Braiding
Braid in France

We have one of the most modern workshops in Europe dedicated to braiding all types of textile articles.

Braiding consists in creating a flat or circular textile structure, depending on the machine used. The braid is obtained by interweaving wires that run diagonally to the longitudinal direction.

Spools of thread or "bobbins" are arranged on a support called a "spindle", which rotates the threads. Each spindle moves inside a sinusoidal guideway machined on the machine table. We can produce 3 types of braid: tubular braid, round braid or flat braid.

The tubular braid is made up of an even number of spindles, half of which turn to the right and the other half to the left. The interweaving of these spindles creates a textile tube. We use between 16 and 96 spindles to produce our tubulars. Tubular products are hollow.

This is the same manufacturing process as for a hollow tubular, except that this time we add a core to the product: we fill the void in the center of the braid by adding either rigid wire (to make our cords, laces, cords, piping, etc.), or taut elastic wire (to make a bungee cord), or an item we want to sheathe (electrical wire, hydraulic hose, pipe, etc.).

This is achieved by a platter trajectory that is not circular but rather horseshoe-shaped, with an odd number of spindles turning alternately in one direction and then the other. The process is in fact the same as when we make a plait in a little girl's hair (the design of which corresponds to a 3-spindle braid), but can be made more complex by crossing many more spindles. At STN, we use machines with up to 41 spindles.