Conveyor hanger with spring clip gripper

A hanger for use with a conveyor for transporting pieces of limp sheet-like work material from place to place in a garment making plant or the like includes a hanger rod for attaching the hanger to a conveyor trolley and a rigid body having at least one gripper, and preferably several grippers, each for releasably holding a workpiece unit to the hanger. Each gripper is of a simple construction including a fixed generally vertical gripping surface on one downwardly extending portion of the body and a cooperating spring clip attached to the lower end of a second downwardly extending body portion spaced laterally of the first downwardly extending portion.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates to a hanger for holding pieces of limp material such 
as textile garment pieces either as individual pieces or as groups or 
stacks of such pieces and for attachment to a conveyor trolley for moving 
the pieces from work station to work station in a conveyorized garment 
making plant or the like, and deals more particularly with an improved 
construction of a gripper used on such a hanger for holding the loaded 
workpieces to the hanger. 
In the garment making industry, the upholstery industry and other 
industries involved in making articles from pieces of fabric or other limp 
sheet material by performing various operations on such pieces, such as 
seam sewing, hemming, embroidering, buttonholing, appliquing, etc., at 
different work stations, it is known to convey pieces of work material in 
various different states of completion, and as individual pieces or stacks 
or groups of pieces, from work station to work station by a conveyor 
system including overhead rails and switches, trolleys riding on the rails 
and hangers hanging from the trolleys, with the hangers having some means 
for releasably holding the workpieces to the hanger. Preferably, the 
holding means of each hanger should be able to hold workpieces of 
different size and weight, should be able to hold either a single 
workpiece or a stack or group of such workpieces, should be easy to 
operate as far as the loading and unloading of workpieces are concerned, 
and should reliably hold the workpieces to the hanger between the loading 
and unloading operations. Further, since a conveyor system of the type 
described normally uses a relatively large number of hangers, the hangers 
should be of relatively simple, economical construction. A hanger may be 
designed to hold a single workpiece or a single stack of such workpieces, 
but preferably it is designed so to allow it to hold several workpieces or 
stacks or groups of such pieces at one time. 
The general aim of this invention is therefore to provide a hanger for use 
in a conveyorized system of the foregoing character having the 
above-mentioned requirements. A more particular object of the invention is 
to provide such a hanger including an improved gripper for holding a 
single workpiece or a group or a stack of workpieces to the hanger which 
hanger is very easy to operate, capable of reliably holding the inserted 
workpiece or workpieces to the hanger and is of a very simple, ecomonical 
construction. 
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the 
following description and from the accompanying drawings forming a part 
thereof. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
The invention resides in a hanger for a conveyorized system for 
transporting pieces of limp sheet material from work station to work 
station and involves an improved gripper for holding a workpiece or stack 
of workpieces to the hanger. 
More specifically, the invention resides in the gripper of the hanger 
including an upper portion and a first portion extending downwardly from 
the upper portion providing a generally vertical fixed gripping face with 
a laterally outwardly curved lower end portion. A second portion of the 
hanger body extends downwardly from the upper portion in generally 
parallel, laterally spaced relation to the first downwardly extending 
portion, and a spring clip is attached to the lower end of this second 
portion which spring clip extends upwardly from the lower end of the 
second portion toward the first portion and terminates in a curved end 
portion generally conforming to and overlying the curved end portion of 
the fixed gripping face of the first portion with the springiness of the 
clip resiliently urging the curved end portion of the clip into engagement 
with the curved end portion of the fixed gripping face. 
The invention still more specifically resides in the hanger having a 
plurality of such grippers and especially in two of such grippers being 
formed by two downwardly extending first body portions separated by a 
single intermediate downwardly extending second body portion carrying at 
its lower end both of the spring clips for two grippers, the two such 
spring clips being preferably made from a single piece of spring material.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
Referring to FIG. 1, a hanger embodying the invention is illustrated at 10 
and is connected to a trolley 12 riding on a rail 14, all of which may 
form a part of a conveyor system for transporting limp sheet material, 
such as indicated at 16, 18 and 20, from work station to work station in a 
garment making plant or the like. The trolley 12 and track 14 may take any 
one of various well-known forms and, is also well known, the track 14 
usually has associated with it a moving chain or other powered element for 
moving the trolley 12 along the track, and switches are generally included 
in the system for directing the trolleys and hangers to various desired 
points in the plant. When a trolley and associated hanger 10 reach a work 
station the trolley is generally separated or separable from the driving 
chain or the like so that the trolley and hanger can remain stationary 
relative to the work station while the operator loads and/or unloads 
material onto or from the hanger. 
Each of the quantities of material 16, 18 and 20, hung from the hanger 10 
in FIG. 1, may consist of either a single workpiece or a group or stack of 
such workpieces, made up of a number of layers of workpieces, and each 
workpiece may be in any given state of completion. That is, each work 
piece for example may be a single cut unworked pattern piece, a single 
pattern piece already worked with embroidery, buttonholing, hemming or the 
like, or a number of sewn-together pattern pieces further worked with 
embroidery, smocking, appliquing, etc. In the following discussion, 
including the claims, a quantity of work material such as indicated at 16, 
18 and 20 in FIG. 1, will sometimes be referred to as a "unit" of work 
material with it being understood that such "unit" may consist of either a 
single workpiece layer or a number of workpiece layers superimposed to 
form a somewhat loose group or a neatly layered stack. 
A workpiece hanger embodying the invention may be designed to include only 
one gripper for holding one workpiece unit, but preferably and as shown in 
the drawings, the hanger is capable of holding a number of units at one 
time. In particular, as illustrated in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, the hanger 10 
includes six grippers indicated generally at 22, 22, for holding as many 
as six workpiece units such as the two shown at 16 and 18. These grippers 
22, 22 directly hold workpiece units to the hanger 10. Sometimes it may 
also be desired to indirectly suspend one or more workpiece units from the 
hanger through an auxiliary hanger or hangers, and for this purpose the 
hanger 10 also includes a number of eyes 24, 24, from each of which such 
an auxiliary hanger may be hung. An example of this in FIG. 1 is 
illustrated by the work unit 20 which is hung from one eye 24 by means of 
an auxiliary hanger 25. This auxiliary hanger may, for example, consist of 
a clothespin-type clamp which grips the work unit 20 and having a hook 
member insertable in the eye 24 as shown. 
Reference may now be made to FIGS. 2 to 4 for further details of the 
construction of the hanger 10 of FIG. 1. The hanger consists of a body 28 
of rigid material. This material may be wood, metal or plastic, and in the 
preferred case is a molded acetal plastic such as nylon which may be 
strengthened by the inclusion of glass fibers. The body 28 has a 
horizontal elongated upper portion 30 from which protrude seven 
horizontally spaced downwardly extending portions or fingers comprised of 
four first fingers 26, 26 and three second or intermediate fingers 28, 28 
each located midway between a pair of the first fingers 26, 26, as 
illustrated. Further, the lower end of each first finger 26 includes one 
of the eyes 24, 24. The body may be made as a solid construction, but 
preferably both the upper portion 30 and the fingers 26 and 28 are of 
ribbed cross section, as evident from the drawings, to reduce the weight 
of and material required by the body while nevertheless preserving a high 
degree of rigidity. 
The hanger body 28 is supported from the conveyor 12 by a hanger rod 38 
suitably secured to the middle of the upper body portion 30 as, for 
example, by being inserted into an opening 42 in the upper body portion 
and held thereto by a rollpin 40 or the like extending through aligned 
openings in the upper body portion and in the hanger rod 38. 
Each of the six grippers 22, 22 of the hanger 10 includes a fixed generally 
vertically extending gripping surface 46 on one of the fingers 26. In this 
connection, it will be observed that the two end fingers 26, 26 each have 
only one gripping surface 46 per finger while the other two, more inner, 
fingers 26, 26 each have two gripping surfaces 46, 46 facing in opposite 
directions. Furthermore, each fixed gripping surface 46 is shaped so that 
its lower end portion 48 as seen from the front, as in FIG. 2, is curved 
outwardly from the associated finger 26 so that such end portion 48 
includes an upwardly directed component. In any event, each gripper 22 in 
addition to its fixed gripping surface 46 also includes a spring clip 50, 
made of spring material and having a rectangular cross section, fixed to 
the lower end of the second or intermediate finger 28 facing the involved 
gripping surface 46. The lower end of the second finger 28 is located 
somewhat below the curved lower end portion 48 of the gripping surface and 
the clip 50 has an inclined portion 51 which extends upwardly from said 
lower end of the second finger and laterally toward the associated fixed 
gripping surface 46. The clip 50 also has a curved free end portion 52 
with a curvature generally matching that of the curved lower end portion 
48 of the fixed gripping surface 46. The clip is otherwise so sized that 
when no material is held by the gripper the curved end portion 52 of the 
clip 50 rests against, or at least nearly engages, the curved portion 48 
of the gripping surface 46 and is held in such position by the resiliency 
of the clip, the clip being resiliently movable away from such position to 
allow the insertion of a workpiece unit into the gripper. 
Each clip 50 of the several grippers 22, 22 may be separate from its 
neighboring clip supported by the same second finger 28, but a feature of 
the present invention is that the illustrated design and arrangement of 
the first and second fingers 26, 26 and 28, 28 allows the pair of clips 
50, 50 supported by each second finger 28 to be made of a single piece 54 
of spring material, preferably of rectangular cross section as seen in 
FIG. 4, held to the lower end of the associated second finger 28 by a 
suitable fastening means such as the illustrated two screws 56, 56. 
In the loading of a work unit into one of the grippers 22 of the hanger 10 
the work unit may be lifted upwardly toward the gripper against the 
inclined portion 51 of the spring clip 50, the inclination of which guides 
the upper edge of the work unit into the mouth of the gripper with the 
spring clip 50 then yielding to allow the upper edge portion of the work 
unit to slip upwardly between the fixed gripping surface 46 and the spring 
clip 50 of the gripper. After the work unit has been moved upwardly a 
sufficient distance into the gripper the manual lifting force may be 
released allowing the work unit to tend to move downwardly by gravity. In 
doing so the frictional force between the work unit and the curved portion 
52 of the spring clip, as well as the biasing force of the spring clip 50 
itself, will tend to urge the curved portion 52 of the spring clip toward 
the curved portion 48 of the fixed gripping surface 46 to provide a firm 
grip on the work unit causing it to be reliably held by the hanger while 
the hanger is thereafter moved from one work station to another. 
In the unloading operation involving a gripper 22 the gripped work unit may 
be removed from the gripper by merely pulling downwardly on the unit 
sufficiently to overcome the gripping force.