Abstract: A woven fabric and a method of forming a seam therein comprising a woven fabric as used for supporting a paper web on a paper making machine. The fabric has interwoven weft and warp strands with the strands in the machine direction being flexible strands incapable of retaining a stable crimp. The improvement in the fabric comprises a plurality of spaced apart replacement monofilament strands having stable crimp characteristics extending in the machine direction and in a seam area for interconnecting opposed ends of the fabric to form an endless belt having a seam which is substantially flat. The replacement strands have crimps of the same configuration as crimps in the machine direction strands of the fabric.

Abstract: The respective ends of a heavy fabric, for example, a woven dryer fabric or felt each provided with an array of connectong loops are joined with the help of a gap closing device. The gap closing device is detachably attached to the fabric when the latter is supplied to the user. When the fabric is being installed on the machine, the ends are pulled together by the gap closing device so that the arrays of loops are held in proximity and easily intermeshed to form an elongated tubular passage. A pintle wire is inserted into the passage to complete the joint. The gap closing device is then removed. A preferred gap closing device is a slide fastener, of which one tape is detachably attached to each end of the heavy fabric.