Tool changing – Process
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-15
2002-12-24
Briggs, William (Department: 3722)
Tool changing
Process
C072S238000, C483S028000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06497642
ABSTRACT:
This invention relates to a method for replacing for a mandrel and associated tooling, and suitably designed apparatus for performing this operation specifically for use in machinery adapted for the automated manufacture of tin boxes. A description of such machinery is provided immediately below to enhance the understanding of the reader.
Automated tin box manufacture is accomplished by juxtaposing several different pieces of machinery and providing transfer means therebetween. Tin boxes can be manufactured in a vast number of different shapes and sizes and accordingly a single piece of machinery is required to be sufficiently versatile to enable manufacture of tin boxes in a large number of said shapes and sizes. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the machinery used has a number of different components which can be exchanged to facilitate the manufacture of different boxes and currently the length of time taken to exchange all these various components to enable a particular set of machines to manufacture a different box shape can be up to an entire day. The invention hereinafter set forth, and also set forth in out co-pending applications have as their object the reduction of this time period. Any reduction achievable in the “changeover” time is especially desirable when it is considered that tin box production rates using the machinery described hereinafter may reach 40 per minute.
Tin boxes can contain a wide variety of different goods, such as bottle, chocolates, biscuits, tea, coffee and the like. Manufacturers of such products commonly consider the containment of their product in tins because of the rigidity and durability which the sheet steel, from which such tins are commonly made, provides. Additionally, the containment of a product in a tin box may also suggest that the product therein is of a certain quality, especially as ornate and detailed print effects can be obtained on the surface of the metal plates from which the tin boxes are manufactured. Such effects cannot be achieved, or are achieved only to a much lesser degree by the containment of products in cardboard cartons or receptacles of plastics materials. A tin box in which such a product is contained has the further advantage of being reusable to contain other household items such as screws, nuts bolts, pencils and pens, etc. after the product originally contained therein has been consumed or otherwise utilised.
The various separate machines required in the manufacture of tin boxes are an “Automatic Curling Notching and Beading” machine, a “bodymaker”, a “round and irregular seamer”, and an “end feeder”, each of which has a specific task to perform during the process of tin box manufacture. Each of these is now described.
The first stage in the process of automated tin box manufacture is the profiling of a simple sheet steel, and generally rectangular, blank from which the walls of the tin box are ultimately constituted. The blank is fed through an “Automatic Notching, Curling and Beading” machine, referred to hereinafter as an ANCB machine. This machine consists of a plurality of consecutively driven rollers disposed both above and below the blank as its passes therebetween, each of said rollers performing a forming step on the blank. The particular profile of each blank as it exits the ANCB machine depends on the ultimate shape of the tin, but in general the blank is substantially flat with the exception of a hem provided parallel with one of the longer edges of the blank and proximate thereto, a bead is provided on one of said longer edges, a partial curl is provided around the alternate longer edge, and a pair of hooks oppositely disposed with respect to one another on the shorter edges. Additionally, the ANCB machine has cutting means which notch the corners of the blank to preclude any interference effects which may be caused by said corners either when the blank is profiled and provided with the hooks along its shorter edges, when it is formed into the cross-sectional shape of the tin box, or when wrapped around and attached to the base of said tin box.
The hem provides a surface behind which the beaded lip of a tin lid can engage to inhibit the removal of a lid separately formed and applied around the uppermost edge of the tin box, the bead is provided to hide the sharp longer edge of the blank which ultimately forms said uppermost edge of the tin box, the partial curl on the alternate longer edge of the blank is provided to facilitate the attachment of the blank, after same has been formed into the desired cross-sectional shape, to the base of the tin box, and the hooks provided along the shorter edges of the blank facilitate the connection of said edges to one another after a subsequent forming operation.
The profiled blank is then fed from the ANCB machine into a “bodymaker” by suitable transport means which generally comprises a pair of reciprocating feed bars in conjunction with “disappearing guides” which simultaneously urge the profiled blank towards and over a forming mandrel and precisely align said blank thereon. The disappearing guides are rotated away from the blank when it is held in contact with the uppermost portion of the mandrel, which is generally of similar shape to the desired cross-sectional shape of the tin box to be manufactured, by a mandrel clamping arrangement. The removal of the disappearing guides (so-called because they “disappear” within the machine during the forming of the blank around the mandrel) allows a pair of forming wings pivotally connected together or to a jig or frame rigidly secured within the bodymaker and disposed above the mandrel rotate about their pivot and form said blank, which is at this stage still substantially planar, around the said mandrel. The forming operation performed by the wings also constrains the oppositely disposed hooks on the shorter edges of the blank to interlock on the underside of the mandrel whereupon a second forming tool compresses the meta of the blank in the interlocked region to form the vertical seam within the wall of the tin box. During all forming operations the blank is clamped against the upper surface of said mandrel by said mandrel clamping arrangement.
The connection of the mandrel and the frame or jig to which the mandrel forming wings are pivotally connected has heretofore been achieved by bolting the various components to the surrounding structure of the bodymaker. It will be appreciated this means of connection of these components is difficult and time-consuming to disengage when the components are to be replaced with other like components when adapting the bodymaker to accommodate different sizes of blanks and when such blanks are to be formed around mandrels of different shapes.
This invention is specifically concerned with the provision of a novel method and apparatus for replacing the mandrel and mandrel forming wings, which are generally provided together as a tooling set.
Currently, as mentioned above, the mandrel and the mandrel forming wings associated therewith are rigidly secured between two walls which form the structure of the bodymaker. Also connected between these walls are the disappearing guides referred to above and mechanical levers which are in turn connected to the mandrel wings above and on either side of the mandrel and cause the mandrel wings to move back and forth away from and around the mandrel. Although all the various components can be disconnected and/or rotated away from mandrel wings and mandrel to permit access thereto and to facilitate the exchange of these particular components, there is no provision for supporting the components as they are removed. The common practice is to place packing blocks on the hammer disposed underneath the mandrel and which impacts same during the formation of the scan on the tin box to support the mandrel during its disconnection and removal from the bodymaker structure. The mandrel wings are first disconnected from their associated mechanical levers are subsequently un-bolted from their pivots to be removed individually.
It is
Briggs William
Meltog Ltd.
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