fashion referred to as pilgrims step the tuft 10 is passed on and separated from the following web and pieced to the tuft 11 the needle segment 5 is cleaned from the noil combed out of the fiber tuft 10 by means of a brush roller 12 which rotates in the opposite direction at a larger circumferential speed than the half lap 4 the nipper head 3 features a nipper plate 13 which is coupled to the nipper shaft 2 and a nipper knife 14 which is rotatably mounted the nipper plate 13 consists essentially of a nipper plate arm 15 and a nipper plate blade cushion plate 16 secured to it the nipper knife 14 is rotatably mounted on a lateral swivelling journal 17 on the nipper plate arm 15 in addition to this a feed roller 18 for the web 7 is mounted on bearings on the nipper plate 13 the latter converting the continuous lap feed into a discontinuous feed of the shaft 10 the intermittent drive of the feed roller 18 takes place in the rhythm of the nipper head movement by means of a pawl drive not shown here but described in detail in the aforementioned u s pat no 3 479 699 the nipper knife 14 consists essentially of a nipper knife arm 20 linked to the swivel journal 17 and a nipper knife plate 21 also referred to as the knife blade secured to the arm 20 as well as a lever 9 secured to this in addition.