Importance

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Abstract

Fast-moving eyelet guide for use on a braiding machine, such as a Wardwell braiding machine having a lower carrier mounting track with a plurality of carriers movable along the track. Each carrier holds a spool of strands with a guide clamped onto the carrier. The guide includes a pair of spaced parallel guide rods with a very lightweight spool-shaped eyelet mounted for free movement up and down while remaining captured between these parallel rods. The strands are threaded through and carried by the eyelet, and thus the strands are controlled by the eyelet and are kept closely together as a controlled group during their up and down movement along the parallel guide rods which avoids separation of the strands, thereby dramatically limiting the incidence of breakage of the strands. The invention is particularly useful in any braiding machine in which multiple strands or filaments are being payed off from each spool and the multiple strands are not twisted together and can easily become separated from each other, because the fast-moving eyelet holds these individual strands in a compact group less than one inch from the stationary deflector cam components of the braiding machine. Thus, the strands cannot easily separate from each other so as to snag and break.

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First Claim