IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR ROLLING, STRAIGHTENING, POLISHING, OR FINISHING ROUND METALLIC RODS, BARS, AND TUBES
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Robert Cassels and Robert
Hay at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 13th November
1878.
JOHN ROBERT CASSELS, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain,
and ROBERT HAY, of Motherwell, in the same County. "IMPROVEMENTS IN
MACHINERY FOR ROLLING, STRAIGHTENING, POLISHING, OR FINISHING ROUND
METALLIC RODS, BARS, AND TUBES."
This Invention relates to machinery of the kind in which the operation of rolling,
straightening, polishing, or finishing round metallic rods, bars, and tubes is effected
by means of two rolls, discs, or cones placed in reverse oblique positions, the rod,
bar, or tube moving in a plane to which the axes of the rolls, discs, or cones are
about equally inclined, and receiving a progressive or feeding movement in the
direction of its length as well as a motion of rotation from the rolls, discs, or
cones.
In practice a single passage of the rod, bar, or tube through the machine and
between the rolls is often found insufficient, and one object of the present Invention
is to improve and render the operation more effective and complete by arranging
and combining the machinery so that the rod, bar, or tube can have the operation
repeated on the whole or any part of it in a rapid and convenient manner.
Hitherto when a rod, bar, or tube has required the treatment to be repeated it has
generally had to be carried over or round the side of the machine so as to be
reentered at the entering side. It has been proposed to attain the desired object
by reversing the angles or obliquities of the rolls, but this can only be effected by
mechanism of such complexity as to be quite unsuitable for general use.
By the first part of the present Invention the end is attained by simply reversing
the direction of rotation of the rolls, suitable reversing gear being applied to the
machinery for that purpose. In carrying out the Invention the rolls, discs, or cones
are by preference mounted side by side in framings or housings provided with
bearings and screw adjustments to admit of the acting surfaces being set at
different distances apart. The motions are transmitted to the rolls through inter-
Paine 01

page_text: mediate shafts of lengths corresponding to the maximum length of rod, bar, or tube
to be operated on, and at the further ends these intermediate shafts carry spur
wheels which gear with and are driven both by the same spur wheel on a second-
motion shaft. This second-motion shaft has fast on it a bevil wheel with which there
gear two diametrically opposite bevil pinions which are loose on the first motion
shaft and which are formed with clutch projections. A clutch is fitted with a
groove and key on the first-motion shaft and can be moved by a hand lever to
engage with either of the bevil wheels, and the rolls will rotate in one direction or
the other accordingly. Any other suitable known arrangement of reversing gear
may be employed, but that described is believed to be the most convenient.
By another part of the present Invention enery and water or other grinding
materials are applied to the rod, bar, or tube whilst passing through the machine
by a pair of clamp-like pieces which embrace the rod, bar, or tube, and which are
formed with an opening at the top to admit the grinding or polishing material.
These clamp-like pieces are connected to the fixed table or guide with freedom to
follow any lateral movements of the rod, bar, or tube.
The present Invention also comprises the combining of a third roll or disc with
the two obliquely placed rolls commonly used in the kind of machinery to which
the Invention relates, the three rolls being placed so that they each touch and act
on the rod, bar, or tube passing between thein. The added roll may be driven, but
this is not necessary.