Method and apparatus for making can bodies from sheets

Abstract

Plane, rectangular sheets (10) are moved through between a driven bending roll (32) and a plurality of back-up rolls (34) and are bent round the bending roll (32) by these rolls and a plurality of pressure rolls (52, 56) disposed behind the bending roll (32) and back-up rolls (34). The almost completely rounded sheet (10) is bent resiliently away from the bending roll (32) by a deflecting member (62) as a result of which the front edge (10a) of the sheet is prevented from re-entering the gap between the bending roll (32) and the back-up rolls (34) before the rear edge (10b) of the sheet has travelled through this gap. Then the deflecting member (62) is moved back into its position of rest so that the front region of the sheet (10) springs back in the direction of the bending roll (32) and as a result is again gripped by the bending roll (32) and the back-up rolls (34) and moved through between them. When the front edge (10a) of the sheet (10) has reached the gap between the last two pressure rolls (56), all the pressure rolls (52, 56) are lifted. Then the sheet (10) is conveyed from a rounding station (31) to a positioning station (69). The sheet (10) continues to be rotated by the bending roll (32) until its front edge (10a) is arrested by catching levers (68). The rounded sheet (10) is now stripped axially off the bending roll (32).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.