GB2313110A - Web feeding - Google Patents

Abstract

A multiple web roll support 16 allows up to thirty two pigment foils 7 to be collated as they are fed over a conveyor belt 8 to a heated wire 4 to cut and seal the foils. In a modification, the foils are packaged by being sandwiched between silicone tapes; alter fusing they are guillotined to predetermined lengths.

Description

APPARATUS FOR CUTTING, FUSING, AND COLLATING HEAT BLOCKING COLOURED PIGMENT FOILS.

This invention relates to a cutting, fusing, and collating apparatus for heat blocking foils.

There are many types of well known cutting and collating machines, these comprise of expensive pieces of equipment, such as guillotines. The mechanical guillotines are only set up to cut pigment coloured foils into single square or oblong sheets and then at one colour and size at a time. At the present time there is no apparatus that will fuse the pigment foils together, making the foils easy to handle. Collating is a further process that is not only time consuming and in the main it has to be executed by hand, and consequently is extremely costly.

According to the present invention there is provided a specially manufactured apparatus Figure 1. The cutting table 30, can be free standing or mounted on a working surface. The special carrier 16 is attached to the cutting table 30 by means of clamps 17 and plate 15. The carrier 16 is manufactured so that it will hold more than one roll, from one roll of pigment foil 7 to thirty-two rolls of the aforementioned foils. The pigment foils 21 are held into place by an adjustable spindle 19, and roller pinion 20 held firmly by plate 22. The continues sheets of foil 7 pass over a conveyer belt 18, through a tension bar 23, and then are then fed through guides 14, thus collating all the sheets 7 together in one set that passes through the guides 14. The guides 14 are held into position by means screws 12. The foils 7 then pass through control pressure rollers 8. The pressure rollers 8 can be adjusted by a screw 9, and is held into place by a pinion 10, and spindle 11. The foils 7 then pass over a electrically temperature controlled heated wire 4, that is held into place by a metal housing 3. The heated wire 4 has an adjustable replacement screw 1 that is held by the screw holder 2. The cut and sealed foils 7, then pass over a stretching block 5 held into place by its housing 6 and finally into a catching net. The temperature of the heated wire 4 is controlled from a unit 29. The housing unit 29 is connected to the cutting wire 4. by electric wire 24, that is controlled from knob 27, attached to the unit 29 is a control plate 26 with numbers one to ten, that controls the required amount of heat to cut and seal the pigment foils 7. The unit has an air vent 28. The control unit is attached to a wall socket by means of a plug 25. Attached to the metal housing 3 is extra heating wire 31.

There is also provided an alternative apparatus Figure 2, wherein there is furnished two rolls of silicone tape 37, being situated top and bottom of the carrier 16. In this case there is a roll 37 embellished with a dry silicone section 33, together with a section of contact adhesive strips 34, and a roll of dry tack tape 36. These rolls are situated top and bottom of the carrier 16, so that the pigment foils 7 are sandwiched between them 35. This process is then similar with the exception that in this case the collated foils 7 are sandwiched between the silicone carrier to the guillotine 38. The guillotine blade 40 slices through both the foils 7, and contact adhesive strips 34. The guillotine blade 40 can be adjusted by screw 39. The guillotine 38 is held in position by a hinge 41. The foils 7 and cover 33 pass above the cutting plate 42 over the guide line 43, and finally the cut fused and collated foils 44 drop into a catching net positioned at the end of the cutting table 30.

Also illustrated on Figure 2 are the sections of the dry tack silicone tape 32.

Section A shows contact adhesive strips 34, either side of the tape 32 there is an inner section 33 that is dry silicone. Section B Illustrates the tape 33 with adhesive strips 34, and the inserted strips 35 of pigment foils 7. Section C shows the silicone strip 32 as well as the dry silicone section A specific embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 indicates the perspective of the apparatus for cutting, fussing and collating the coloured pigment foils.

Figure 2 exhibits the perspective of the cutting, fusing, collating apparatus with the guillotining extension.

Section A, B, and C illustrates the special tapes that the pigment foils are to be inserted into.

The object of this invention is to provide a method of handling, collating, cutting, fussing, and packing heat blocking pigment foils into packs of easily to handle strips.

The foils are manufactured and provided as a jumbo rolls of 30" (thirty inches) wide by 10,000' (ten thousand feet ) in length. The jumbo roll is then slit into required widths of one inch or more as required. The length size of each roll can be from ten feet, to one thousand feet, or any length as essential to requirements.

The problem then is that you are left with numerous rolls of pigment foils that can only be handled one at a time on a heat blocking machine leaving a residue of unusable foils that will have to be disposed of.

The present invention allows from one to thirty-two or more rolls of pigment foil to be mounted on a specially designed carrier that allows the foils to be drawn together, firstly through a tension bar, then directed through a guide, passing between rollers, and finally over a heated electrically controlled wire that fuses and slits the required assortment of collated pigment foils to the essential lengths thus forming an easy to handle set of foils, sealed at both ends.

The foils, fused together in this manner, enables the user to peel from the pack, colours as and when they wish. The very nature of the heat blocking pigment foil and the polythene carrier make it impossible to join one or more strips together, but by the use of the aforementioned invention using a electrically heated wire allows the user to slice and fuse together as many layers of foil as needed. The controlled temperature of the wire allows the wire to slice through the foils, the higher the temperature the more layers the wire will cut through.

The used wire can be replaced by winding on from the spool attached to the machine. The machine can be manually or automatically electrically operated, to cut to any predetermined length.

A further embodiment of the invention is provided a means of packing together the fused and collated sets of pigment foils. This is provided by means of using a roll of dry tack tape situated on the uppermost bar of the carrier, and a siliconed coated roll of tape on the lowest bar of the carrier. As the streams of pigment foils pass through to the tension bar along the conveyor belt, they are sandwiched between these two extra rolls. The sandwiched rolls of pigment foils are held in position at the side tacky edges of the dry tack, and siliconed tape. The sandwich of foils then pass between the two rollers over the heated wire, the temperature of which has been pre-set to cut and fuse the foils, and tapes together. Finally to the guillotine that can be manually or electrically operated. The guillotine is pre-set to slice the sets to predetermined lengths.

By use of this method the pigment foils have to be slightly narrower than the packaging, to allow the adhesive panels at the top to adhere to the silicone section on the bottom, and not to stick to the foils. By the use of this method the pigment colouring foils can be collated, cut, fused and packed into sets that are easy to handle.

Claims (5)

1. A specially manufactured carrier that will take from one to thirty-two of more rolls of coloured heat blocking pigment foils or rolls of similar products that will enable said collated pigment foils of one inch or more in width, and one inch or more in depth to be conveyed over a tension bar in one complete section.

2. The sections of collated pigment foil as in Claim 1 are then fed through the electrically operated cutting and fusing apparatus, by means of a series of rollers.

3. That the collated pigment foils as in Claim 1 and Claim 2 are directed over an electrically controlled heated cutting wire.

4. The collated pigment foils as in Claims 1, 2 and 3 are then electrically cut and fused together by means of the electrically controlled heated wire, and therefore fused together at both ends of the required section.

5. The pigment foils as in Claims 1, 2, 3, and 4, but in this case the fused pigment foils are enclosed into a special dry silicone holder and guillotined into the required lengths.