Automatic punch press for flexible metal band

Claim 1

In a machine for automatically punching a series of uniformly spaced holes in a flexible metal band such as cooling holes in a shroud for a jet engine, the combination including: a. a chuck for holding said bands during punching, b. said chuck freely rotatable about an axis to allow punching of said bands, c. a plurality of substantially flat and wedge shaped segment plates mounted on said chuck, d. said segment plates occupying substantially the entire plane around said axis, e. each of said segment plates radially movable over an adjusting distance, f. each of said segment plates having mounted thereon a plurality of radially oriented adjusting fingers, g. said fingers closely spaced across the width of the segment plate whereby said fingers occupy substantially the entire circumference of the chuck, h. each of said fingers having a body adjoining said segment plate and having an upright portion extending parallel to said axis, each upright portion adapted to functionally engage and hold a portion of said metal band, i. each of said fingers on each of said segment plates being individually radially adjustable, j. clamping means between each of said fingers and its segment plate whereby the band engaging portion of each finger can be set at a distance from the axis equal to the radius of the flexible metal band, k. distance adjusting means common to all segment plates whereby said distance from the axis to the band engaging portion of the fingers may be altered in an amount sufficient to place the band in position with the fingers and further whereby the distance may be adjusted in the opposite direction to firmly grip the band, 1. indexing means to rotatably index the chuck through a predetermined angular distance, whereby a flexible metal band is held firmly in a predetermined position during a punching operation.