Article of laundry spreader and stacker

[0021]FIGS. 1-4 show various aspects of one embodiment. Various stages and aspects of the embodiment may be altered or changed based on now known or later developed devices or methods. The spreader isolates the articles of laundry from a load of articles, spreads the article out flat, and stacks the articles. The stack may be bound, tied or not further processed. In an alternative embodiment, the articles are not stacked, but output for folding. For example, the article is output to an automated towel folder, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,300,007, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

[0022]The spreader described herein is adapted for isolating and spreading rectangular or square towels. For example, terry cloth hand, wash or beach towels with short sides ranging from 6 to 40 inches and long sides ranging from 18 to 90 inches are processed. As another example, one or more of the stages described herein are used for processing square towels, such as face tow