Apparatus for handling sheet material
AssigneeW & A Bates Limited
InventorsAnthony G. Goodfellow, Anthony R. Wright
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In the feeding of sheet material to a machine such as a tire building former a sheet is first placed on a table and one edge of the sheet is aligned with a first datum line, preferably by tilting the table and supplying floatation air under the sheet. The sheet is then picked up and moved transversely through a predetermined distance by a gripping device to align one edge with a second datum line so as to enable the sheet to be fed in appropriate alignment to a machine.
Claims9
A tire building server feeding a ply of tire building fabric to a tire building former and comprising:
- a table having a surface thereon on which said ply of the tire building fabric can be laid,
- means for tilting the table and means for supplying air to the surface of the table to enable the tire building fabric thereon to be aligned with one longitudinal edge of said fabric in alignment with a first abutment arranged on a first datum line,
- a gripping device for picking up said ply of tire building fabric in a flat condition, said gripping device being flat and of similar area to that of the table, and being arranged to be transversely movable and hold said ply of tire building fabric in an alignment preserving manner automatically to align said longitudinal edge with a second datum line substantially parallel with the first datum line so as to enable said ply of tire building fabric to be fed in appropriate alignment to a tire building former.
A tire building server feeding a ply of tire building fabric to a tire building former and comprising:
- a table having a surface thereon on which said ply of tire building fabric can be laid;
- means for tilting the table and means for supplying air to the surface of the table to enable the tire building fabric thereon to be aligned with one longitudinal edge of said tire building fabric in alignment with a first abutment arranged on a first datum line;
- a gripping device for picking up said ply of tire building fabric in a flat condition, said gripping device comprising a flat shoe of similar area to that of the table, and being arranged to be transversely movable and hold said ply of tire building fabric in an alignment preserving manner automatically to align said longitudinal edge with a second datum line substantially parallel with the first datum line so as to enable said ply of tire building fabric to be fed in appropriate alignment to a tire building former on a conveyor, said flat shoe being a vacuum suction shoe mounted on an overhead track so that it may be moved to a predetermined position over the table to transfer said ply of tire building fabric to said table, and after alignment of said ply of tire building fabric on said table, to transfer said ply of tire building fabric to said conveyor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.