Patent GB-190611074-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in Envelope Sealing Machines.
Inventor: MARKOE JOHN ALOYSIUS
Filed: 1906-05-11
Granted: 1906-11-15
Abstract: 11,074. Marhoe, J. A. May 11. Damping envelopes ; feeding envelopes. - The envelopes with partly opened flaps are pressed against a damping-roller by a follower head which also delivers them to the feed-rollers. After being inverted by the first pair of rollers, the envelopes strike against a stop which deflects them through the sealing-rollers to the receiving table. The envelopes Z, Fig. 5, are fed along an inclined table, made up of a number of parallel rods 6 by a gravity follower head 15 having an inclined face and running on small wheels 16, 17, which presses the partly open and overlapping flaps against the damping-roller 18 running in contact with a supply roller 19 in a trough 20. The flaps of the envelopes are pressed lightly downward toward the roller 18 by a rod 23, the forward end of which is pivoted on the rod 2. As the envelopes are fed forward between the rollers 24, 25; which are both corrugated part of their length, they are inverted and delivered against an inclined deflecting-plate 37, which directs them between the roller 25 and a rubber-covered sealing-roller 26. Adjustahly secured to the back of the deflecting- plate 37 is a stop plate 39, and pivoted on the tie rod 2 and resting on the shoulders 40 of the stop. 39 are one or more stop rods 41 which assist in imparting an initial downward movement to the envelopes. After being sealed, the envelopes are delivered against a fixed guide - plate 44 and accumulate on the rods 11, being forced against a clamping head 45 that'rides frictionally clamped by a bolt and nut on the rods 11, the forward ends of which can be adjusted in the slots 13. A sprocket chain runs under sprocket-wheels on the rollers 24, 26 and over sprocket-wheels on the roller 25 and the damping - roller 18. By this means the three feed-rollers and the two moistening-rollers are driven either by a crank or by an attachment for a power device attached to the roller 26. The roller 25 has a limited yielding movement with respect to the rollers 26, and the roller 24 a similar movement with respect to the roller 25, the shafts of the movable rollers being respectively subject to springs 35, 34. The corrugations of the roller 25 assist in carrying the lower edges of the inverted envelopes from a position in line with the passage between the rollers 25, 26. The moistened gummed flaps of the envelopes in passing between the rollers 24, 25 engage only with the narrow corrugated surface of the roller 24 and hence find but little roller surface with which they may adhere. The roller 25 also has two deep peripheral grooves which receive on the underside the forward ends of the guide-fingers 36 to prevent the envelopes from being carried forward by the intermediate roller. The tendency that very thin letters have of being fed into the machine two at a time is prevented by an adjustable soft rubber friction strip 42 placed on the deck bars 8 adjacent to the roller 24. In a modified construction for bulky envelopes, shown in Fig. 6, a fourth roller 48, which has frictional contact with the roller 24, co-operating with a hinged spring deflecting-plate 49, assists in forcing the envelopes between the sealing-rollers.