Patent GB-599815-A (GB)
Title: Improved apparatus for the manufacture of potteryware
IPC: B28B1/02
Filed: 1945-03-07
Abstract: 599,815. Pottery manufacture. MILLER, W. J. March 7,1945, No. 5704. [Class 87(i)] [Also in Groups V, XIII and XXX] Pottery - making apparatus comprises a single or several rotary tables, a conveyer which passes partly around the table or tables and has individual seats each for carrying a mould, and holders mounted on the table or tables and carrying means for feeding, preforming, or profiling clay, the arrangement being such that one or more of these operations is or are performed during movement of the conveyer around the table or tables after which the moulds are delivered to a drier. In the form shown, the apparatus comprises a series of machines 2, 3, 4, 5, Fig. 1, each equipped with a rotary table 8 and provided respectively with means mounted on the tables for feeding, preforming, and profiling clay, a continuously-driven endless mould-carrying conveyer 12 operatively associated with the tables 8 and conveying moulds in succession to the various machines, the moulds then being passed to a drier C. The conveyer 12 is provided with mould seats 11 which engage sockets 9 in the tables 8 to drive the latter and when in such association each mould registers with a rotary mould lifter or chuck 25 therebelow and with the rotary feeding or fabricating equipment thereabove. The mould seats 11 are provided with diametrically-arranged rollers which ride on an endless stationary track 21, the inner rollers being received in the sockets 9. The mould chucks 25 are reciprocated by fluid - pressure operated motors 27, secured to a rotary table 28, in timed relation with the movement of the conveyer 12, the motors for this purpose being connected with a pump P, Fig. 2, through an automaticallyoperated four-way control valve 30 operating between conduits 31, 32, leading from the ends of the motor cylinder and a conduit 36 and distributor head 35 leading to the pump P. The mould-charging machine, Fig. 2, has four rotary charging units arranged above the table 8 and designed to place measured charges of clay into the moulds as they are raised into cooperation therewith. Each charging unit includes a charging cylinder 61 mounted on a rotary container 62 so as to be in alignment with a mould chuck 25, the cylinder having a reciprocating charging plunger 63 which co-operates with a slidable gate 64 at the discharge end of the cylinder. Clay is fed from the container 62 to the charging cylinders through ducts 66. Each plunger is reciprocated by a fluid-pressure operated motor 71 in timed relation with the movement of the respective chuck 25. The preforming machine, Fig. 4, includes heated clay pressing dies 98 arranged above the chucks 25, the dies being reciprocated by fluid-pressure operated motors 99 in timed relation with the movement of the respective chuck. The jiggering machine, Fig. 5, has four jiggering units each including a reciprocable tool holder 118 which is lowered, when the mould chuck 25 raises a mould, to bring the preformed clay into engagement with a profile tool 119 and trimmer 120. Each tool 119 is reciprocated by a fluid-pressure operated motor 121 in timed relation with the movement of the mould chuck. The chucks can be rotated by motors 136. The jiggering operation may be performed entirely by the machine 4 or partly by this machine and partly by a further machine 5. The jiggered moulds are either transferred manually to another conveyer passing through the drier C or the mould-carrying conveyer may extend through the drier in ascending and descending courses between spaced sprockets. The rotary tables 8 may be driven independently of the conveyer 12.