Method and apparatus for making lock washers
AssigneeMSL Industries, Inc.
InventorsJoseph M. Brady, Harold S. Peterson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and apparatus for making split lock washers consists of an automated machine wherein the diameter and gap of a lock washer can be accurately controlled. The apparatus includes a drive mechanism for driving the cutter and a transmission unit driven by the drive mechanism which can be adjusted to correlate the feed speed of the wire with the cutter to produce washers of different diameters. After the correlation speed has been set the production speed can be increased or decreased and the synchronized relation of the feed and cutter speeds will remain the same.
Claims17
A method of producing split ring lock washers from an endless supply of wire which includes continuously feeding said wire towards a coiling device to transform said wire into a helical coil and separating successive end convolutions of said coil by a continuously rotating cutter, the improvement of coordinating the feed speed of said wire with the rotational speed of said cutter for a given lock washer diameter, varying the rotational speed of said cutter while maintaining a synchronized relation between said feed speed and said cutter speed to maintain said given lock washer diameter, said cutter being rotated by a variable speed motor, said feed speed of said wire being varied by a transmission unit driven by said motor, said cutter being rotated about a fixed axis which is angularly offset from an axis of said helical coil by an angle less than 90 degrees, said coiling device including a coil forming roll and a fixed arbor defining the axis for said helical coil with the cutter axis being angularly offset less than 45 degrees, and moving the axis of said arbor axially and transversely to adjust the position of said arbor with respect to the fixed axis of said cutter while maintaining the angular offset.
Apparatus for forming lock washers comprising coiling means for forming a helical coil from a wire stock, feed means for feeding said wire stock, cutter means for severing end convolutions from said helical coil, and drive means for driving said feed means and said cutter means, the improvement of said drive means including motor means having a driving connection with said cutter means, variable transmission means between said motor means and said feed means so that the speed of said feed means can be correlated with said cutter means to produce lock washers of various diameters, said coiling device including an arbor having an arbor axis defining a small acute angle with respect to said fixed axis and adjustment means for adjusting said coiling device axial of and perpendicular to said arbor axis while maintaining said small acute angle.
A method of forming lock washers comprising the steps of:
- forming a helical coil from wire stock with a coiling device having an arbor, feeding said wire stock to said coiling device with feed means, severing end convolutions from said helical coil with a cutter rotating about a fixed axis, driving said feed means and said cutter with a motor having a driving connection with said cutter, correlating the speed of feeding said wire stock to said coiling device with the speed of severing the end convolutions from said helical coil by means of a variable transmission positioned between said motor means and said feed means to produce lock washers of various diameters, positioning the axis of said arbor at a small acute angle with respect to said fixed axis of said cutter and adjusting said coiling device axially of and perpendicular to the axis of said arbor while maintaining said small acute angle.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.