Patent GB-190519365-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in the Construction of Machinery for Feeding Sheets to Printing and other Machines
Inventor: GRAFTON WALTER PATRICK
Filed: 1905-09-25
Granted: 1906-08-16
Abstract: 19,365. Grafton, W. P. Sept. 25. Feeding sheets; copying documents.-Relates to apparatus for continuously separating sheets of paper from a pile and feeding them to a printing, duplicating, folding, or other machine. The pile of sheets 1, Fig. 1, is supported between front and rear stops 3, 4, the latter of which is adjustable, on a table 2, mounted on trunnions 6 which slide in stops 9, formed in plates 10 secured to the bed of the machine. The front end of the table is yieldingly pressed upward against a separating-roller 5 by a leaf spring 7 or other means, and in order that the pressure of this roller may be evenly distributed across the pile, the table 2 is balanced on a central vertical pivot 8 and the slots. 9 made sufficiently deep to allow of a slight transverse rocking movement of the table. At the rear of the roller 5, a weighted presser-bar 13 rests upon the pile of paper, each end of the bar being received in one of a row of slots 14, formed in plates 15 carried by the table 2. The bar 13 may be formed integral with a frame 16 adapted to rest upon the pile 1. The surface of the roller 5 is partly covered with rubber or like material 11, Fig. 7, the remainder of the surface being either cut away or formed with a smooth surface adapted to slip over the paper. The roller 5 is intermittently rotated by an oscillating toothed sector 32, which gears with a pinion 33, connected by means of ratchet mechanism shown in Fig. 11 with the shaft of the roller 5. The sector 32 is operated by a link 36 from a pin 37 in a wheel 38 gearing with a pinion 39 on the shaft of the continuously rotating roller 18. After the top sheet has been separated from the pile, it is gripped between the roller 18 and a roller 19, carried by two pivoted arms 46, of which one is connected to a helical spring tending to keep the roller 19 in contact with the roller 18 and the other is provided with a projection 48, adapted to bear'against a cam 49 on the shaft 50, by means of which the roller 19 is moved away from the roller 18 to allow the sheet to be projected between. The operation of the machine is as follows :-The roller 5 rotates in the direction indicated by the arrow in Fig. 7, buckling the top sheet x against the bar 13. When in the position shown in this Figure, the end of the sheet engages a recess 21 in the roller 5, and, by the continued rotation of this roller and the elasticity of the material, the sheet springs forward between the rollers 18, 19, by which it is fed down a shoot 20 to the printing or other machine. The pinion 33, Fig. 1, carries a sleeve 40 which encircles the spindle 31 of the roller 5, and is formed with a gap 41 which slides beneath the pawl 42 secured to the roller, but which, when the pinion is rotated in the operative direction, engages the pawl 42 and rotates the roller. The separating-roller 5 may be formed with a rib instead of a slot 21, as shown. In another modification, the roller is made entirely of rubber and partly covered by an adjustable shield having a rib formed on one edge. The roller 5 may be given an initial rotary motion in the opposite direction in order to register the top sheet correctly against the front stop 3 before buckling it against the bar 13. In operation, the roller 18 may be driven by gearing from a wheel adjustably mounted on the shaft of the printing-cylinder of a duplicating-machine. The wheel is provided with a segmental slot, through which passes a locking- bolt, and carries a scale indicating the position of the wheel relatively to the matter on the cylinder. A pointer at zero of the scale may indicate the point on the cylinder at which a sheet will enter the machine. The scale on the gear-wheel may be made to correspond with a scale on the pile table having its zero point coincident with the stop 3. By adjustment of the wheel scale, the sheets may be made to receive the commencement of the impression at any desired point. In order to facilitate taking- proofs, slots are provided on the machine frame about on a level with the bottom of the roller 18, adapted to receive a temporary table from which the sheets are fed by hand.