough repetition.
End loss: The amount of fabric at the end of the lay that is not covered by the marker is called as end loss.
Face one way spreading: The face side of each ply faces the same way (up or down)
Face to face spreading: Method of spreading in which the cloth is alternately facing up or down, as a result of continuous to and fro movement of the roll over the lay.
Face to face one way spreading: Used for directional fabric where the pile (direction) is required to lie in the same direction on all the plies.
Read more about different modes of fabric spreading.
Layout (pattern layout): The geometrical layout of the pattern pieces in a garment, which is cut around to produce the parts of the garment.
Marker:
- A man who prepares the pattern layout and/or who marks the layout onto the lay or onto a paper or a cloth.
- A piece of paper, cloth etc. representing the layout.
Notch: A small cut into the part, which aids the location during assembly by indicating to the operator some requirement for matching with other notches or positions in the garment
On the fold: Method of finishing the cloth so that it is folded to half its width
Shading: Means colour in cloth. It is commonly used to imply that a particular bit/roll of cloth is different in shade from another bit.
Shade Numbering: Process of numbering parts to ensure they are of same shade. Shade numbering is normally done in fabric inspection stage. this is also called as Fabric Shade Grading.
Slubs: A local thick place in the yarn in a cloth usually caused by error but in some clothes it is introduced purposely. Slubs are considered as defects in a fabric if it is not a design. See the below image for slub in fabric.
 |
| Fig: Slubs in Fabric |
Related Articles:
Cutting room Overview
Cutting machinery and equipment for garment manufacturing