Lath placer and method for transferring laths

A lath placer configured to dispose laths perpendicular and over a row of lumbers, the lath placer comprising:

• a conveyor assembly including lath-supporting lugs to convey the laths seized at a lath pick-up position along a lath conveying direction;
• and
• a lath-transfer assembly, adjacent to the conveyor assembly comprising:
• a unit frame including a transient lath store;
• a lath-capturing finger movable to capture the laths from the lath-supporting lugs when located at a lath-transferring position and release the captured laths on the transient lath store;
• a plurality of lath-pushing fingers, each one of the lath-pushing fingers being movable to push away a respective one of the laths located at the transient lath store;
• a rotatable lath-transfer arm including a lath-supporting segment configured to receive the respective one of the laths transferred by a respective one of lath-pushing fingers, the rotatable lath-transfer arm is rotatable between a lath-grasping configuration and a lath-delivering configuration;
• and
• a lath-grasping finger movable to grasp the respective one of the laths located on the lath-supporting segment of the rotatable lath-transfer arm at the lath-grasping configuration and to release the respective one of the laths at the lath-delivering configuration.

A method to dispose a lath perpendicular to and over a row of lumbers with a lath placer, the method comprising:

• conveying the lath along a conveying direction from a lath pick-up position to a lath-transfer assembly;
• capturing the lath at a lath-transferring position and transferring the lath to a transient lath store;
• pushing the lath located on the transient lath store onto a lath-supporting segment of a rotatable lath-transfer arm;
• grasping the lath between the rotatable lath-transfer arm and a lath-grasping finger;
• rotating the rotatable lath-transfer arm to transfer the lath to a lath-delivering configuration;
• and
• releasing the lath at the lath-delivering configuration located above the row of lumbers.