Device for cutting through a pile of sheets with a revolving blade

Apparatus for cutting through a pile of sheets comprising a machine casing, a disk-knife rotatably mounted on said casing, the periphery of said disk-knife forming a circular cutting edge, conveying means for holding and supplying the pile of sheets to the disk-knife, said conveying means including a pair of confronting clamping members for clamping at least a portion of the pile of sheets therebetween, said clamping members being supported by a sliding carriage reciprocatingly movable relative to the machine casing and perpendicular to the rotational axis of the disk-knife in an advance stroke and a return stroke between a receiving end and a take-off end, a counter-knife supported by said one of said clamping members and forming a counter-cutting edge for the cutting edge of the disk-knife, said counter-cutting edge extending over the entire cutting range of the disk-knife and being arranged at a radial distance from the rotational axis of the disk-knife such that the cutting edges of the knives overlap only to an extent necessary to locate the cutting edges adjacent each other, the radius of the disk-knife being selected such that, for the thickest pile of sheets to be cut, a tangent line of the circular cutting edge of the disk-knife at the point of intersection of the disk-knife with the side of the pile sheets facing the disk-knife forms an angle with the plane of movement of the carriage of less than 30 degrees, the peripheral speed of the disk-knife being correlated to and slightly greater than the speed of the advance stroke of the carriage.