up roll 28 since it is important that pile fabric 10 be uniformly tensioned as it passes over nose bar 14 and to avoid start up problems band knife 30 having translating blade 16 is mounted on pivotable carriage 32 while the fabric handling system is rigidly mounted on frame 34 this makes it possible to always maintain pile fabric 10 in a tensioned state even when blade 16 is retracted to allow seams to pass since blade 16 is a translating endless band it is advantageous for it to have a slight amount of curvature so that it can easily be maintained in one position the abovementioned applications teach the desirability of matching the curvature of nose bar 14 to the curvature of blade 16 fig2 and 3 illustrate an especially advantageous mechanism for supporting nose bar 14 and maintaining uniform spacing between nose bar 14 and blade 16 nose bar 14 rests upon rollers 36 four rollers 36 are mounted on each pillow block 38 pillow block 38 can be extended or withdrawn by adjusting positioning screw 44 by properly adjusting set screws 40 41 42 46 48 50 52 and 53 it is possible to orient pillow block 38 and thereby rollers 36 mounted on pillow block 38 so that the center lines of each set of rollers 36 are substantially parallel to the portion of blade 16.