Drum-type wire shear

Abstract

An apparatus for cutting through a continuously longitudinally moving wire has a pair of cutter drums centered on and rotatable about respective generally parallel axes and having respective radially outwardly open generally helical wire grooves of substantially the same pitch but opposite hand. These drums are radially relatively closely spaced and define a nip. A guide element is integral with and fixed rotationally on one of the drums and is formed with a helical guide groove of the same hand and pitch and centered on the same axis as the respective wire groove but is axially offset therefrom. A cutter blade is provided in at least one of the wire grooves adjacent one axial end thereof. The two drums are synchronously rotated at the same peripheral speed by a drive. A swingable guide tube is directed generally tangentially at the nip and has a downstream end closely juxtaposed with the drums at the nip. The wire passes longitudinally through this tube toward the drums. An entrainment element or follower is fixed at an axial spacing on the downstream end of the guide tube and can be swung into engagement with the guide groove so that when thus engaged the downstream end of the tube is displaced at a rate determined solely by the rotation rate of the drums for perfect guiding of the wire in the mating drum grooves.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.