Patent GB-360457-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to means for passing plates, sheets, bars or other articles through acid treatment baths, furnaces, or the like
IPC: B65G49/02
Filed: 1930-07-31
Abstract: 360,457. Pickling, galvanizing, or annealing metal sheets, bars, &c. THOMAS, H. S., Melingriffith Works, and DAVIES, W. R., St. Petroc, Park Road, both in Whitchurch, Glamorgan. July 31, 1930, No. 23060. [Classes 72 and 82 (ii).] Means for passing sheets, bars, or other articles through acid treatment baths, galvanizing baths, furnaces, or the like includes a movable transfer member which moves around or within a stationary member disposed in the bath or furnace in a closed path involving successive upward, forward, downward and rearward movements so that the articles are fed one by one to the stationary member and advanced through the bath or furnace by step-bystep stages to the delivery point. In a pickling bath 6 is a stationary member 7 with a central rectangular section with racks 7a on the opposite sides or alternatively with one central rack. Around the stationary. member 7 is a movable racked member 14 supported at its four comers by rods 15 pivoted at their upper ends to links 16, the opposite pairs of which are connected by rods 19 connected to counterweights by chains 17 passing over pulleys 18. The ends of the rods 19 are connected by angle brackets 20, Fig. 5, to chains 21 passing over sprocket wheels 22 driven from a common driving shaft 24 so that the links 16 receive a vertical reciprocating motion. The rods 15 are connected by bars 25 through which pass pins 26 engaging with cam tracks 27 fixed to the frame of the machine and formed so that the rods 15 and the member 14 perform a continuous upward, forward, downward and rearward motion. The plate to be pickled is fed by a conveyer 11 and rollers 10 to a shoot 8 having a stop member 8a. As the member 14 moves upward guide-bars 14b attached to the member 14 raise the plate from the shoot 8 and finally a shallow recess 14a engages the bottom edge of the plate and raises it above the stop 8a. The member 14 then moves forward so that on descending the plate enters the first space in the stationary rack member 7 and then on completing its downward motion moves back to its initial position. The member 14 then performs a second cycle in which the plate in the first space in the member 7 is lifted out and moved forward and down into the second space and a fresh plate brought into the first space from the shoot 8. At the delivery end of the member 14 is a lifting section 14c with a shallow recess 14d which, when the member rises, engages the edge of the plate in the last space in the member 7 and pushes it up a guide 7b attached to the member 7 on to a conveyer 12 which delivers it to rolls 13. Curved rods 28 attached to the framework of the machine are provided to prevent a plate falling from the guide 7b rearwardly into the bath. The member 14 may work within instead of around the stationary member 7. The apparatus may be used generally for passing articles through liquids, e.g. in galvanizing and other anticorrosive processes and for passing articles through furnaces for heat treatment. In annealing, packs of sheets may be passed through the furnace instead of single sheets.