Patent ID: 7905443

Claim:
In a sheet metal unwinding, slitting and rewinding operation including a wide coil of sheet metal mounted on a horizontal axis for being unwound, a slitter for slitting said wide coil into a plurality of strips, a rewinding station wherein said strips are individually rewound into a plurality of smaller coils and an accumulator located between said slitter and said rewinding station, wherein the improvement comprises: said accumulator including an elongated mandrel mounted for rotation about a horizontal axis parallel to the axis of said coil of sheet metal and being arranged such that all of said plurality of strips pass over the top of said mandrel, said mandrel being located above the height of said wide coil of sheet metal, above said slitter and above said rewound individual strips; a plurality of disks mounted on said mandrel for separating said plurality of strips from each other; said mandrel including a first and a second end and wherein said accumulator includes first and second vertically extending supports for supporting said first and second ends of said mandrel, respectively; first and second holders mounted on said first and second supports for releasably holding the first and second ends of said mandrel, each of said holders including a substantially U-shaped cup means for holding the sides and bottom of said ends of said mandrel, each of said holders being open at the top thereof so that the mandrel can be inserted or removed from the open top; each of said supports including a vertically extending rod having an external thread formed thereon and including means for rotating each of said rods for adjusting the height of said mandrel; each of said holders including a threaded bore and wherein its respective rod is threaded through said bore so that rotation of said rod causes said holder to move upwardly or downwardly, and means for preventing rotation of said holders.