An apparatus for cutting pieces from a web of flexible material which comprises:
- a first drum provided with a cylindrical suction surface for drawing material of said web thereagainst but able to slide relative to said material while maintaining said material adherent thereto, said first drum being provided with an array of angularly equispaced knives having edges lying along a cylinder corresponding substantially to said surface of said drum and generally along respective generatrices thereof but with an inclination to a respective generatrix and adapted to lie in a tangent plane whereby one portion of each knife is located lower than another portion of the same knife edge, the one portion and the other portion of each knife edge being radially spaced equidistantly from the axis of said drum by a greater distance than a radial spacing of an intermediate portion of the respective knife edge from said axis;
- a second drum juxtaposed with the first drum and provided with an array of knives angularly equispaced on said second drum and projecting outwardly beyond a surface of said second drum, the knives of said second drum lying generally along generatrices thereof with edges passing into said tangent plane, said drums having axes of rotation lying in a common axial plane perpendicular to said tangent plane said knives of said second drum having edges lying along another cylinder, said cylinders being tangent to one another;
- and
- means for rotating said drums in opposite senses and said first drum with a greater peripheral speed than said second drum such that the knives of the two drums meet in a shearing action at said tangent plane to commence cutting said material at one side of said axial plane and continue cutting said material as the meeting knives pass through said axial plane, a cut piece of said material thus formed being retained by suction against the surface of said first drum while said surface slips relative to the remainder of said web, said intermediate portion of the respective knife edge of said first drum coincides with a tangential point of the edges of both arrays of knives in said tangent plane.