Patent GB-706747-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in and relating to buckles, and machines for applying them in the manufacture of belts
IPC: A41H37/08
Filed: 1952-04-10
Abstract: 706,747. Buckles; belts; buckle-attaching machines. JOHNSON & JOHNSON. April 10, 1952 [April 12, 1951], No. 9318/52. Classes 43 and 141 A slide buckle for a belt comprises a frame 14, Fig. 15, with medial transverse elements 15 extending towards each other from opposite sides of the frame and leaving between their ends a narrow gap 16 wide enough to permit the passage of overlapped longitudinally folded portions of a strip of flexible material but sufficiently narrow to prevent passage of the strip material therethrough when its overlapped portions lie flat against the transverse elements 15. The buckle is intended for use with a belt 10, Fig. 13, formed of a strip of flexible, preferably elastic or non-elastic textile material 11 the ends of which are brought towards one another, passed through a clip or eyelet 12, Fig. 16, and then drawn apart and given reverse folds to form two loops 17 and overlapped portions which are respectively connected together by a slide buckle 14. To facilitate the application of the buckles to the strip 11 by a machine the strip is provided at each end with a flat ferrule or bead 19 of metal or other material and stretched, as shown in Fig. 3, between the extremities of a pair of arms 18 located one at each side of the machine, each arm having a transversely slotted end portion into which an end of the strip is inserted from the front edge. The arms 18 are each secured to the end of a short shaft 28, Fig. 1b, journalled in the machine frame and carrying a pinion 29 which is engaged by a vertically reciprocable rack bar 30 controlled by a cam-actuated lever 22 at its lower end, upward movement of the rack bar being opposed by a tensioned spring 32. The actuating cams 36 of the levers 33 form part of a series on a shaft 37 driven by a chain and sprocket at one end. With the arms 18 positioned as in Fig. 3 the central portion of the tensioned strip 11 is located above a pair of spaced pins 22 which are fixed in the machine frame above a position to which an eyelet 12 is brought by a sliding member 23, Fig. 1a, which is moved forwardly and rearwardly by a cam-controlled lever 120 at its rear end, the forward end of the member 23 being provided with a recess 24 shaped to receive an eyelet 12 which drops therein from a magazine at the rearward portion of the member 20. When the member 23, with the eyelet, is in its forward, position the arms 18 are swung downwardly from the position shown in Fig. 3, thereby allowing the strip 11 to slacken and, at the same time, a push-bar 38, Fig. 1a, disposed vertically above the strip and eyelet 12, is moved downwardly by a rack and pinion drive' at its upper end. The push-bar 38 has secured at its lower end a pair of relatively long and narrow leaf springs 53 which, when the bar 38 is in its normal or topmost position, are held flat and in face-to-face contact by a pair of closely spaced pins 54, so that the lower ends of the springs will enter the aperture 13 in the eyelet 12 as they push the strip 11 before them. This downward movement takes up the slack resulting from rotary movement of the arms 18 towards one another and forms a long and narrow central loop, and at the same time the parts of the strip at each side of the central loop are wrapped partly around a circular form 26 provided with a circumferential groove of the same width and depth as the strip. After extending the loop to its maximum depth the push-bar 38 is retracted upwardly for a short distance to provide sufficient slack for the springs 53 to spread outwardly and enlarge the loop 55 laterally, as shown in Fig. 5, whereupon a pair of wing members 56 are moved forwardly from the rear into the loop. The wing members 56 are of greater width than the belt strip 11 and, as shown in Fig. 1b, are normally disposed vertically at the extremities of lateral arms 57 secured at the ends of rearwardly extending. shafts 58 which can be moved in the direction of their axes by a cam-operated forked-arm 63 and, at a predetermined instant, rotated by a pinion 69 thereon in engagement with a vertical rack-bar 70. The lower ends of the members 56 are provided with notches 68 to engage the belt strip so that the latter, due to the anticlockwise rotation of the right-hand arm 57 and the clockwise rotation of the lefthand arm, together with continuing rotation of the arms 18, is brought into the position shown in Fig. 7. At this stage a pair of slides 75 are moved forwardly to present a buckle 14 directly beneath each of the overlapped portions, the buckles being fed by gravity into recesses 77. Fig. 22 (not shown), in the top faces of the ends of the slides while the latter are in their rearward position. The slides 75 are given a short dwell in their forward position during which a pair of plungers 92 disposed vertically above the overlapped portions of strip material are moved downwardly to push them through the gaps 16 in the buckles 14. A central recess 81 is provided in the ends of the slides 75, below the recess that receives the buckle, to provide clearance for the plungers 92 in their downward movement. The belt thus having been completed, the plungers 92 are retracted upwardly to clear the buckles 14. and restoration of the other parts of the machine to their normal position commences. However, before restoration of the arms 18 to their normal position is completed the belt is stripped therefrom by a pair of stripper bars 104, Fig. 1a, normally located with their front ends behind the circularmembers 26 about which the strip material 11 is wound. The bars 104 are slidable longitudinally in pairs of spaced uprights 105, 106 and are biased forwardly by springs 107, being held in their rearward position by the bifurcated lower ends of levers 109 the upper ends of which are pinned to the rocking shaft 89 and controlled by cams 111. The cam surfaces are such that when a belt has been completed both the bars. 104 are allowed to be moved forwardly by the springs 107, whereby V- shaped notches 113 near the forward ends of the bars engage. the rear edge of the belt and strip the belt from the circular members 26 and the pins 22, and out of the slots 20 in the arms 18, whereupon it drops into a receptacle.