Apparatus for overturning stacked sheet material

Claim 1

Conveyor table load turner apparatus for overturning bundles of stacked blanks of sheet material comprising, a table having a series of laterally spaced horizontally supported conveyor belts, a pair of longitudinally spaced bundle turning supports, each support including a transversely disposed rotatable shaft below said belts and two sets of bundle engaging legs carried in spaced relation on each shaft for releasably positioning the legs at approximately 90*, and when fixed in such position being rotatable to tilt a load vertically through a 90* path of movement, each said set of legs being movable between said belts and to and from an upright position and a position generally parallel to and below the conveyor path of said belts, and means to pivot said supports for said 90* movement, one set of said leg members being fixed to each shaft, the other set being rotatably mounted on the shaft for movement to and from said 90* relationship with the first set and an in-line relationship therewith below said conveyor path, each of said rotatably mounted legs being paired with and in adjacent side by side relationship to a leg of said fixed sets of legs, and each such pair of adjacent legs having opposed releasably interfitting hub surfaces forming a leg clutch means engageable at said 90* relationship for releasably fixing each rotatable leg with respect to the shaft for rotation therewith, and a common clutch actuator mechanism therefor, said common actuator mechanism including a clutch rod connecting each rotatably mounted set of legs and means for reciprocably shifting said rod and moving said rotatably mounted legs into and out of clutched engagement with the fixed legs, the bundle contacting surfaces of said sets of legs lying in a tangential planar relation to the shaft axis and defining in said 90* position of the legs a line of planar intersection lying in upwardly offset relation from the shaft axis immediately below said conveyor belt surface at each limit of said 90* pivotal movement of the support shaft to thereby carry the end edges of a bundle of sheets above said conveyor belt level for the major portion of said tilting movement, and a movable carriage frame carrying one of said bundle turning supports, and said pivot means and common clutch actuator means associated therewith, said frame extending between the sides of said table and being slidably supported thereon for longitudinal movement toward and away from the other support, and means on said table engaging said carriage for adjusting the spaced relation of said supports to correspond with the height of a bundle to be overturned.