Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor – With cutting – punching – piercing – severing – or tearing
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-05
2001-08-21
Gray, Linda L. (Department: 1734)
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor
With cutting, punching, piercing, severing, or tearing
C156S361000, C156S362000, C156S494000, C156S566000, C156S256000, C156S270000, C156S285000, C083S343000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06276421
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to floor tile products and more specifically to an apparatus for cutting cover sheets and aligning them with adhesive coated floor tiles in order to protect the adhesive during storage and shipment.
Nothing has encouraged the do-it-yourselfer to lay floors more than the availability of tiles with preapplied adhesive. It means that the homeowner need only peel a piece of paper from the adhesive coated back of a floor tile, lay it in place, and press it down onto the underlying surface. However, those of us performing that simple task rarely consider the complicated effort involved in delivering the tiles to us. Not only must the tile be produced in its normal fashion, but the adhesive must be applied to it, and then the adhesive must be covered by the paper sheet to prevent it from sticking to other tiles in the packing box or simply becoming too dirty to maintain its own adhesive properties.
The process of laminating the backing sheet, the “release sheet”, to the tiles has usually involved the use of paper which is cut into tile size sheets and then aligned with the tiles. The adhesive can be preapplied to either the tiles or the paper. It is actually desirable to use some sort of plastic film as the release sheet because such materials are stronger and less expensive, but plastic film has been difficult to use in existing high speed laminating equipment because of the dimensional instability of the film, particularly its tendency to stretch when being cut.
Virtually all the machines with high speed cutting of release sheets use a blade oriented parallel to the axis of a rotating roller with the blade on the surface of the roller and engaging the paper as the paper is pinched between the blade and an anvil on another rotating roller. Such an arrangement operates satisfactorily for paper, but will not work with stronger plastic film. The film will either simply not be cut, or, if it does cut, it will also stretch. Under either circumstance subsequent registration with the tiles is unsatisfactory.
There is a clear need for an apparatus which will cut plastic film without changing its dimension, so that the film can be placed into registry with floor tiles and laminated to them.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is a machine which synchronizes a serrated blade mounted upon a roller with a mating roller with a slot, with the slotted roller including a vacuum apparatus which holds the film tightly against the roller on both sides of the slot. The cut is then accomplished by the serrated blade acting on the film held tautly over the slot. The vacuum holding feature during the cutting operation assures a clean cut of the film with no dimensional change. Then, as the vacuum roller continues to rotate, after part of the film is attached to the tile, the roller surface switches over from vacuum to pressure, and the release of the film from the vacuum roller is facilitated, particularly if, as at start up, there is no tile present to which the film can be attached.
The roller with the blade and the vacuum roller are synchronized with the tile feeding system so that the region adjacent to the leading edge of the cut film piece actually contacts the tile and is pressed onto it before the blade cuts the trailing end of the film piece. This timing also helps the film to properly separate from the roller because the adhesive bond between the floor tile and the film and the continuing motion of the tile helps pull the film from the roller.
Although the invention is absolutely necessary for the cutting of plastic films, it also works very well with the traditional paper release sheets. Therefore, existing production facilities can be converted to include the invention and the conversion to the use of plastic film can be accomplished.
The present invention thereby furnishes a means for reducing production costs by the use of less expensive release sheet materials.
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Bair Thomas C.
Valenti James P.
Armstrong World Industries Inc.
Gray Linda L.
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