US 4,732,638 AGranted

Apparatus for rolling bead rings

AssigneeThe Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

InventorsDonald E. Baker, Gary L. Bowen, John R. Thiele

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Abstract

Upper and lower rollers have grooves for a bead ring having a clamp area portion produced by a bead winding machine. The bead ring is placed in the groove of the lower roller with the beginning of the clamp area portion in position for pressing by lowering of the upper roller so that the bead ring is engaged by the groove in the upper roller. The rollers are oscillated between the pressing position at the beginning of the clamp area and the end of the clamp area to roll the top, bottom and sides of the clamp area portion during the movement of the bead ring. The pressure on the bead ring is released by raising the upper roller at the initial pressing position at the beginning of the clamp area so that the bead ring may be removed with the same orientation it had when it was placed in the groove.

Claims9

Dependent claims

Apparatus for rolling the wire ends in a clamp area portion of a bead ring formed of multiple turns of metal wire coated with an uncured rubber compound comprising at least a pair of rollers each having a rolling surface, and one of said rollers being movable radially into and out of closely spaced nonengaging relationship with the other of said rollers, said rolling surface of one of said rollers having a first groove, said first groove having a base surface and side surfaces so that upon movement of said rolling surface of the other of said rollers into closely spaced relationship with said rolling surface of said one of said rollers the contoured space therebetween has substantially the same cross section as the cross section of the formed bead ring, pressure means to urge said rolling surface of one of said rollers towards said rolling surface of the other of said rollers to first, maintain said rolling surfaces spaced apart to provide the cross section of said contoured space therebetween, and second to thereby enable the wire ends to be conformed to said cross section by said rollers under the pressure applied by said pressure means, and drive means rotating at least one of said rollers in one direction to roll said clamp area portion from a beginning position at one end to an ending position at the other end while said clamp area portion of said bead ring is pressed between said rollers.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.