Improvements in Rotary Machines for Cutting Cardboard and the like
Year: 1898

page_text: Date of Application, 31st Aug., 1898
Complete Specification Left, 30th June, 1899-Accepted, 30th Nov., 1899
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Rotary Machines for Cutting Cardboard and the like
I, JOHN MELTON BLACK, of 50, Tabernacle Street, London, Gentleman, do
hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
-
This invention relates to improvements in rotary cutting machines for cutting
cardboard and the like so as to ensure the separation of the strip into definite
lengths, to collect the same when separated in consecutive order and to maintain
the continuous collection of these lengths in boxes without stopping the machine
each time the collecting box is filled.
For this purpose I employ a machine similar to the ordinary rotary card cutting
machines that is to say a machine having upper and lower shafts of rotary shears
mounted thereon each pair of shears being in close contact and between which
shears the strip of cardboard is passed. These two shafts of circular shears are
geared together in the usual way and driven by power or hand as required.
As the object of this invention is to cut the board into given lengths as railway
tickets and the like it is necessary that the board should be separated into strips
the width of the ticket by another ordinary rotary card cutting machine.
In place of the ordinary laying on table from which the board is supplied
direct to the shears I mount thereon a hopper placed at right angles to the table
and in parallel line with the shafts of the shears and placed within a few inches
from same.
This hopper is made the length of the strip of cardboard to be separated and
may be of any convenient height. At the shear side of the hopper a narrow slit
is formed at the base slightly wider than the thickness of the cardboard and this
slit may be by preference adjustable to meet the requirements of the thickness
of the card strip.
A plate or plunger the length of the strip but slightly less in thickness slides
upon the table in parallel line with the hopper and is actuated on each end by
crank action from the driving or intermediate wheels of the gearing so that at
each revolution of the shears the plunger is carried forward against the lowest
strip of cardboard in the hopper and slightly in excess of the width of the strip.
The plunger is then withdrawn outside the exterior line of the strips and in its
next advance would carry forward the next lowest strip and press the first strip
forward a similar distance and so on.
These strips as they pass from the hopper are held downwards and in true line
by suitable guides fixed to the back of the hopper which guide the strips forward
to the shears and then when cut into given lengths to the receiving box.
A special feature of this machine consists in the method of mounting the
circular shears on their respective shafts. On the upper shaft each pair of shears
is placed back to back having a space between the cutting edge of each shear of
24 inches or such length as may be required and then a space of 24 inches between
the first and second pair of shears and so on. On the lower shaft each pair of
shears is placed face to face and in close contact with the corresponding pair of
shears on the upper shaft.

page_text: The object of placing the shears in these positions is to ensure that all the
divisional lengths cut by the upper shears and directly under same shall have
the same plane and that those directly above the lower shears shall have the same
but a higher plane the cause of this alteration in level being that the inner bevel
of the shears on the upper shaft forces the ticket downwards and the bevel of
the lower shears forces the ticket upwards.
This alternate raising and lowering of the sectional division of the card enables
the same to be pressed forward in two different planes to the collecting box where-
by the sections when cut from the strip can be moved forward without coming in
contact or overlapping or being placed at a slope.
To ensure that the sectional divisions of the strip shall all be delivered to the
collecting box in the same line and at the same time I employ a gatherer to
each section which presses it forward in a straight line after the same has been
cut by the shears. For this object I mount in a suitable place a pivotted arm
actuated by crank action from the same shaft which actuates the plunger of the
hopper. On the upper end of this arm are two fingers or prongs about an inch
or so apart. Between these two prongs is placed an arm at right angles and
fixed to a bar pivotted to a slide piece sliding in a suitable grooved way fixed
to the side or under the table of the machine. The pivotted arm is so constructed
that it will allow a slight rise and fall to the branch arm placed between the
prongs which would be advanced and brought back by the contact of the respective
prongs. To this bar another bar is pivotted which is again pivotted at its farther
end to a slide piece sliding in a grooved way fixed to the frame of the machine.
At the end of this bar the gatherers for each section are fixed to a bar extending
the width of the machine and each of these gatherers has at its end a right angled
projection about double the thickness of the card board. The appliances above
mentioned are placed on both sides of the machine. These appliances would
operate as follows. When the strip of cardboard is cut by the shears into definite
lengths the gatherer would rise behind each length, then carry it forward to
the length required when the gatherer by the pivotted action of the bars and
forks would descend below the level of the ticket platform and return back to rise
again when the next length is cut and so on.
On the upper shear shaft a tappet is placed which actuates intermittently a bar
having a series of plungers attached thereto which push the tickets downwards
into the collecting box as each ticket is advanced by the gatherers and this bar is
brought back again by means of, a spiral spring.
As one method of securing the continuous collection of the tickets in the collect-
ing box I adopt at the delivery end of the machine a vertical staging sliding on
two rods and which has projections at each side to support the collecting box.
This staging descends by suitable gearing at a speed equal to the delivery of the
tickets. When this staging with its collecting box reaches the level for receiving
the last ticket in the box it presses downwards by means of a lug or stop a lever
frame pivotted to the sides of the machine which by suitable connections releases
the clutch on the driving shaft, removes the full box on to suitable ways, places
the empty box from its way into position to receive the next ticket and instantly
raises the vertical staging to receive the empty box, and these movements are
effected each time the collecting box is filled with tickets.
These movements are obtained by means of a shaft in suitable bearings and
suitably geared to the driving gear of the machine. On this shaft a bevel wheel
is fixed which actuates another bevel wheel fixed on a vrtical shaft on which is
mounted a worm wheel. This worm wheel drives a second shaft parallel to the
first on which is mounted the clutch and on a sleeve the driving geared wheel
of the stage platform and a counterweight pulley. This driving wheel is geared
to an intermediate wheel and then to a rack fixed on the vertical staging.
On the upper shaft is a sleeve with a branch arm thereon, working in a feather
on the shaft and pressed towards a fixed collar by means of a spiral spring
Between this collar and the sleeve, the lever of the lower pivotted stage is

page_text: retained during the descent of the collecting box staging. When this staging.
has reached its lowest descent the lever staging is raised by means of a lug or
stop which acting upon the upper pivotted lever withdraws same from its position
between the collar and the sleeve when the gap is instantaneously filled by the
sleeve, the arm on the same at the next revolution pressing on the top of the lever
raises by means of a branch arm on the connection the bell crank and thereby
withdraws the clutch from the driving wheel.
This brings into action the mechanism for withdrawing the full collecting
box, replacing same by an empty box and raises the staging to receive the empty
box by means of the pulley and counterweight. The empty and full boxes slide
upon galleries or ways supported from the frame of the machine.
Other methods of collecting the tickets may be adopted with the like object
namely that the machine shall work continuously so long as the card board strips
are placed in the hopper.
Improvements in Rotary Machines for Cutting Cardboard and the like
I, JOHN MELTON BLACK, of 56, Tabernacle Street, Finsbury, in the County of
London, Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement:—
My invention relates to rotary machines for cutting cardboard into tickets
and to that class of such machine wherein strips of cardboard (previously cut to
the width of the tickets to be made) are divided into lengths, the object of my
invention being to provide improved means for collecting the cut pieces so that
when the latter are printed and numbered they shall be in consecutive order.
In carrying out my invention I combine with a machine, having upper and
lower sets of rotary shears arranged in the usual manner, a hopper in which the
strips of cardboard to be cut are placed so as to lie parallel with the shafts and
the shears and within a few inches of the same, the said hopper being made
of the length of the strips of cardboard to be separated and of any convenient
height. In conjunction with this hopper I arrange a plunger designed to push
out the lowermost strip from the hopper and move it towards the shears. In
connection with the shears I arrange guides for receiving the cut pieces as they
emerge from the shears and carrying the alternate pieces at different levels, the
said guides having arranged in connection with them a gathering device, for
pushing the tickets towards and into a collecting or receiving box, and arms or
plungers for pushing the tickets downwards into the said box. Means are also
provided for moving the collecting box as it gradually fills with tickets.
To enable my invention to be fully understood I will describe the same by
reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:-
Figure 1 is a side elevation of, my improved machine; and
Figure 2 is a rear elevation of the same:
Figure 3 is a plan view of a part of the said machine drawn to a larger scale
than Figures 1 and 2:
Figure 4 is a sectional elevation of some of the parts shewn in Figure 3:
Figure 5 is a section on the line 5-5 of Figure 4:
Figure 6 is a section on the line 6, 6, Figure 5, drawn to a larger scale;
Figure 7 is a view of a detail.

page_text: a is the frame of the machine and b, are the shafts carrying the rotary cutting
discs c, c¹ respectively, the said cutting discs being arranged back to back in
pairs in such a manner that the cutting edges of the discs on the lower shaft
enter between and work in contact with the cutting edges of the discs
upon the upper shaft in a well known manner, and the pairs of discs upon each
shaft being arranged at a distance apart corresponding with the length of the
tickets to be cut. In Figures 1 and 2 the shaft 6 is represented as the driving
shaft and is provided with fast and loose pulleys d, d in the ordinary manner,
the motion of this shaft is communicated to the shaft b through the gear
wheels e, e¹.
f is a table on the feed side of the machine and is the hopper which is fixed
upon the said table and in which the strips of cardboard to be divided are placed
in proper order, a weight g¹ being placed upon the said strips in order to keep
them perfectly flat and to maintain the lowermost strip in close contact with
the top of the table f.
h, h¹ are slits which are formed along the base of the hopper at the front and
back of the same, the said slits being of a width only slightly greater than the
thickness of the cardboard of the tickets so as to allow of only one strip at a time
being pushed out of the bottom of the hopper. I may, if desired, provide means
for adjusting the position of the hopper relatively with the table f so as to permit
of varying the depth of the slits to suit cardboard of different thicknesses.
is a sliding plate or plunger of the same length as the strips but slightly less
in thickness, the said plunger being adapted to be reciprocated upon the table f
so that on each forward reciprocation it shall enter the bottom of the hopper
through the slit h and force out the lowermost strip from the hopper through
the slit towards the shears. This plunger is operated from each end through
the medium of an oscillating lever j. the said lever being mounted upon a cross
shaft carried in the side frames of the machine, one end of which lever is
bifurcated and engages with a pin upon the plunger whilst the other end is
connected by a rod to a crank pin on a gear wheel mounted on an axle or
stud upon the framing and engaging, as shewn, with the gear wheel e on the
shaft b.
In practice the movement imparted to the plunger i is slightly greater than
the width of tickets so that the lowermost strip in the said hopper will be moved
quite out of the same and towards the shears. As the plunger is withdrawn
backwards from beneath the column of strips in the hopper the latter drops so
that at the next advanced movement of the plunger the said lowermost strip
will be pushed out from the hopper and come in contact with the strip previously
pushed out thereby pressing the first strip forward a distance corresponding to
the travel of the plunger and so on.
The strips as they pass from the hopper are held down by guides k.
As the cutting edges of the pair of shears on one shaft enter between the
cutting edges of the pairs of shears on the other shaft it will be obvious that as
the tickets are severed adjacent tickets will lie in different planes as will be
clearly understood by reference to Figure 4 and I have found by experiment that
by keeping the tickets at these varying levels they can he pushed forward without
becoming disarranged by contact with each other, which is practically im-
possible if all the tickets are pushed forward upon a flat table. In order to retain
the tickets in these different planes I arrange in conjunction with each pair of
shears a guide in which the same move as they are moved forward. This for-
ward movement of the tickets to deliver them into the collecting box is effected
by means of a gatherer in connection with each pair of shears, which gatherer
engages with the severed tickets and draws them forward the required distance.
The several gatherers are in the form of hooks m mounted on a bar n extending
across the machine and carried in bearings o, the said bearings sliding in
guides Figure 4 to permit of the bar n being caused to traverse to-and-fro relatively
with the shears, in order that after the gatherers have drawn a row of tickets
"

page_text: into the collecting box they may move back to engage with another row of
tickets and so on.
Upon the barn are fixed arms 7 carrying weights q¹ the normal tendency of
which weights is to hold the bar in such a position that the hooks will project
behind the tickets as indicated in Figure 5. The to-and-fro movement of the
bar is effected through the medium of sliding bars, r arranged on each side
of the machine and receiving their motion from the shaft j through the levers s,
connecting rods t and double armed levers u one end of each of which is bifurcated
(see Figure 5) to engage with a pin u¹ on the bar r.
In order that the gatherers m, m may be moved below the level of the tickets
when being moved back (after having pushed a row of tickets forward) to engage
with another row of tickets, I provide the bars, with inclined undercut sur-
faces e, which enter loops or stirrups fixed to the shaft n in such a manner
that when the bars r, r, are reciprocated forwards the said inclined planes, e,
by acting upon the said loops, will move the same downwards, as indicated in
Figure 5. When, under the return motion of the rods r, r, the inclined surface v
moves away from the end of the loop the counterweights 7, 7 cause the shaft to
rotate sufficiently to project the ends of the hooks m above the level of the
tickets, the continued backward movement of the bars, causing them to
impinge against the shaft and push it backwards in the guides, together
with the row of tickets engaged by the gatherers. On the forward motion of the
bars, the inclined surfaces e again act upon the stirrups to depress the hooks
and then draw the shaft or barn forward so that the gatherers may engage with
another row of tickets.
wc is a collecting box into which the tickets are delivered, the said collecting
box having at the bottom inclined surfaces ', w upon which the tickets severed
by the several pairs of cutters are respectively delivered, the object of making the
said surfaces inclined being to prevent the tickets from binding at the ends as
would be the case if they were delivered into the box horizontally, the diagonal
arrangement of the tickets giving the necessary free space.
To ensure the tickets falling in this inclined position as they are delivered
through the guides 1, 1, shoulders ², are formed on thin partitions extend-
ing into the box w the said shoulders supporting the tickets at one end whilst
the other end is unsupported.
e, are the plungers which push down the tickets into the collecting box.
These plungers are connected by arms, to a shaft y extending across the
machine, and oscillatory motion is imparted to this shaft y by a cam projection
on the shaft b' of the upper set of shears, the said cam projection at each rotation
striking against the cranked arm y on the shaft y. y is a spring which, after
the shafty has been oscillated in one direction by the cam projection y³, will
return the said shaft together with the plungers to their normal position. It
will be understood that as the plungers, press upon the tickets the latter
will fall first at the ends which are not supported by the shoulders.
It is necessary that as the tickets drop into the collecting box the position
of the uppermost ticket in the said box should remain practically constant
relatively with the plungers a, a, I therefore provide for gradually lowering the
box as the filling of the latter proceeds. This may be accomplished by any
suitable means, in the drawings I have represented the said box as being carried
upon the upper ends of two standards z, z, the lower ends of which are connected
to sockets sliding on rods 1, 1. These sockets form part of a frame having
upon a central bar a rack engaging with a pinion 20 designed to be operated
from the shaft through the medium of the pinions,,, wheel 27, shaft 28,
bevel pinion and wheel, shaft 210, worm and wheel ", shaft and wheel 13.
To permit of the frame 22 being quickly raised when placing an empty box
upon the standards z, z after removing a full box, I arrange the wheel 213 to be
loose upon its shaft 22 and I provide it with a pawl adapted to engage with
a ratchet wheel 5 fixed to the said shaft, the parts being so arranged that under

page_text: ordinary circumstances during feeding, the motion of the shaft 12 will be com-
municated to the wheel z13 but that when it is desired to raise the frame, the
said wheel 3 can be turned upon the shaft 12 when the pawl is disengaged
from the ratchet wheel.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is
1. In machines for cutting cardboard and the like having rotary cutters, the
combination with the said cutters of guides for causing the cards, severed by
adjacent cutters, to travel in different planes, substantially as, and for the pur-
pose, described.
2. In a rotary machine for cutting cardboard and the like, the combination
with a series of pairs of cutting shears and means for carrying the cardboard
severed thereby in different planes, of a hopper for receiving the strips of card-
board to be severed and a sliding plunger for pushing out the strips successively
from the bottom of the said hopper and delivering them to the shears, substantially
as described.
3. In a rotary machine for cutting cardboard and the like the combination
with a series of pairs of cutting discs and means for carrying the cardboard
severed thereby in different planes, of a hopper for receiving the strips of card-
board to be severed, a sliding plunger for pushing out the strips successively
from the bottom of the said hopper and delivering them to the shears, and a
gatherer adapted to engage with the tickets as they pass from between the
shears and to convey them to a collecting box, substantially as described.
4. In a rotary machine for cutting cardboard and the like the combination with
a series of pairs of cutting shears and means for carrying the cardboard severed
thereby in different planes, of a hopper for receiving the strips of cardboard to
be severed, a sliding plunger for pushing out the strips successively from the
bottom of the said hopper and delivering them to the shears, a gatherer adapted
to engage with the tickets as they pass from between the shears and to convey
them to a collecting box and a series of plungers for pressing the tickets down
into the collecting box, substantially as described.
5. The improved machine for cutting strips of cardboard and the like into
lengths and collecting them consisting of the parts constructed and combined
substantially in the manner hereinbefore described and illustrated in the accom-
panying drawings and operating as, and for the purposes, set forth.
Hatod the 30th day of Tuna 1800
G. F. REDFERN & Co.,
4, South Street, Finsbury, London,
Agents for the Applicant.