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  Carpets fall into two types: woven – that is Axminster and Wilton – and Tufted. The fundamental difference between them is that in the case of woven the pile and the backing are manufactured simultaneously. With tufted, yarn is fed into a primary backing; and anchor coat is applied to hold the tufts in place, and then a secondary backing is added for stability. This process of gluing backing layers together can potentially give rise to delaminating problems in tufted carpets installed in high-traffic areas. A woven Axminster carpet physically cannot delaminate, as the warp and weft strands holding the pile yarn in place combine to create a 3-dimensional structure.In the Axminster weaving process tuft yarn is inserted during the weaving of the backing, which generally consists of jute weft (running across the width of the loom) and polyester warp (threads running along the length). Axminster always has a velvet surface finish. (With Wilton, the pile yarn is a continuous warp thread, which is only surfaced as it is required in the carpet pattern – greatly Increasing yarn consumption relative to Axminster, which is reflected in the cost being almost twice that of a similar quality Axminster).  Each tuft is the shape of a “U”, and is held in place by the weft. Carpets have a coat of latex applied to the backing during finishing, which increases tuft anchorage and dimensional stability.Two types of Axminster production exist: Spool and Gripper (also know as jacquard). Antrim Carpets only employ this method. The manufacturing system, which Antrim employs in the mill, is fully computerised, using the most modern electronic jacquard processes in Europe. This computerisation system allows for virtually unlimited design repeats.  Gripper Axminster: the gripper process avoids the need for spool setting, and thus more economical for shorter production runs. We produce both broadloom 3.66 (12feet) and contract looms narrow, 0.91 (3’0”) wide, gripper looms.The pile yarns are fed from the bobbins into carriers, one for each lengthwise course of tufts. Each carrier, consisting of a thin metal strip, has up to 12 holes through which the ends of the individual coloured yarns project. The carriers are moved up and down by means of a computerised signal to align all the yarns for a particular row at the same level at the same time. At this point the “grippers”, cut to length, and inserted through the warp to be secured by the weft. |
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