GB2525908A

GB2525908A - Process for making malleable metal products and items produced by that process

Info

Publication number: GB2525908A
Application number: GB1408147.5A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Rupert George Pearson
Original assignee: OLICAN PRODUCTS Ltd
Current assignee: OLICAN PRODUCTS Ltd
Priority date: 2014-05-08
Filing date: 2014-05-08
Publication date: 2015-11-11
Also published as: GB201408147D0

Abstract

A process for forming malleable metal products, such as V-shaped mild steel support brackets for bath tubs, comprises feeding a length of material from a stock roll into a work station in which the final product is formed by several simultaneous operations including separating the final product from the roll. The final product is separated from the roll by punching off and is dropped onto a transfer belt for removal from the workstation. The operations may include bending and punching from malleable metal wherein the stock is provided on rolls of blank metal and wherein the blanks are presented for working with their smaller primary dimension across the direction of travel during preparation of the final product. Te ratio of the length of the product to its width may be greater than 2:1 and is preferably 10:1, such as a width of 19mm and a length of 190mm.

Description

Process for making malleable metal products and items produced by that process This invention concerns center support brackets for acrylic bath tubs or similar purposes.

Acrylic bath tubs are flexible and need to be supported not only around the edge but also underneath, preferably under the middle of the bottom of the tub. Evidently, such a support needs to be adjustable so that the support can be adjusted according to the individual situation. The standard supports are V-shaped brackets of mild steel.

These brackets are V-shaped and have a hole in the bottom of the V and a smaller hole on each of the top flats. (Figure 1). The hole in the bottom of the V accommodates an adjustable foot and the two smaller holes serve for the bracket to be fastened to the underside of the bath tub.

The standard way of forming V-shaped brackets as illustrated in the figures is as follows: -Take a 190 mm wide sheet of mild steel (width of sheet varying according to size and required strength of final bracket). This is the larger of the primary dimensions of the finished product.

-stamp off a 19 mm wide piece (across the 190 mm strip) -which is the smaller of the primary dimensions -off the end, resulting in a 190mm x 19mm sized strip, -punch and shape as appropriate to create the final bracket of 190 mm by 19 mm, The inventor realized that this process produced a noticeable amount of waste material.

Every cut produced a strip of material the width of the stamping blade of waste.

Cutting blades for cutting 190 mm wide and 3 mm thick mild steel strip need to be about 6 (six) mm thick to last for a reasonable number of cuts.

This creates an unwanted slice of about 11.5cm2 of mild steel for each bracket. This means that for every 40 cm2 of material used, 11.5 cm2 of it is wasted.

This comes to 25% of the raw material remaining unused and needing to be collected, stored and recycled.

These days when even base metal, such a mild steel, is becoming expensive, every saving that can be obtained will bring an advantage. Thus it is getting more and more important to reduce waste during manufacture.

The inventors considered this problem and the result of their deliberations is the present invention.

The accepted way of proceeding starts with a sheet of material of width of the larger of the primary dimensions.

The inventive process starts with a roll of steel strip of the width of the smaller of the prinmry dimensions, in this example 19 mm.

The roll of stock is placed on a multi-purpose machine which feeds out the appropriate lengths to be worked on, here 190 111111.

The work is punched at the predetermined positions and bent to specifications, here a V-shape and separated from the roll of stock in one single operation.

Because the width of the cut to separate the finished bracket is only t9 mm, a narrower cutting blade can be used for the same thickness of material, thus reducing the waste even further, down to haifa square centimeter, less than 1% of the material used.

This produces brackets where the waste is reduced by more than a factor of twenty. When considering the production of hundreds of thousands of such brackets, the scale of the economy becomes obvious.

Naturally, the greater the difference between the two prinmry dimensions, the bigger the saving.

The primary dimensions of a blank work piece are defined as its width and its length. For the purpose of this exercise, the thickness of the material is considered to be a secondary dimension.

It is self-evident that the dimensions and shape of the final product here are only for illustrative purposes and are in no way meant to be limiting. The inventive process can be used for the production of any product where the primary dimension differ considerably and achieve the same or closely similar savings in waste.

For illustration only, we provide pictures of a possible final product, which when produced by our inventive process produces a reduction of waste by a factor often (10) over the accepted process of manufacturing such objects.

The figures show a bracket formed by our process. The stock is obtained in strip on a roll and fed into the workstation for hole punching, bending and separating from the roll.

The process being executed in one single operation by the multi-tool workstation machine.

The figures show the example bracket in different positions for clarity.

Claims

Claims 1 A process for producing malleable metal products, which process comprises the steps of obtaining rolls of stock with two primary dimensions and one secondary -the smallest -dimension, wherein the width of said rolls of stock corresponds to smaller of the primary dimensions of a final product, the process further comprising feeding a length of said stock into a workstation, where said length of stock is of the length of the greater primary dimension of said finished product, in which said workstation said final product is formed by several required simultaneous operations including said final product being separated from said roll of said stock by punching off and dropping onto a transfer belt or similar means of removing said finished product from said workstation.
2. A process for producing shaped malleable metal products according to claim wherein the malleable material is mild steel.
3, A process for producing shaped malleable metal products according to claims 1 and 2 wherein said operations include bending and punching.
4. A process for producing shaped malleable metal products according to claims 1 to 3 wherein the final product is shaped into a V.
5. A process for producing shaped malleable metal products according to claims I to 3 wherein the ratio of the two primary dimensions of said product is greater than two to one.
6. A process for producing shaped malleable metal products according to claimi to 4 wherein the ratio of the primary dimensions is about 10 to 1.
7. A process for producing shaped malleable metal products according to claim 6 wherein the product blank is a strip of 19 mm in width and 190 mm in length.
8. A product produced by means of the process according to clams 1 to 7.