Apparatus for shaping wire

An apparatus for shaping wire, in particular a spiral spring winding and bending machine, comprising a wire guide, a wire intake device having clamping parts arranged at the intake opening of said wire guide and non-rotatably clamping the wire, a shaft rotatably mounted at the outlet end of the wire guide and having its longitudinal axis of rotation situated close to the straight path of the wire outside the wire guide, a tool holder mounted to be rotationally fixed at the free end of the shaft and carrying at least one tool for winding and/or bending the wire supplied thereto, the forward feed of the wire to the shaft by the wire intake device and the movements of rotation and displacement of the shaft for moving the tool into the path of the wire and relatively to the wire being program controlled, whereby at least the clamping parts of the wire intake device which clamp the wire which has been taken in can together be rotated selectively in either direction of rotation about the axis of the wire guide in an intermittent manner related to the progress of the shaping operation, and in that the common movements of rotation of the said clamping parts about the axis can be program controlled and further, wherein the wire intake device has at least one pair of cooperating rollers provided with at least one driving shaft mounted on a housing which is rotatable about the axis of the wire guide and on which a main shaft which is parallel to the axis is rotatably mounted and acts on the roller-driving shaft by way of a gear wheel transmission, and wherein the gear wheel transmission comprises a worm gear whose main shaft is a worm shaft which is situated outside the axis of the wire guide and which is adapted to be driven by an annular gear by way of a toothed belt transmission, which annular gear is arranged coaxially with the wire guide axis.