Printing apparatus

Claim 1

A printing apparatus for obtaining an outline design for child's painting and other simple printed materials, comprising; a main body including a main mechanical unit equipped with upper and lower rollers disposed in parallel, spaced from each other and adapted to be rotated by rotary driving means; a printing frame which is adapted to receive thereon an embossed pattern plate, carbon paper and a sheet of paper in this order and allowed to pass between the said parallel-rollers; said main body comprising a housing forming in its upper surface a lowered portion having a flat bottom surface, opening upwardly and frontwardly of the housing; with a width approximately equivalent to that of said printing frame; a through-pass for said printing frame extending longitudinally of the housing from the front wall to the rear end of the rear portion of the housing at substantially the same level and width as the level and width of the bottom surface of said lowered portion, the upper and lower rollers being disposed within the rear portion of the housing horizontally over the substantially entire width of the housing in such a manner that the upper and lower rollers are positioned respectively above and below said through-pass at a space substantially equal to the thickness of said printing frame; support means to rotatably receive said upper and lower rollers at both ends thereof; said support means comprising a plate-like frame equipped with a pair of downwardly extending support walls at both extremities thereof, and including through said support walls two pairs of holes in upper and lower relationship for receiving respectively said upper and lower rollers which are disposed transversely, parallel and rotatably between the support walls; a transmission gear connected to one of said rollers; a clutch connected between said drive means and said parallel rollers which, when the driving means is operated in a positive direction, transmits its positively directed rotary power to the rollers to feed the printing frame forward and, when in the reverse direction, does not transmit its reversely directed rotary power to the rollers; said clutch comprising a sun gear fixedly mounted to a drive shaft of the driving means; a planetary pinion which is in engagement with the sun gear; a freely inserted central axle of the planetary pinion disposed for movement in a guide slot formed in the support wall so as to bring the planetary pinion into engagement with said transmission gear when the central axle of the planetary pinion has approached the inner extremity of the slot and to release said engagement when the central axle has moved to the outer extremity of the guide slot whereby rotary motion in the positive direction will cause said planetary pinion to move to the inner extremity of said slot and thereby transmit rotary motion to said rollers via said transmission gear.