Tennis ball felt and tennis ball

Abstract

To provide a tennis ball felt which has less occurrence of creases at the time of forming a tennis ball. According to one embodiment, a tennis bass felt, which is covered on a core of a tennis ball, includes: a base fabric formed of stretchy material; and fibers fixed with the base fabric.

Description

BACKGROUND[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to a felt used for an outer surface (melton) of a tennis ball and a tennis ball using the felt, and more particularly to a tennis ball felt which has less occurrence of creases at the time of forming a tennis ball and a tennis ball using the felt.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]As a tennis ball, as shown in FIG. 3, there is used what includes a core 10 and a felt 12 covered on the core. Usually, the core is formed of rubber in a spherical shape, and the felt is substantially gourd-shaped. Two sheets of felt are adhered to the core with a rubber adhesive. In FIG. 3, reference numeral 14 represents a joint between two sheets of felt where the above rubber adhesive is exposed.[0005]As the above-mentioned tennis ball felt, a woven felt or a needle felt is used (refer to JP-A-2003-154037). The woven felt, in which a surface of a woven fabric is fluffed up, is made by subjecting a raw fabric to raisi...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010]Upon investigation of a cause of the aforementioned crease occurrence, the inventors have found out that since the conventional tennis ball needle felt uses, as a base fabric, a woven fabric which uses a cotton fiber having no stretch property for one of the warp and the woof, and a polyester fiber having no stretch property for the other thereof, the base fabric and the needle felt have the stretch property in neither of the longitudinal direction and the lateral direction, so that it is conceivable that when the felt is adhered to the core having the spherical body, creases are produced on the felt due to lack of the stretch property; and therefore, by providing the stretch property for the base fabric thereby to provide the stretch property for the needle felt, it is possible to prevent the creases from being produced on the felt in the forming time of the needle felt ball.

[0016]Since the tennis ball felt of the invention has the aforementioned constitution of the first to third aspects, it is conceivable that the felt has the stretch property and therefore has less occurrence of creases at the time of forming the tennis ball.

[0017]According to the tennis ball felt and the tennis ball of the invention, creases are hard to be produced on the felt at the forming of the tennis ball. Namely, according to the invention, it is possible to obtain a tennis ball which is excellent in aesthetic appearance, and prevent effectively the irregular ball bound resulted from the creases produced on the felt.

Problems solved by technology

However, the woven felt ball, since the felt is prone to fluff up and become worn, is mainly used for game.

On the other hand, though the needle felt ball is inferior in performance to the woven belt ball, since the felt of the needle felt ball is hard to fluff up and become worn and the needle felt ball is inexpensive, the needle felt ball is mainly used for practice.

However, in case that the needle felt ball is formed, there is a problem that creases are prone to occur particularly in a circumferential edge portion (in the vicinity of joint) of the felt.

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