US 4,557,684 AGranted

Bender for synthetic resin printing plates

AssigneeDidde Graphic Systems Corporation

InventorsGary L. Romine, Woodrow W. Pendleton, Daniel D. Dillinger

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Abstract

A bender for plastic printing plates locates the line of fold from the leading edge of the plate by providing positioning means adjacent the die surface. The printing plate is placed on a flat base and adjusted to engage the positioning means, the latter in alignment relative to the die. Next, a guide means lifts an edge segment of the plate into a position for engagement by a channel carried by the die. As the die swingably moves through an arc, the edge segment is reversely folded back and into contact with an adjacent area of the sheet while forming a crease sufficient to overcome a substantial part of the memory of the sheet along the line of fold. Consequently, plate image will be precisely parallel to the line of fold, thereby minimizing setup time. Also, plates of various lengths may be bent without adjusting the bender.

Claims10

Dependent claims

A bender for an edge segment of a resilient sheet of synthetic resin material having significant memory, said bender comprising:

a base having a flat surface for supporting a sheet;
crimping means swingably carried by the base and engageable with said edge segment of the sheet when the sheet is supported by the base;
positioning means carried by the base and engageable with the outer edge of said edge segment of the sheet for aligning said edge relative to the crimping means;
and
clamping means connected to the base and engageable with the sheet for releasably fixing a portion of the sheet to the base with said outer edge in engagement with the positioning means;
said clamping means being engageable with a portion of the sheet in a manner to releasably fix the sheet to the base during swinging of the crimping means and said crimping means being operable while said sheet is so fixed to reverse fold said edge segment about an arc ending with said segment in contact with an adjacent area of the sheet and effective to crease the sheet to an extent sufficient to overcome a substantial part of the memory of the sheet along the line of fold of the same.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.