One of the things that has kept Draper Knitting Company in business for 164 years, is the fact that we have many different capabilities under one roof.  This allows us to produce products for wide range of industries, the diversity is key to our success. In the last year, one of the things we’ve noticed is that many people have forgotten or didn’t know that we offer sticthbonded nonwovens – we aren’t just a high pile knitter.  So, in the next few newsletters, we’ll not only be profiling our wonderful employees, but also one of our capabilities.   

Stichbonded nonwovens offer a great way to use an expensive technical fiber in a material that is less costly to produce.  At first glance, these fabrics look like a knit, however no yarn is used to produce the material, only fiber! This allows us a great deal of flexibility in the combinations of fibers we can use.  We tailor the blend to specific requirements. In the next two steps, we produce a batt and then entangle the fibers mechanically.  

The end result is a material that has great stretch but no recovery, so it’s ideally suited to be used as part of a composite or multi-layer system.   These materials are a great choice for use as an insulating layer and we can craft it to meet a specific requirement for thickness, weight, flame resistance, thermal resistance and many other properties.  

These fabrics find their way into some unique and cool end items.  One of the Draper TechFleece™ nonwovens is used in this shoe worn by a participant in the 2019 Pennzoil Race.