Patent GB-359456-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in installations for the manufacture of glassware
IPC: C03B7/14
Filed: 1930-07-17
Abstract: 359,456. Glass manufacture. MILLER, Inc., W. J., 7539, Center Street, Swissvale, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. July 17, 1930, No. 21629. Convention date, July 26, 1929. [Class 56.] Delivering molten metal.-In glass fabricating machines, the glass feeding machine and the fabricating machine have a common driving means geared to one of them, two indicators, preferably concentrically disposed, one moving in phase with the feeding machine and the other with the fabricating machine, being provided to enable the operation of the machines to be correctly synchronized. A friction or yielding clutch, the members of which can engage in any angular position relatively to one another is provided for coupling the other machine to the driving means. In the construction described, the synchronizing and driving mechanism is mounted on a cast base 1 bolted to the base of the fabricating machine 2 which is mounted on wheels 4 to enable it to be moved to and from the glass feeding machine 3. An electric motor 5 drives, through gears 6, 7, a shaft 8 from which the feeding machine 3 is driven through bevel gears 10, 11, shaft 12, bevel gears 17, stub shaft 16, flexible coupling 18, an extensible, e.g. telescopic, shaft 19, and a flexible coupling 20 connected to the feeder mechanism 21. This may consist of a cam shaft 21a operated through worm and worm wheel gearing and actuating the charge extruding plunger 21b and the shear mechanism 21c of a feeder of the Hartford Empire type, or the shaft 19 may operate valve mechanism for controlling the supply of compressed air to pneumatic cylinders for operating the plunger and shears of a pneumatically-operated feeder. A shaft 8a, driven from the shaft 8 through a friction clutch of known construction, drives, through bevel gears 37, 38 and other connections, the rotary table 38a of the fabricating machine which is of the intermittently rotated table type. The clutch consists of a member 39 secured to shaft 8 and a coupling member 40 feathered and slidable axially on shaft 8a and operated by a lever 45, the forked end 44 of which engages in a groove 43 in a boss 41 connected by links 40a with member 40. The lever 45 may be operated manually through a lever 45a, or by a pedal, or by a solenoid in an electric circuit controlled by a push button, or off the feeder shaft by a cam. A safety device arranged between member 39 and shaft 8 comprises a collar 50 fast on shaft 8 and housing spring- pressed balls 51 normally engaging depressions in a collar 52 carried by an extension 53 of member 39. The springs 55 are adjusted by screws to hold the balls 51 in the depressions for all normal torques, but to yield and allow the balls to ride out disconnecting the fabricating machine from the drive and preventing damage when this machine offers excessive resistance. A thrust bearing 56 is provided for the collar 52. The indicating means consists of a pointer 29 attached to a hollow shaft 27 rotated from shaft 8, through gears 22, 23, shaft 24 and gears 25a, 26, in synchronism with drive of the feeder 3. A pointer 31 rotating concentrically with pointer 29 and attached to a shaft 30 is driven through similar gearing from shaft 8a in synchronism with the drive of the fabricating machine. The gearing and the setting of the pointers is arranged so that when the pointers are coincident or in some other predetermined relationship the machines will be in a condition to be coupled together in driving engagement. The device may also be used with a continuously rotating table machine running at higher speed in which, if it is desired to drop the charge slightly before the mould reaches the charging position, the clutch may be engaged before the pointers are coincident and a scale may be provided, preferably behind and fixed to one of the pointers, to enable the engagement of the clutch to be more accurately determined.