BTMA - British Textile Machinery Association

Acknowledged as having pioneered many of the major advances that have taken place within the carpet industry, Cobble Blackburn remains a world leader in the design and production of tufting technology.

The company’s range of tufting machines and associated pattern attachments meet a variety of needs, whether the emphasis is on speed or design potential, or both.

Both the ST series and Pantera machines offer high flexibility and accuracy, and in conjunction with sophisticated pattern attachments enable customers to achieve creative end products with which they can distinguish themselves on the market.

Advanced control systems give carpet manufacturers sophisticated monitoring and control for improved efficiency. 

Cobble machine control systems offer the operator a Windows-based user friendly interface, with access based on a security control regime. Key features include event and error logging, a simplified front end design system and an online help facility.

The latest Electra five pile height servo scroll represents a major advance on the well-established low profile scroll attachment. The use of servo drives to provide ramping functionality for each pile height has considerably opened up design capabilities. The clutches used on the machine are electromagnetic, self-adjusting, maintenance free and individually removable from the unit for visual inspection.

Sampling area

Cobble has upgraded its Sampling Centre, which has involved major changes both in terms of machine sampling capability and also the area’s aesthetic appeal. Designed to effectively house a permanent display of the latest developments alongside existing tufting technology, the centre provides full machine demonstration facilities and can meet any carpet sampling needs. All the machines and attachments are servo controlled.

Housed within the Sampling Centre, and equipped with the latest textile design technology, the company’s three design studios give visitors a  ‘hands-on’ opportunity to work on various design systems.

Features of the systems include the ability to realistically simulate carpet texture on screen and produce high quality printed proofs, eliminating the requirement to physically produce every design.

Gauge Division

At Cobble’s Gauge Division, needles, hooks, loopers, knives and reed fingers are precision produced, each one individually inspected. The division is constantly looking for new parts or systems which will produce better end products and simplify machine maintenance for customers.

Recent plant investment has included additional automation in machine tools, inspection equipment and improved moulding techniques. The division has focused on tungsten products, needle design, locator systems and knife blocks, while investigations into new materials to extend gauge life and resist corrosive effects are ongoing. A Tungsten Tip Patch module has been successfully launched, offering a number of major benefits such as superior bonding, accuracy and strength. Separately, needle locator modules for Double Sliding Needle Bars are now available which give fixed module protrusion, resistance to module tilting and allow for point-to-point setting.

Cobble in China

Cobble Blackburn now has a factory for tufting and Axminster weaving equipment located at Suzhou, 75 kilometres from Shanghai.

With the new plant, opened in 2008, Cobble became the first major tufting machine supplier to manufacture equipment in China. It is producing components and machinery for the   Chinese  market.

“The Suzhou factory demonstrates our commitment to the Chinese carpet industry,” says Cobble president Geoff Hemingway. “We are excited at the potential offered by the new Chinese plant, and we confidently expect to outgrow it within five years or less.”

The Suzhou operation is a wholly owned Cobble subsidiary, housed in a brand-new, purpose-built factory, with 2,200 square metres of production space and 800 square metres of space for offices, labs and engineering. It will ultimately employ up to 70 people.

The company’s track record in selling to Chinese customers extends back more than 30 years, and the installed base over that period has included some 400 tufting machines, as well as 50 Crabtree Axminster machines, making it the leading supplier of top-technology carpet manufacturing equipment in China.

Global operations

Cobble has established a further subsidiary company in the UK which designs and engineers high-tech and robotic machinery for the automotive, aerospace, nuclear and iron and steel industries.

The firm, AMTRI Cobble, uses Cobble’s main UK plant in Blackburn for the manufacture of its designed products.

The Blackburn plant also continues to manufacture Cobble’s high-end tufting machines – scroll, level cut loop and complex servo-based types for international markets.

Cobble’s US plant, at Dalton, Georgia, manufactures its own range of machines, including LCL and scroll types and the Colortec multi-colour patterned tufting technology.

The full Cobble Blackburn production range now includes:

• The Sprint high speed (2,000 rpm) loop pile machine
• The Pantera high speed  cut or loop pile machine
• ST series tufting machines
• Level cut loop/FRS patterning
• Multi-roll loop patterning
• Full repeat scroll systems
• Electra servo scroll
• LP111 scroll
• Colortec full repeat patterning in cut pile
• Product samples
• Pattern attachments
• Cobble scroll systems
• Tufting gauge parts
• Multi-media control systems
• Stop control systems
• Stitch placement
• Servo control options