ITMA in Milan

Textiles go into everything. Not just the clothes you wear, but they are in your car, your home, medical products or in many things you might buy or use.

Every 4 years, ITMA or the International Textile Machinery Association runs one of the worlds largest trade fairs for this important industry. The fair moves from city to city, and this year it is in Milan, Italy.

New House was there because we design and manufacture yarn-breakage detection systems, designed to stop a creel if a yarn should break.

NHT -10 is an advanced optical system :

NHT-58 is a well-proven mechanical system that we have made for years :

These are a legacy from our knitting plant that we had from 1930's until the late 70's. My grandfather ran German Liba warp-knitting machines and needed to find new ways of handling the then latest man-made fibres. Today we still supply our systems to German or French original equipment makers, so it is great to see everyone at ITMA.

The Ascotex stand who is displaying our units :

A huge Jacquard carpet making machine :

Beams on an advanced Picanol weaving machine :

These devices are positive feeders that give a smooth flow of yarn to the airjet shuttles :

This weaving machine went at a tremendous rate of 3500 picks per minute, hence the crowd that gathered ;

It is well known that cellulose yarns like cotton become stronger and easier to weave when damp (that's why Manchester was such a center for cotton production). Here a steamer increases the air's humidity :

German Stoll is a famous brand of V-bed knitting machines. I took quite a few images as my Norwegian godfather used to run a plant of Stoll's , and was curious as to how they look these days :  

Dad on the Stoll stand ;

Next to each machine was a complicated knitted piece that the machine had made. As the show was in Italy, this one had a knitted pizza that took the machine around 30 minutes knitting time to create each slice : 

Karl Mayer bought Liba last year, and dominate warp-knitting machinery today :

 

When I was a school kid, I used to thread-up these machines in the same way that this technician is doing :

In creeling these are Karl Mayer tensioners. We developed something similar a few years ago, but never put the units into production. :

This manikin with her wonky paper lips is probably why you may not want textile machinery technicians doing your window dressing :

These are harnesses that control the heald-shafts of a loom. I think they are from a Jacquard by Bonas. :