GB1291626A - Method and apparatus for moulding sheets - Google Patents

Abstract

1291626 Moulding articles from sheets JAMES HARDIE & CO PTY Ltd 4 Aug 1970 [20 Aug 1969] 37606/70 Heading B5A Green sheets of, for example, asbestos cement are pressed against a shaping mould by passing a mould covered by a sheet below a vertically reciprocating pressing pad, the pad and mould being so moved as to ensure that the pad acts over the whole area of the sheet and deforms it into close contact with the mould. In the illustrated embodiment, a series of sheet-covered moulds (not shown) are passed on a conveyer under a series of transversely spaced pairs of pads each comprising resilient fingers carried by a backing element 38. The backing elements are carried at the lower ends of links 30 which are, in turn, pivoted to upper and lower rack levers 28 and 29. The levers are carried by upper and lower fulcrum shafts 26, 27 rotatably journalled in side supporting structures 23 and 24 (not shown). The lower fulcrum shaft is oscillated so as to cause the levers to pivot and the pads to be reciprocated in antiphase into and out of contact with the sheets on the moulds, by means of a crank arm 32 connected by rod 33 to a crank arm carried by a motor-driven crankshaft 31. Each side supporting structure includes a fixed lower part over which is slidable a vertically adjustable upper part in which the fulcrum shafts are journalled. In this way the stroke of the pads can be adjusted. The conveyer consists of a series of chains 13 slung between forward driving pulleys 11 and rear idling, pulleys 12, and transverse wooden bars 17 upon which the moulds rest, extending between the chains.