Slitting shingled sheets

An apparatus for longitudinally slitting an advancing shingle of preformed knocked down boxes of folded and glued corrugated paperboard blanks, said shingle formed with the folded edges of the boxes oriented transversely of the shingle, said apparatus comprising:

• means for conveying the shingle in the direction of formation of the shingle;
• means for aligning the lateral edges of the advancing shingle by shifting the boxes forming the shingle transversely on said conveying means into a vertical alignment surface parallel to the direction of movement of the shingle;
• means for resiliently holding the shingle against said conveying means by applying a vertical force to the upper surface of the shingle, said force having a magnitude small enough to permit substantially unrestricted transverse shifting of the boxes by said aligning means;
• a rotating annular cutting blade disposed in the path of the advancing shingle, said blade having a smooth continuous peripheral cutting edge defined by opposite beveled edge faces;
• means for rotating the blade in the direction of shingle movement to provide a peripheral blade edge speed at least about two times greater than the speed of the advancing shingle;
• idler roller means for firmly supporting the shingle below the cutting blade, said roller means having an annular circumferential slot positioned to receive therein the peripheral edge of the blade to form a nip;
• and,
• means for grinding the edge faces of the cutting blade on-the-fly to sharpen the cutting edge.

The method of longitudinally slitting preformed knocked down boxes of folded and glued corrugated paperboard blanks, said method comprising the steps of:

• (1) forming a shingle of boxes with the folded edges of the boxes oriented transversely of the shingle;
• (2) advancing the shingle on a conveyor in the direction of formation of the shingle;
• (3) aligning the lateral edges of the advancing shingle by shifting the boxes forming the shingle transversely on said conveyor into a vertical alignment surface parallel to the direction of movement of the advancing shingle;
• (4) holding the shingle against said conveyor by applying a vertical force to the upper surface of the shingle small enough to permit substantially unrestricted transverse shifting of the boxes forming the shingle in the preceding step;
• (5) directing the advancing shingle into a rotating annular cutting blade having a smooth continuous peripheral cutting edge defined by beveled edge faces which are similar to each other;
• (6) rotating the blade in the direction of shingle movement to provide a peripheral blade edge speed at least about two times greater than the speed of the advancing shingle;
• (7) supporting the shingle below the cutting blade on an idler roller having an annular circumferential slot positioned to receive therein the peripheral edge of the blade to form a nip;
• and
• (8) grinding the blade edge faces intermittently while the blade is rotating to sharpen the cutting edge.