866,906. Pronged member assembly apparatus. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION. May 20, 1957 [May 28, 1956], No. 16000/57. Class 89(3) Apparatus for assembling complementary parts of fasteners on to textile material, e.g. of a garment, comprises a magazine for pronged parts of the fasteners comprising a hopper having a rotatable base and a platform on to which said pronged members are transferred by centrifugal force, a magazine for apertured parts of the fasteners, means for feeding fastener parts from each magazine to locating means whereby two complementary parts are caused to have their prongs and apertures engaged with said material therebetween and press means to bend the prongs to effect permanent engagement of the parts. Near the end of each cycle of operation of the machine a ram head 260, Fig. 9, is supplied with a pronged member 20 from a holder 244 Fig. 8, and an anvil 136 Fig. 3 is supplied with an apertured member 12 from a feed channel 143. At the beginning of each cycle of operation the ram head swings in the direction of the anvil away from the holder 244 and is driven downwardly so that its hammer member 272 drives the pronged member 20 from between spring pressed clamping plates 280, 282 to engage the prongs through the textile material and into the apertures in the member 12 located in the anvil. The prongs of the member 20 are then clinched as described in Specification 794,172. Apertured members 12, Fig. 7, are fed from a stack in a holder 137 by means of a reciprocable sliding feeder 192 Fig. 3 which is actuated after each inserting operation of the machine to push the bottom member 12 of the stack into a feed channel 143 which leads to the anvil 136. The pronged members 20 are fed from a hopper 326, Fig. 1 into a shoot 240 which leads to the holder 244. After each inserting operation of the machine, a feed lever 310, Fig. 8 is moved into the space between the downwardly extending prongs of the foremost pronged member 20 in the shoot 240, and is then swung horizontally to push that pronged member into the holder 244. A pronged member 20 already in the holder 244 is thereby displaced into a slot between clamping plates 280, 282 of a ram head 260, Fig. 9. The sliding feeder 144 and feed lever 310 are of adjustable stroke. After the inserting operation and when the anvil 136 and ram head 260 have been supplied with an apertured plate 12 and pronged member 20 respectively, cam driving mechanism of the machine operates a switch to disengage a magnetic clutch by which it is coupled to a continuously running driving motor. If either the sliding feeder 192 or feed lever 310 does not perform its feeding function fully, a button 172, Fig. 3, of a switch 174 associated with the feeding mechanism is not closed, with the result that the machine cannot be operated through a further cycle of operation until the obstruction has been cleared. The hopper 326 comprises a cylindrical casing 328 Fig. 12 with an internal helical shelf 330 terminating at its upper end adjacent a tunnel 332 Fig. 15 which is shaped to admit only those pronged members 20 which rest on the shelf 330 with prongs directed upwardly. The pronged members 20 are urged on to and along the shelf 330 and into the tunnel 332 by centrifugal and rotational motions imparted thereto by a rapidly rotated bottom wall 336. The tunnel 332 opens into the shoot 240. The wall 336 can be continuously rotated or may be rotated intermittently, such as during the period of the inserting operation of the ram head. A clamp for the workpiece is associated with an electric switch which prevents operation of the press until the clamp is correctly clamped over the anvil. Specification 794,173 also is referred to.