Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor – With work feeding or handling means
Patent
1993-04-21
1995-07-18
Ball, Michael W.
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor
With work feeding or handling means
156107, 156109, 156285, 156361, 156578, 198379, 1984684, 414737, 901 6, 901 16, 901 40, B29C 6500, B29C 6554, B65G 47244, B65G 4791
Patent
active
054338182
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention concerns apparatus for turning a sheet-like workpiece; it also concerns apparatus for applying a strip of material to the sides of such a workpiece.
Although the invention is not so restricted, it will hereafter be particularly described with reference to such apparatus forming part of a machine line for producing sealed units of glass, using a sealant known as the TREMCO "Swiggle Strip" manufactured by TREMCO Manufacturing, Inc. Such a sealing strip is a butyl-based thermoplastic sealant mass, usually sold in reel form with a peelable backing sheet and contains both a band of corrugated metal acting as a spacer and stifleher, and a desiccant. It is tacky to the touch at room temperature.
BACKGROUND
In one known machine line manufactured by ourselves, a first sheet of rectangular glass is washed, in a vertical position, in a special washing machine, rinsed, dried and passed to a so-called tilt applicator. The tilt applicator is a ball castor table which has a pneumatic mechanism for moving the glass sheet from a vertical arrival position to a horizontal working position in which the sealing strip is applied to the perimeter of the sheet. Next, another like sheet is placed on the strip, and then the assembly of two sheets with the sealing strip therebetween is passed to a roller press where it is heated to soften the sealant and compressed.
This known machine line works well and has enjoyed appreciable commercial success. Nevertheless, it is recognized that the tilt applicator, being manually operated, is not as productive as it might be. Moreover, the application of the sealing strip, also being a manual operation, requires a high level of operator skill and concentration.
Still further, the sealing strip is a component that, ideally, should not be handled at all. Thus the moisture in the form of perspiration which is inevitably present on the operator's fingers is apt to close the pores of the sealing strip which may reduce the effectiveness of the desiccant and/or deposit grease where the sealing strip is in contact with the glass; these factors could lead to the rejection of the assembled unit because of the appearance of moisture between the internal faces of the sheets of the unit and/or a reduction in the quality of the seal between the sealing strip and the glass.
Also, sealing strip is supplied in a variety of widths for correspondingly varying spacing between the two sheets of a sealed unit, and the wider the strip the more difficult it is for the operator to manipulate it and to apply it in a straight line.
In our known tilt applicator the glass sheet is rotated by hand in order to apply the sealing strip to all four sides of it and it would be desirable to provide mechanised turning in order to increase productivity.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
The present invention seeks to improve the known tilt applicator by providing apparatus which:
for smaller sheets of glass retains the simplicity and convenience of manual rotation of the glass but for larger sheets provides the option of a highly accurate turning mechanism which presents the four sides of the glass in succession to a specific datum position for the application of the sealing strip;
provides a very simple path from a reel of sealing strip to the point of application, thus avoiding problems associated with the tackiness of the sealing strip and its separation from its backing sheet;
provides a reliable semi-automatic means for adhering the sealing strip to glass but not to the applicator;
enables sealing strip to be applied conveniently around sharp corners;
minimises contact between operator (or machine) with the edges or the insides of the glass sheet assembly, whereby to avoid leaving visible marks and also avoiding the wear caused to anything that touches the edges of glass;
can accommodate a wide variety of sealing strip dimensions; and
reduces the number of operators, and their required skill levels, for a given desired output.
According therefore to the present invention, there is provided
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Ball Michael W.
Griggs Dennis T.
Lorin Francis J.
Willian Design Limited
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