Cable Web
The most popular web now made up into men’s garters is what is known as the cable web, shown at Fig. 9. With the pronounced prominence of the two-dent rib, which gives it a character peculiarly different from the plain web, it is well adapted to this class of goods. Simple in appearance, it nevertheless requires special care to manufacture, particularly when we remember that it is not unusual to be required to make a finished stretch of not less than 100 per cent. The harness draft and weave are shown at Fig. 9A. The construction is as follows: Binder, 34 ends 80/2; Gut, 24 ends 20/2; Rubber, 18 ends 28s; Reed, 20 dent; Picks, 80 per inch; Stretch, 100 per cent.
The filling, floating across the wide spaces under which lie the rubber threads in pairs, is very easily thrown out of place, the result of which may be an unsightly seersucker appearance, as shown in Fig. 10, which the process of finishing aggravates rather than corrects.
Trouble may manifest itself by the filling over the ribs opening up and allowing the gut threads to prick through. To prevent this objectionable feature it is necessary to use a good quality of moderately soft yarn for the gut, not necessarily of high grade stock, but a yarn which is uniformly spun and not at all hard or wiry. As these goods are being woven and on full stretch, the gut threads, of course, are perfectly straight and accurate in line, but when contraction takes place, to probably one-half the former length, these heavy threads, which form probably about 25 per cent. of the weight of the entire web, should bend or fold uniformly and dispose of themselves in such a manner as not to appear in any way on the face of the web, snugly housed away in the several pockets or cavities. If the yarn composing these gut threads is spotty or irregularly spun, this uniformity of fold inside the pockets will be broken up and the appearance of the face of the goods is likely to be marred by unsightly specks of cotton pricking through, which can be both seen and felt.