GB580523A - Improvements in apparatus for butt-welding metal sheets - Google Patents

Abstract

580,523. Uniting by fusion. SOC. DES ACIERS FINS DE L'EST. May 2, 1940, No. 4921. Convention date, June 26, 1939. [Class 83 (iv)] In butt welding sheets end to end, particularly for making up into reels from which they are subsequently fed for cold rolling, one sheet is held by a girder carrying fingers which engage the edge of the sheet and are pushed against the edge by bars or like on a frame mounted on a second girder for clamping the second sheet, the frame which carries the rails for supporting a traversed welding head being thus set parallel with the welding line and then clamped in position. On a plate 7 bearing against a plastic plate 6 and carrying an interchangeable brass plate 8 under the welding line is placed the end of one sheet 16 which is then secured by a fluid-operated clamp 1. The clamp 1 carries a pair of linkages in the form of deformable parallelograms 9, 10, 11, with spring- controlled links 11 and with fingers 17 at the ends of arms 9. After clamping the sheet 16, the arms 9 are lowered and a piston 14 connected to the frame 5 carrying guide rails for the traversed electric arc-welding head 3 is operated so as to move the rods 13 carried by the frame 5 against rollers 12 on the links and thus push the fingers against the edge of the sheet to set the frame parallel with the welding line. The welding apparatus is thus automatically adjusted to a sheet, the axis of which does not extend exactly along the axis of the machine. The frame 5 is then clamped in position, the linkages 9 &c. raised and the second sheet abutted against the end of sheet 16 and the clamp 2 lowered. After welding is effected, the clamp 2 is raised and the frame 5 then returned to normal position by operation of the piston 14. The clamps 1, 2 may be air cooled. In a modification, the welding carriage 4 and frame 5 may be carried by a girder separate from the clamps 1, 2 and extending over the weld from one end to the other. The second sheet 23 may be passed through adjustable guides 24, 25 carried by a plate 27 which is movable in all directions by a hand lever 29 of the joy-stick type.