Improvements in Machines adapted for Making Balls, Rivets, Screws, and like Articles.
Year: 1898

page_text: Date of Application, 26th Feb., 1898
Complete Specification Left, 15th Nov., 1898-Accepted, 7th Jan., 1899
Improvements in Machines adapted for Making Balls, Rivets,
Screws, and like Articles.
We, THE HOFFMANN MANUFACTURING COMPANY, LIMITED, and ERNST GUSTAV
HOFFMANN, Engineer, both of 43, Beech Street, Barbican, London, E.C., do hereby
declare the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
-
This invention relates to machines adapted for automatically making balls rivets
screws and like articles by cutting or turning same from a rotating body such as a
wire. The invention is particularly applicable and will be described by way of
illustration in connection with an automatic ball making machine described in the
Specification to British Letters Patent No. 8123 of 1892 having circular cutters
provided with a series of grooves and cutting edges adapted to rough out a ball
finish others and sever one or act with a series of operations upon a series of balls
at one forward movement.
In such a machine it has been found that when the roughing out action on one
ball takes place simultaneously with the finishing action on another the strain on
the cutter occasioned by the heavier work of roughing ont rather interferes with the
finer work of finishing and hence is liable to impair the accuracy of the finished
ball.
To obviate this it is proposed to employ a separate cutter for the roughing out
part of the process such cutter being provided with one or a number of grooves and
cutting edges adapted to act upon one or a number of balls as desired while the
second cutter is provided with any desired number of grooves and cutting edges
adapted to partly finish, finish and sever the balls roughed out by the previous
cutter.
Each cutter is carried by a separate slide or like device and is suitably held in
same, said slides being reciprocated from some moving part in such a way that when
the second cutter is making its last forward movement or finishing its forward
movement with the object of finishing one ball and cutting off another the roughing
out cutter is withdrawn from the continuously rotating rod so that the strain it
puts upon same is relieved.
To further assist in relieving the partly made balls or the wire of the strain of the
tools and thus ensure greater accuracy an adjustable back support of some suitable
kind may be used said support preferably having recesses or rollers to receive such
balls and taking through saine the strain or pressure of the tools.
Dated the 26th day of February 1898.

page_text: Improvements in Machines adapted for Making Balls, Rivets,
Screws, and like Articles.
We, THE HOFFMANN MANUFACTURING COMPANY, LIMITED, and ERNST GUSTAV
HOFFMANN, Engineer, both formerly of 43, Beech Street, Barbican, London, E.C.,
but now of Chelmsford, in the County of Essex, 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 :-
This invention relates to machines adapted for automatically making balls rivets
screws and like articles by cutting or turning same from a rotating body such as a
wire. The invention is particularly applicable and will be described by way of
illustration in connection with an automatic ball making machine described in
Specification to British Letters Patent No. 8123 of 1892 having circular cutters
provided with a series of grooves and cutting edges adapted to rough out a ball
finish others and sever one or act with a series of operations upon a series of balls
at one forward movement.
In such a machine it has been found that when the roughing out action on one
ball takes place simultaneously with the finishing action on another the strain on
the cutter occasioned by the heavier work of roughing out rather interferes with the
fiver work of finishing and hence is liable to impair the accuracy of the finished
ball.
To obviate this the invention consists in providing a separate cutter for the
roughing out process such cutter being provided with a movement independent of
the finishing cutter so that it is capaple of being advanced to and withdrawn from
the work independently of the other, and according to this invention is in fact
preferably withdrawn before the finishing cutter has completed the finishing of a
ball so that the greater strain is removed from the material or balls being operated
upon and a more accurate article is thereby produced.
To further assist in relieving the material or balls of this strain an adjustable
back support capable of partly embracing the balls or the like is also employed.
In the accompanying drawing is illustrated a part of a machine for making
balls from a rotating wire sufficient to illustrate the application of the present
invention.
Fig. 1 is a plan of same.
Fig. 2 a front elevation and
Fig. 3 is a cross section on line x-x Fig. 1.
The general construction of the machine is as follows:-a is a bed plate or frame
in which is mounted in suitable bearings bb bb two hollow spindles c c¹ on one of
which (c) on one side of the machine is carried the wire d from which the balls are
to be formed such wire being gripped at intervals by a suitable clutch e operated by
pivoted lever f from a cam g on a shaft h carried by brackets h² h² attached to the
a
frame.
On the other side of the machine is a clutch e¹ adapted to hold the ball last made
until severed by the cutter when it is carried along the hollow spindle c¹ and is
discharged from the end of same, the clutch being opened to release the ball for this
purpose and closed to grip the next one by a pivoted lever f¹ operated by a cam g¹
on the shaft h. Said shaft is operated by a gear wheel h¹ from a suitable pinion
driven from some moving part of the machine and the spindles ccare rotated by
means of the pulleys i¹ the first serving to rotate the wire while the clutch e is
holding same and the second to rotate the clutch e¹ in the same direction so that it
travels with the ball it is holding at the same speed. Between the clutch e and a

page_text: back support 8 hereafter described is situated some suitable form of feeding device
adapted for moving the wire forward.
According to the present invention there are mounted on the frame a two slides k k
suitably guided by dovetail portions working in correspondingly shaped grooves
in the frame or in the form shewn in a projecting part a' provided to carry the
slides.
These slides are each capable of an independent reciprocating motion through
the agency of lever Fig. 3 situated in a recess of the part a¹ and carried by a stud l¹
journalled in said part. The stud is operated in turn by a lever m attached to a
connecting rod ml carrying a cam lever m² pivoted at m³ the free end of which lever
or a roller carried by same, bears against and is operated by a cam n on shaft h.
A spring m is employed to operate the rod m¹ in the opposite direction to the cam.
The means for operating the other slide may be identical and similar letters of
reference have therefore been placed on the parts or the means may be different
so long as they are independent of the means for operating the first slide.
Each slide carries a clamp o having a handle and suitable adjusting devices
which need not be here described to enable each clamp to properly hold the
mandrils p of cutters q q¹ respectively so that same are practically side by side.
These cutters are here shewn as circular and as having grooves around their
peripheries and a mutilated portion forming a cutting edge as shewn in Fig. 3 such
cutting edge serving to reduce the wire d to the form or curvature of the grooves
of the cutter.
The cutters are shewn as adapted to produce balls from the wire d the cutter q
being the roughing out cutter and the cutter q' the finishing and severing cutter.
The cutter q is shewn as provided with a single groove adapted to rough out one
ball at a time and the cutter q¹ with two grooves which are cut to different depths
so that the first one on the left will partly finish a second ball and the second one
will entirely finish a third ball previous to which a parting knife fin or edge on
the extreme right has during the first forward movement of the cutter severed and
finished a fourth ball which is at that moment held in the jaws of clutch e¹. In the
arrangement indicated in Fig. 1 the space between the cutters is such that a fifth
ball which has just been roughed out is present on the wire but this or the number
of same is dependent entirely upon the space left between such cutters.
The form of such cutters however is only illustrated and described generally as
it is an arrangement now known from the Patent before referred to as is also the
means of giving the cutters the forward movement all of such being a portion of
the arrangement of the cams and connected parts which do not come within the
scope of the present invention. At the rear of the partly formed balls is a back
support consisting of a block 8 adjustable on the frame a by means of a screw t
and a slot in said block.
This block is provided with a hardened metal bearing u Fig. 3 adapted to allow
the balls to partly seat therein and to take up the strain caused by the pressure of
the tools upon said balls or it may be provided with rollers. For rivets and screws
the cutters edges are modified accordingly and in the latter case they may be given
a traversing motion, if required.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, we declare that what we
claim is :-
1. In a machine for making balls or like articles the employment with hollow
spindles and clutches for holding the wire, and articles formed of a cutter for
roughing out the article, a cutter for finishing the article which has been roughed
out by the first cutter, slides carried alongside of each other and holding each a
cutter as aforesaid and means for independently moving same substantially as
described.
a
2. In a machine for making balls and like articles from wire the employment of
pair of circular cutters one of same being adapted to rough out an article from the

page_text: wire and the other to further act on such roughed out article and to sever a third,
and means for carrying such cutters side by side, and for independently reciprocating
same substantially as described.
3. In a machine for making balls and like articles the arrangement of double
cutters substantially as and for the purpose described and illustrated.
Dated this 15th day of November 1898.
PHILIP M. JUSTICE,
55 and 56, Chancery Lane, London, W.C., Chartered Patent Agent,
For the Applicants.