Patent ID: 6978536

Claim:
An applicator for applying, to a plurality of sheets, clips made of bent spring-wire having first and second end sections joined together by an elastically-deformable wire juncture section, said applicator comprising: a holder for holding a plurality of said clips in a manner to successively feed them one at a time to a sheet-clipping station, with the wire juncture section facing one side of the sheet-clipping station; a driving member at said one side of the sheet-clipping station for engaging the clip in the sheet-clipping station and for driving the clip towards the other side of the sheet-clipping station for spreading said end sections apart in order to receive the sheets to be clipped by the driven clip; said holder is configured to hold clips in which said first end section of each clip overlies said second end section of the respective clip, wherein said first end section is wider than said second end section such as to project outwardly thereof on the opposite sides of said clip, and said first end section is shorter than said second end section such that said second end section projects axially past said first end section; said applicator further includes a first pair of deflector surfaces located on opposite sides of said sheet-clipping station and configured to engage the underside of outwardly projecting portions of the first end section of the clip, when driven by said driving member to deflect said first end section away from said second end section; and said applicator further includes a second pair of deflector surfaces located on opposite sides of said sheet-clipping station, and configured to engage an upper side of the axially projecting portion of said second end sections of the clip, when driven by said driving member, wherein said second pair of deflector surfaces are closer to each other than said first pair of deflector surfaces.