GB578065A - Improvements in or relating to machines for manufacturing metallic bellows - Google Patents

Abstract

578,065. Corrugating. BRITISH THERMOSTAT CO., Ltd., and SHERLOCK, J. E. June 15, 1944, No. 11458. [Class 83 (iv)] A machine for the formation of metallic bellows comprises a mandrel over which a tubular metal blank is mounted, a roller or rollers mounted on a movable support adjacent the mandrel and moved automatically into co-operative relationship with a roller or rollers on the mandrel to shape the bellows corrugations and automatic means adapted to operate as each series of corrugations is completed, to feed the workpiece along the mandrel. The machine comprises superimposed base-plates 4, 5 and 6 supported by standards 7 and each carrying similar tube corrugating mechanism. Above the lower base-plate 6 is a mandrel 1 mounted in a fixed bearing 10a at one end and in a removable bearing at the other end and adapted to be driven through a clutch 9. A tube 1a to be corrugated is placed over the mandrel after swinging away the removable bearing which is mounted between parallel levers 12 pivoted at 13 and coupled to the clutch 9 through a cam 74, lever 63, push-rod 67 and lever 68 so that the drive to the mandrel is interrupted when the bearing is removed. Normally, the bearing is seated within a fixed ring 15. Rollers 16 on the mandrel co-operate with rollers 17 mounted on a plate 20 supported by rods 22 and adapted periodically to be fed up to the mandrel against the action of springs 25 by means of a cam 19 acting on a follower 26. The position of the follower relative to the rollers 17 may be adjusted by a milled nut 29 to vary the depth of the corrugations produced. When one series of corrugations has been formed, the cam 19 permits the springs 25 to withdraw the rollers 17 and during this period the tube is fed forwards by means of lifting fingers 30 mounted at the end of a lever 31 movable in a vertical plane about a pivot 32 by a cam 44 and in a horizontal plane about a pillar 33 by a cam 42. The cams 19, 42, and 44 are mounted on a common shaft 43 geared to a shaft 58 carrying a sprocket 55 driven by a chain from a sprocket 49 adapted to be coupled to a sprocket 46 by the clutch 9, a chain drive from a common source of power passing around the sprockets 46 of all three sets of mechanism. When the work has been corrugated on the lower mandrel, it may be removed and the corrugations made deeper on the mandrels of the second and third sets of mechanism.