Abstract: A tufting machine including a reciprocating needle bar carrying needles has a yarn jerker including a stationary adjustable yarn guide and a combination yarn jerker and threader carried by the needle bar. The jerker-threader has a substantially U-shape configuration with little mass offset from the needle bar. At least one arm of the jerker-threader is substantially parallel to the axis of elongation of the needles. The stationary guide has a leg which is also substantially parallel to the axis of elongation of the needle. The stationary yarn guide, the jerker-threader and the needles each have eyelets parallel to one another. The jerker-threader and the yarn guide are spaced apart by a relatively small distance and are offset one from the other. The construction permits the apparatus to occupy only a small amount of space in the tufting machine and has very little mass offset from the needle bar in comparison to prior yarn jerker systems.

Abstract: A tufting machine has a needle bar drive mechanism including a first shaft on which drive eccentrics are mounted for driving connecting rod means which reciprocate the needle bar push rods and thus the needle bar. A second shaft is mounted adjacent the first shaft and gears mounted on the respective shafts are in meshing engagement with each other so that upon rotation of one shaft the other shaft rotates in the opposite direction. Counterbalancing weights on the needle bar driving shaft are disposed 180.degree. out of phase with the reciprocation of the needle bar, and counterbalancing weights on the other shafts counterbalance the rotational forces of the needle bar driving shaft. The other shaft is drivingly rotated by the tufting machine motor and also carries the hook and knife drive eccentrics. The construction is such that the reciprocating and rotating forces are counterbalanced by the two shafts.

Abstract: A tufting machine has a needle bar shifter for moving the needle bar transversely of the direction of the movement of the backing fabric, a pattern cam determining the amount and frequency of the shifts. The cam is driven in timed relationship with the reciprocation of the needle bar at a cyclically variable speed. The drive for the cam includes an epicyclic gear arrangement having a constant speed input motion applied to the ring gear and an oscillatory motion applied to the planet gears. The output is taken at the sun gear and applied to the pattern cam. The same drive may also be used for driving the feed rollers to feed the base material at a cyclically variable speed when the needles are above the base material.