Patent ID: 7249546

Claim:
A process for punching a series of shaped motor lamination discs from an elongate strip of relatively stiff material to form adjacent discs, the process comprising the steps of simultaneously cutting and shaping said series of shaped lamination discs at a plurality of stations including a slot cutting station and a plurality of intermediate stations, said series of shaped motor lamination discs and said plurality of stations each having centers, said plurality of stations and said strip having an imaginary center line and said centers falling substantially on said center line, cutting at said slot cutting station a plurality of laterally extending slots through said strip between adjacent discs, said slot forming four angled narrow deformable bridges connecting said adjacent discs, orienting each disc of said series of shaped motor lamination discs at said intermediate stations while shaping each said disc at said intermediate stations, and enabling the distances between said adjacent discs at said intermediate stations to be both increased to match a die distance between centers of two of said plurality of stations when shorter than the die distance, and decreased to match the die distance between centers of two of said plurality of stations when longer than the die distance by simultaneously deforming said bridges while maintaining said centers of said adjacent discs substantially on said center line when the distances between said centers of said adjacent discs are respectively lesser than or greater than the distances between said centers of said stations, each of said discs having outer sides, trimming said outer sides of said discs so as to remove two of said four bridges positioned endmost adjacent said outer sides following said intermediate stations and further comprising the step of engaging said outer sides of a disc which is adjacent said slot cutting station and thereby orienting said disc at said slot cutting station while cutting said at least one slot.