Wire forming apparatus

In a wire forming apparatus of the type wherein a pair of rotatable wheels are disposed alongside each other, a plurality of pins secured to each of said wheels about the periphery thereof, and mounting means for rotatably supporting said wheels in such a manner that their axes of rotation are angularly disposed to each other, wherein the improvement comprises:

• a. wire tension means affording an adjustable frictional drag resistance against the feeding of a strand of wire so as to facilitate the looping of said strand of wire;
• b. wire straightening means to facilitate the linear configuration of said strand of wire prior to the introduction of said wire into the looping means;
• c. looping means disposed adjacent the peripheries of said wheels at a position at which the adjacent pins of one wheel are spaced axially from the adjacent pins of the other wheel by a distance intermediate the maximum and minimum axial spacing between said pins whereby rotation of said wheels imparts a tension force to the strand of wire to cause the wire to become stretched and set without appreciably changing the initial disposition of the strand of wire relative to said pins and without shifting the undulations along the length of said strand, said looping means being discontinuously rotatable in a single direction about a central axis, said central axis of said looping means being offset from and parallel to a plane defined by said plurality of pins secured to either of said wheels about the periphery thereof, said looping means intermittently engaging said strand of wire and imparting an undulatory configuration thereto;
• d. an inside pushing member for transferring said strand of wire from said looping means to one of said pins on a first rotatable wheel of said pair of rotatable wheels, said inside pushing member being actuated by cam means to provide predetermined reciprocal movement to said inside pushing member;
• and
• e. an outside pushing member for transferring said strand of wire from said looping means to one of said pins on a second rotatable wheel of said pair of rotatable wheels, said outside pushing member being actuated by an eccentric crank to provide predetermined arcuate movement to said outside pushing member, said inside and outside pushing members operating intermittently in cooperating relationship with each other.