US 6,145,361 AGranted

Apparatus and method for production of balls by a rolling operation

OwnerVolker Wengenrothinventor

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Abstract

A process and apparatus for producing metal balls from a cylindrical strand material, with two rolling jaws which are displaceable relative to one another and of which each forms a shaping groove which extends in a direction of displacement, wherein the jaws are located displaceably relative to one another such that U-grooves, which are located opposite one another on the opening side, form a shaping channel, a blank being rolled, as a result of displacement of the channel walls relative to one another, on its passage through said shaping channel. The blank is fed by a feed device, via a feed channel, to an opening of the shaping channel and is cut off from the strand, by a cutting tool, beforehand, wherein the wire (1) is inserted through a shearing opening (2), which opens transversely into the feed channel (7), until it reaches a stop (3), which is located opposite the shearing opening (2), and is cut off by a shearing cutter (5), which is associated with the shearing opening (2), in the direction in which the feed channel (7) progresses. The stroke of the shearing cutter (5) advances a plurality of wire sections (6), which are located parallel to one another in the direction of a mouth opening of the shaping channel, wherein once the shearing stroke has ended, the foremost wire section (6) is fed to a shaping operation.

Claims12

Dependent claims

An apparatus for producing, in particular, small metal balls from cylindrical strand material, with two rolling jaws which are displaceable relative to one another and of which each forms a shaping groove which extends in the direction of displacement, wherein the jaws are located displaceably with respect to one another such that U-grooves, which are located opposite one another on an opening side, form a shaping channel, a blank being rolled, as a result of displacement of the channel walls relative to one another, on its passage through said shaping channel, and with a feed device for feeding the blanks, which are cut off from the strand by a cutting tool, via a feed channel, to an opening of the shaping channel, the apparatus comprising:

a shearing opening (2), which opens out transversely into a location of the feed channel (7) at a distance from the opening of the shaping channel, wherein and through which a strand end is insertable across the feed channel until the strand end projects against a stop (3), said stop being located opposite the shearing opening (2), and
a shearing cutter (5) which is associated with the shearing opening (2), said shearing cutter being displaceable in direction of the feed channel (7) and, upon shearing off the blanks (6), advances the blanks (6) into a length of the feed channel between said location and said opening of the shaping channel, which blanks are located parallel to one another and arranged in a row in the length of the feed channel, in direction of the opening of the shaping channel, the length of the feed channel being greater than the diameters of a plurality of the blanks for holding the row of blanks.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.