Patent ID: 8163214

Claim:
A method of making a conveyor belt segment with integrally formed teeth for a conveyor belt in a conveyor where the belt is driven by engagement of the teeth with sheaves on a pulley, comprising the steps of: extruding a substantially unreinforced flat ribbon of a thermoplastic material having an inner surface and an outer surface substantially free of discontinuities, providing a profile drum with a plurality of grooves on its outer surface, corresponding in shape to the teeth; passing the flat ribbon over the outer surface of the profile drum; compressing the inner surface of the flat ribbon against the outer surface of the profile drum surface while the flat ribbon is still soft and malleable with a preselected pressure so as to displace spaced apart portions of the inner surface of the flat ribbon by the thermoplastic material flowing into the grooves of the profile drum to thereby form a spaced apart series of teeth between formed flat ribbon portions of generally constant thickness in a formed ribbon; causing the formed ribbon to exit the profile drum and the compression; and passing the formed ribbon through a cooling station for a predetermined time to shrink the formed ribbon to preselected dimensions and to harden the formed ribbon so as to maintain the preselected dimensions; all in a continuous process whereby to form an unreinforced, homogeneous belt segment that can be made to a selected length, stretchable through its length, and the ends spliced together to form an endless conveyor belt of predetermined size.