Abstract: A felting needle having a wedge-like tip with an open double barb formed in the leading edge of the tip. The double barb includes a pair of opposed outwardly diverging fiber-engaging surfaces with precisely formed angles. One outwardly diverging barb angle extends to one side of the needle, and the other outwardly diverging barb angle is disposed symmetrically and diametrically opposite thereto. Unlike ordinary barbs formed in a lateral edge of a felting needle, the double-barb of the present invention allows fibers to slip off to either side of the needle and thus prevent fiber damage.

Abstract: A felting needle, with thousands of its counterparts, must be identically reproducable and uniform so that consistent duplication of the finished product of felted material is possible. The method of the present invention, as well as the apparatus of this invention for practicing the method, have the capability, for the first time, of exact duplication of a felting-needle barb, with rounded contours on all faces and edges which contact the fibers, and with uniform size, shape and finish, all produced by a method which is essentially a one-step process reducing the number of steps of the manufacturing procedure to a minimum. Thus the apparatus and process provide a barb-forming tool which has a recess or cavity formed therein which is the exact mirror image or mating counterpart of the shape or outline of the barb and barb-recess to be formed in the needle, and which, with such contour-controlling and material-constraining cavity, produces an exact cavity, throat and barb each time the tool strikes the needle.