This invention relates to a device for the manufacture of Vykom type rope.
This device can be operated by a single coir worker for producing the Vykom type soft twist rope which is of great importance to the predominantly rural based coir industry of Kerala. Export quality coir products such as mats and mattings are made with this rope. The coir industry is concentrated in Allepey District in Kerala, providing employment to several lakhs of persons out of which a major portion are women.
Presently, the methods employed to make Vykom type rope are old and involve a large labour force with varying quality of the rope. The device proposed herein enables soft-twist rope of about 50 twist per metre to be made with consistently good quality from run to run.
The device proposed herein provides comfort and reduces drudgery to the worker who, otherwise would have to walk back and forth feeding coir fibre from the basket slung from the waist.
The measured specifications of one of the specimens of the rope that can be produced by the device proposed herein conform to accepted standards with an average twist of 50 per metre, runnage of about 230m/kg, and mean diameter 4.5mm. It has a productivity of maximum 6.5 metre of rope per minute. The proposed device is capable of producing the rope uninterruptedly with uniformly good quality. The finished rope is wound around a drum of 500m capacity.

The final trials of the proposed device were conducted and judged to be of superior quality.
The device for manufacturing Vykom type rope, according to this invention, comprises a pair of input feed rollers for axially pulling and twisting a pair of yarn strands converging at a predetermined included angle; a static twister through which the combined yarn passes for preventing it from untwisting; a twisting and pulling mechanism for giving a final twist to the yarn emerging from the static twister and pulling it out in its final form as a Vykom type rope, to be received by a whirling arm; a rotatable drum around which the whirling arm continuously winds the Vykom type rope; and a prime mover for driving the said device.
The device proposed herein will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings which illustrate, by way of example, and not by way of limitation, one of possible embodiments of this invention.
The embodiment is driven by a prime mover such as a motor and will be seen to have a pair of input feed rollers R for axially pulling and twisting a pair of yarn strands Y (of, the Vykom rope to be formed) converging at a predetermined included angle of 50 degrees. A static twister S through which the combined yarn V passes from the rollers R prevents the combined yarn from untwisting.

A twisting and pulling mechanism H gives a final twist to the yarn V emerging from the static twister and pulls it out in its final form as a Vykom type rope Q, which is received by a whirling arm W. Around a rotatable drum D the whirling arm continuously winds the Vykom type rope, the capacity of the drum being 500 metres for the embodiment illustrated. A prime mover, such as, a 1/2 HP AC electric motor drives the moving parts of the said device which operates at two different speeds by a variable speed drive. They are 750 and 950 rpm for the input rollers and corresponding 260 and 380 rpm for the twisting and pulling mechanism. These two combinations give productivity of 5 and 6.5 metres of rope per minute respectively.
The embodiment has been run non-stop for upto 1 hour and the rope output verified for consistency and uniformity of quality and specifications such as number of twists per metre.
The twisting and pulling mechanism is operated by a worm screw and gear. The rpm of the gears has been calculated to give a twist suitable for producing the Vykom type rope. The drum axis is also coaxial with the rope.
It will be appreciated that this invention is not confined to the embodiment described above and illustrated but that various other embodiments of the device proposed herein are possible without departing from the scope and ambit of this invention.

We Claim:
1. A device for the manufacture of Vykom type rope, comprising a pair of input feed rollers for axiaily pulling and twisting a pair of yarn strands converging at a predetermined included angle; a static twister through which the combined yarn passes for preventing it from untwising; a twisting and pulling mechanism for giving a final twist to the yarn emerging from the static twister and pulling it out in its final form as a Vykom type rope, to be received by a whirling arm; a rotatable drum around which the whirling arm continuously winds the Vykom type rope; and a prime mover for driving the said device.
2. A device as claimed in Claim 1 wherein the twisting and pulling mechanism consists of knurled rollers,
3. A device as claimed in Claim 2 wherein the twisting and pulling mechanism consists of a worm screw and worm gear for operating the knurled rollers, the said gears giving the requisite twist for obtaining the Vykom type rope.
4. A device as claimed in any one of the preceding Claims incorporating a variable speed drive.

5. A device for the manufacture of Vykom type rope substantially as herein described and illustrated in the accompanying drawings.