Pick-up device for picking up a tubular knitted article from a circular knitting machine and for its transfer to a unit adapted to perform additional operations on the article

A pick-up device for picking up a tubular knitted article from a circular knitting machine for hosiery or the like and for transferring said tubular knitted article to a unit adapted to perform additional operations on the article, comprising an annular pick-up body which supports pick-up elements which can slide relative to said pick-up body along radial directions, said pick-up body being arrangeable coaxially around a needle cylinder of a circular knitting machine for hosiery or the like so that each one of said pick-up elements faces laterally a needle of the circular knitting machine;

• actuation means being provided which act on said pick-up elements for their movement toward or away from an axis of said pick-up body, for engagement or disengagement of each pick-up element with the needle of the circular knitting machine which it is made to face, and each one of said pick-up elements being adapted to pick up a loop of knitting held on said needle, said pick-up body being movable on command from a pick-up position, in which it is arranged coaxially around the needle cylinder of the circular knitting machine for hosiery or the like, to a release position, in which it is arranged at a station for further processing which is spaced laterally with respect to the needle cylinder of the circular knitting machine and in which said unit adapted to perform additional operations on the article is arranged, and vice versa, with said pick-up body in said release position, said station for further processing of said article comprising a handling element provided with a plurality of spikes which are arranged along a cylindrical surface and are designed to engage said article, said pick-up body, in said release position, being arranged coaxially to the cylindrical surface along which said spikes are arranged, the cylindrical surface along which said spikes are arranged being spaced radially in a direction of said axis of said pick-up body with respect to a cylindrical surface along which ends of said pick-up elements directed toward the axis are arranged with said pick-up body in said release position.