Press brake apparatus with powered adjustable female die jaws
AssigneeCaterpillar Inc.
InventorsGene R. Brooks, Terrence T. Hiland
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Conventional press brake female dies which have to be manually adjusted are not adaptable to today's automated factories for producing different shaped components on a demand basis. The subject apparatus overcomes this problem by providing powered, adjustable female die jaws that are positively located by powered rotary shims having several thicknesses to be presented according to the desired opening between the jaws. The power source for adjusting the jaws and the rotary shims may be controlled electronically to adjust the jaws to a position to produce a prescribed shape from a plate of metal.
Claims5
An apparatus for bending flat plate material into different angular shapes, said apparatus having a frame and a vertically reciprocable ram thereon to which horizontally elongated punches of different cross sectional contours are adapted to be singly and removably secured for movement therewith, a horizontally adjustable elongated female die mounted on said frame below the ram with elongated jaws on either side of the punch to support the plate, said jaws forming an opening centered below and along the elongated punches, the opening being operative in concert with the punch to form the flat plate into different angular shapes, the improvement comprising:
- means for reciprocably moving the jaws to adjust them to selected spaced positions to change said opening;
- a rotary shim mounted between the frame and each jaw, each rotary shim having a plurality of adjacent lands disposed in parallel planes;
- and
- means for rotating each rotary shim to present a selected land to provide a stop between the frame and the respective jaw at the selected various positions of the jaw.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.