Mechanism for successively delivering sheet articles from a stack thereof to a folding machine

Abstract

Abstract Bottom delivery feeders are employed in conjunction with a newspaper folding and wrapping machine and serve to sequentially feed sections of a newspaper into the machine for collation with the main body of the newspaper. One, two or three of such feeders of varying design may be used with the folding and wrapping machine in various operational configurations, depending upon the nature of the sections to be collated with the main newspaper. One feeder embodiment is particularly adapted to feed multileaved newspaper sections from a stack thereof. A hopper receives the stack of newspaper sections, a shelf beneath the stack being utilized to support the trailing edge portion of the lowermost section. A pair of stationary fingers supports the leading edge portion and feeding is effected from the bottom of the stack by a plurality of oscillatory grippers which frictionally engage the lowermost section and withdraw the leading edge portion thereof from between the next to the lowermost section and the support fingers. The trailing edge portion of the lowermost section is then withdrawn by pinch rollers which receive the leading edge portion upon return movement of the grippers as the same are continuously oscillated to provide sequential feeding. In a modified form of this embodiment, a single, reciprocable support finger is employed and is particularly adapted for use in the feeding of thin supplements with a hard edge at the fold only. A second feeder embodiment is particularly suited for the feeding of tabloid size sheets which require folding prior to collation with the main newspaper. The same basic operational principles are employed in the withdrawal of the leading edge portion of the lowermost sheet from the hopper. However, continuously rotating grippers are used in conjunction with a roller against which force is applied by the grippers to pinch the loop (formed upon withdrawal of the leading edge portion) between the grippers and the roller to guide the same into a delivery conveyor that transports the withdrawn sheet in folded form to the folding and wrapping machine. The feeders of the first and second embodiments may both be mounted on the machine and used singly depending upon the nature of the paper to be fed. When the feeder of the first embodiment is in operation, the sections being fed therefrom are conveyed through the other feeder, the operating components of the latter being adapted to assist in the conveying of the sections to the folding and wrapping machine. When it is desired to employ such other feeder to feed tabloid sheets to the machine, it operates in the normal manner and the first feeder is inoperative at this time. A top delivery feeder for sequentially delivering wrappers to the folding and wrapping machine operates in conjunction with either of the above feeders and employs a plurality of rotary grippers which are brought into frictional engagement with the uppermost wrapper of a stack thereof during each revolution of the grippers. The grippers are driven by a common shaft but are coupled with the shaft in a manner to permit the grippers to rotate ahead of the shaft free of the latter as each wrapper is advanced from beneath the grippers by a conveyor that receives the leading edge of each wrapper as it is fed from the stack.

Inventors

• 👤 Warren W Hannon
• 👤 Charles N Hannon

Bibliographic Details