Process for forming V-belts and belt sleeves
AssigneeThe Gates Rubber Company
InventorsRichard E. Wrast, William J. Gardiner, Francis A. Shedd
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A cured and inverted V-belt sleeve having a plurality of spaced circumferential V-grooves that bound oversized V-belt side portions of inverted V-belts is provided by fabricating a belt sleeve with a tensile member interpositioned between inner and outer uncured elastomeric layers, skiving circumferential strips of elastomeric material from the outer layer, and molding and curing the skived belt sleeve. Individual coverless or "raw edge" V-belts or V-belts banded together at their top surfaces are provided with an optional molded circumferential depression that forms an arch in the belt bottom surfaces and juxtaposed embedded reinforcements.
Claims9
A process for making V-belts comprising the steps of:
- fabricating an inverted belt sleeve from generally uncured elastomeric material with a tensile member interpositioned between an inner first layer and an outer second layer;
- skiving circumferential strips of uncured elastomeric material from the second layer at axial spacings of the sleeve and forming a plurality of circumferential grooves in the sleeve;
- molding and curing the skived belt sleeve while partially forming inverted V-belts with molded, overspaced V-side portions, the belts circumferentially attached to one another by portions of the first layer juxtaposed the grooves;
- removing portions of the molded V-sides at the circumferential grooves to define raw V-sidewall portions having predetermined spacing;
- and
- circumferentially severing the cured belt sleeve juxtaposed at least some of the circumferential grooves thereby forming a plurality of finished V-belts having raw edge V-sidewall portions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.