Patent ID: 7228972

Claim:
In a rolling mill in which long products are subdivided by a shear into bars having front and tail ends, a majority of said segments having full lengths, and some of said bars having unacceptable short lengths, a system for separating the bars having short lengths from the bars having full lengths, said system comprising: a first roller table for longitudinally conveying said bars from said shear to a transfer station located on one side of a separation station and at which said bars are accumulated in a layer; a second roller table extending from a terminal stop at said separation station to a recovery station; first chain conveyors operable in a forward direction to transfer all of the bars of said layer laterally from said transfer station onto said second roller table at said separation station, said second roller table being operable in a forward direction to longitudinally shift all of the bars of the thus transferred layer into an alignment at which their front ends abut said terminal stop; at least one elevator having an open window, said elevator being adjustable between a lowered position beneath said second roller table and a raised position lifting the tail ends of thus aligned full length bars above said second roller table while allowing the tail ends of the thus aligned short bars to remain on said second roller table and in alignment with the window of said elevator, said second roller table being operable in a reverse direction to longitudinally convey the short bars from said separation station through said window to said recovery station, whereupon following return of said elevator to its lowered position to redeposit the tail ends of full length bars on said second roller table, said first chain conveyors are operable in a reverse direction to transfer the full length bars laterally from said separation station to said transfer station.