Patent GB-858730-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in book forming and pressing machine
IPC: B42C11/04
Filed: 1958-12-12
Abstract: 858,730. Bookbinding machines. SMYTH MANUFACTURING CO. Dec. 12, 1958 [July 28, 1958], No. 40187/58. Class 16. A rotary machine for acting upon a succession of books having covers pasted thereto but with the paste not set initially, comprises an intermittently - rotated turret 10, a number of equally spaced presser units 16 mounted on the turret and each having a pair of opposed relatively movable clamping plates to engage the sides of a book cover and means for applying continuous pressure to a book, means for rotating the turret so that each of the presser units 16 is brought to rest at each of a number of stations A to I during one revolution of the turret, and a creaser unit 144 at several of the stations for engaging the binding edge portion of a book held by a presser unit to crease and form the book joints. The books are fed to station A, are formed or shaped at B, and the backs pass over three inflated rubber rollers arranged, respectively, between stations C, D, EF, and GH where the spines of the books are smoothed. At each station B ... H the sides of the books are pressed resiliently, and the joints are engaged and creased by electrically heated creaser jaws. When the books arrive at Station I, they are discharged on to a shoot 18, Feeding books. Books from a casing-in machine are placed or fed, spines down, on a conveyer belt 22, Figs. 1 and 3, and guided by side plates 28 over a fixed support plate 34 where the sides of the book are gripped between two belts 30 which advance the books towards a stop and escapement mechanism 38 of known construction. This mechanism comprises two pairs of stop fingers 37, 37 and 39, 39 operated and arranged so that a book is stopped by the fingers 37, allowed to pass these fingers and is then stopped by the fingers 39, and is then released by the fingers 39 for conveyance by the belts 30 on to a loading plate 86. In this position, a retracted transverse feeding finger 50 on a reciprocable carriage 54 engages behind the.book and pushes it along the plate 86 to engage stops 82, whereupon the plate 86 is raised to place the book between the presser plates of the unit 16 at station A. The stop fingers 37, 39 are operated from a verticallyreciprocating bar 40, vertical rods attached thereto operating on bell-cranks which connect the two sets of fingers and move them in slides 46, 48, against the action of springs. The pusher finger 50 is carried in a cross-slide 52, is urged by springs across the book path, and is retracted by a shuttle frame 70 which is mounted to pivot about a shaft 72. The frame slide 52 is mounted on the carriage 54 reciprocated along a slide 56 by a system of levers. The loading plate 86 is vertically reciprocated in slides 90. Presser units. Each unit 16, Figs. 1 and 9, comprises an L-shaped casting, bolted to the turret gear 10, to provide an inner fixed jaw and side extensions which slidably receive rods 108 which carry an outer jaw adjustably secured thereon. The inner ends of the rods 108 are adapted to be engaged at stations A, B, and I by a cam-operated cross-plate (140, not shown) so that the outer jaw is moved away from the fixed jaw when a book is to be released. Coil springs on the rods 108 serve to urge the outer jaw against the book sides. Both jaws carry presser plates. Creaser units. There is a unit 144 at stations B to H, and each comprises electrically-heated jaws 146, 148, Fig. 9, on inner and outer carriers 154, 156 respectively. The carrier 154 is slidable radially outwardly of the machine beneath the presser unit 16, by cam means, against the action of springs, and the carrier 156 is also similarly slidable by cam means and can be adjusted to suit different books. The cam means, in each case, is associated with a plunger pin vertically reciprocating along the turret axis. Instead of jaws which form books with hinge or joint channels as above, two other alternative forms of creaser units may be employed to form joints wherein the back or spine of the book is pressed so that the edge portions thereof fold over the sides of the cover without defining joint channels along the sides. In the first alternative form, two U-shaped pivoted members are swung towards each other about pivots to cam over the edges of the book cover spine whilst the book is gripped at the sides by the presser unit 16. In the second form, there are no jaw carriers and no relatively movable jaws, the creasing unit merely comprising a concave shoe which is pressed upwardly against the book back. Forming units. At station B the presser unit 16 is opened, the book, Fig. 9, being gripped and supported by the creaser jaws 146, 148, and a shaped forming bar 210 is forced downwardly on the book to shape it. Further shaping and smoothing of the book back is performed by passing the back over three inflated rubber rollers. Driving &c. mechanisms. A motor drives a main shaft coupled by gearing to a cam shaft (244, not shown) which, through systems of levers actuates all the units including the turret gear 10. The gear 10 is driven intermittently by a pinion 14, Fig. 1, on a vertical shaft which is coupled by a clutch to a stub shaft which is oscillated by rack and pinion means, The clutch is disengaged on alternate reciprocations of the rack to provide rotation of the gear 10 in one direction only, and a toothed block 15 reciprocable towards and away from the gear locates the latter accurately at each of the stations A to I.