Apparatus for making wall frame structures
AssigneeGary J. Haberman
InventorMichael M. Mertes
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus for the high-volume manufacture of assembled wall frame structures for use in the residential and commercial building industry is arranged to receive and support a pair of laterally spaced apart top and bottom plate members and move them longitudinally in indexed, stepwise increments through a stud-inserting and fastening station in which wall stud members are automatically positioned to engage and extend perpendicularly between the plate members at predetermined intervals therealong, whereupon the opposite ends of a stud member are secured to the opposite plate members by a fastening device, whereby complete wall frame assemblies may be quickly and efficiently made on a continuous basis according to desired specification as ordered and thence delivered to a construction site for erection.
Claims11
Apparatus for making wall frame structures having top and bottom plate members and interconnecting stud members, the apparatus comprising:
- a) an elongated frame having longitudinally opposite, infeed and outfeed ends,
- b) a plates carriage mounted on the frame for movement in a longitudinal direction of the frame, the plates carriage configured for receiving and moving opposite, laterally spaced apart, longitudinally extending, top plate members and bottom plate members longitudinally along the frame from the infeed end to the outfeed end thereof,
- c) drive means interengaging the frame and plates carriage for moving the plates carriage in an outfeed direction of the frame to move corresponding top and bottom plate members received by the plates carriage in stepwise increments in the outfeed direction along the frame,
- d) a stud carriage mounted on the frame for delivery and positioning a stud member perpendicularly between top and bottom plate members on the plates carriage,
- e) securing means on the frame for securing the opposite ends of the stud member to top and bottom plate members on the plates carriage, and
- f) control means for controlling the operation of said drive means and said stud carriage and said securing means for sequentially and repeatingly:
- 1) operating said drive means to move corresponding, laterally spaced, longitudinally extending top and bottom plate members stepwise in predetermined increments longitudinally along the frame in the outfeed direction thereof, and then,
- 2) operating said stud carriage to deliver and position a stud member between the top and bottom plate members, and then
- 3) operating said securing means to secure the opposite ends of the positioned stud member to the top and bottom plate members.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.