Methods and apparatus for assembly of extensible composite webs and web
sausages, and personal care articles manufactured from such webs. The
invention comprises fabricating a resiliently extensible web by bringing
together and securing to each other as discrete elements, intervening web
substrate elements between resiliently stretchable elastic elements.
Securement between elastic elements and web substrate elements is defined
by alternating zones of securement and non-securement along a length of
the web substrate. The invention comprises deactivating elastic elements
in the non-securement zones thereby to retract elastic strands in the
non-securement zones without retracting the corresponding web or webs in
such non-securement zones, and correspondingly, to distinguish the
securement zones as relatively more resiliently stretchable and the
non-securement zones as relatively less resiliently stretchable. The
invention further comprises applying, to the relatively non-stretchable
non-securement zones, fastener material extending generally between
adjacent ones of the relatively more resiliently stretchable securement
zones.