S-shaped board unscrambler

An unscrambler to receive scrambled agglomerations of elongate boards, convey the boards upwardly and forwardly along an S-shaped curvilinear course to unscramble them and present the boards in an aligned array at an upper forward position, comprising in combination:

• a frame having horizontal areal extent with a vertically lower rearward portion and a higher upstanding forward portion;
• a conveyor support supported by the frame, said conveyor support
• configured as a ruled surface having horizontal rulings defining an S-shaped curve in a vertical plane with a lower rearward horizontal portion interconnecting a medial forwardly and upwardly extending portion interconnecting a forward horizontal portion spacedly above the rearward portion
• defining at least two laterally spaced upwardly opening conveyor chain channels extending perpendicularly to the horizontal ruling lines of the conveyor support;
• a conveyor carried by the frame extending about the conveyor support with a conveying flight above the conveyor support and a return flight below the conveyor support, said conveyor having;
• link conveyor chains carried in the conveyor chain channel defined in the conveyor support,
• a laterally extending rearward drive shaft journaled on the frame and carrying spaced cogs to support the conveyor chains spacedly distant from the lower rearward portion of the conveyor support,
• a laterally extending forward shaft journaled on the frame carrying spaced cogs to support the conveyor chains at the upper forward portion of the conveyor support, and
• a plurality of elongate conveyor bars carried by the conveyor chains above the support surface to extend in spaced adjacency perpendicularly to the conveyor chains, and
• driving mechanism including means to synchronously drive the forward conveyor shaft and the rearward conveyor shaft in the same direction to create a pushing force on the lower rearward portion of the conveyor chains, and
• a pulling force on the upper forward portion of the conveyor chains to move the conveyor chains and positionally maintain them in the open top conveyor chain channels.