US716679A - Manufacture of springs. - Google Patents

Description

Patented Dec. 23, I902;

F. H.,DANIELS, 6. S. MARSHALL 8. J.'U. E. TROTZ.

MANUFACTURE OF SPRINGS.

(Application filed Feb. 10, 1902.)

3 Sheets-Sheet L (No Model.)

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No. 7l6,679. Patented Dec. 23, i902. F. u. DANIELS, c. s. MARSHALL & J. 0. E. TROTZ. MANUFACTURE 0F SPRINGS.

(Application filed Feb. 10, 1902.)

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Patented Dec. 23 i902.

, F. H. DANELS, C. S. MARSHALL & J. 0. TROTZ.

MANUFACTURE OF SPRINGS.

[Application filed Feb. 10, 1902) 3 Sheets-Sheet 3.

(No Medal.)

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Ni'rEn STATES PATENT OFFICE.

FRED H. DANIELS, CLINTON S. MARSHALL, AND JOHAN O. E. TROTZ, OF VVOROESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNORS TO AMERICAN STEEL 82; WIRE COMPANY, A CORPORATION OF NEW JERSEY.

MANUFACTURE OF SPRINGS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 71 6,679, dated December 23, 1902.

Application filed February 10, 1902. Serial No. 93,445. (No model.)

To all whom, it may concern Be it known that we, FRED H. DANIELS and CLINTON S. MARSHALL, citizens of the United States, and JOHAN 0. E. TBOTZ, a subject of the King of Sweden and Norway, all residing at Worcester, county of Worcester, and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Manufacture of Springs; and we do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

This invention has to do more especially with the manufacture of coil-springs of the compression type, and particularly withthe heavier varieties of springs that are intended for railroad-cars and are designed to be set up endwise on flat seats or surfaces provided for them in the trucks and to support the weight ofthe car-bodies on their upper ends. The method usually employed for making such springs is to take pieces of rod or wire of a length just sufficient to make one spring each and after beveling or chamtering the ends so that they will present fiat surfaces when the spring is completed to reheat the pieces to the proper heat in a furnace, whence they are withdrawn by hand and fed into a coilingmachine. This is a comparatively slow and expensive process, particularly as the beveling of the ends of the rod or wire lengths requires a special machine for that purpose and also because even with such machines it is difficult to obtain a taper on the ends that will furnish a sufficient area and character of surface to form a good flat seat.

The present invention dispenses altogether with the necessity of any preliminary treatment of the rods or wires to form these fiat ends and besides dispensing with the special machine for beveling the ends may do away also with the reheating of the rods or wires before coiling. The rod or wire as it comes from the rolls depends for itshardness upon a higher or lower temperature. When of a higher temperature, it willstand both the coiling and sawingwithout reheating. When of a lower temperature, it will be necessary to reheat before sawing. Incidentally, also,

the springs are made in sets, and a single operation squares the ends of a pair of springs simultaneously. Instead of cutting up the rods or wire into short lengths appropriate for single springs we feed the material in full 5 5 lengths from the mill-rolls directly to the coiler and wind the whole length of rod or wire into a continuous coil, which is afterward cut up into shorter lengths to form the springs. At the points where this long coil is to be severed into individual springs the pitch of the windings or couvolutions is reduced, so as to close the coils together tightly, and something more than a complete turn is given in this way, after which and without discontinuing the windings the original pitch of the convolutions is restored and the winding continued with open coils again until the next point is reached where the coil is to be severed. The rod or wire as it comes from the rolls is, as will be readily understood by those skilled in the art, at about a red heat. As the coiling proceeds, however, it cools, and by the time the coil is completed it is too cold to realize the best results by cutting in the manner contemplated by our invention. The entire coil is therefore preferablypassed from the coiler into a furnace, where it is heated somewhat above what is known inthe art as a good hardening heat. The object of heating the coil at this stage of the process is twofoldviz., first, to bring the metal up to the proper temperature for the hardening-bath after being severed, and, second, and more especially, to enable it to 8 be severed by sawing across at the points where the windings or convolutions are closed so as to make a clean cut and leave a fiat smooth surface that will not require the careful finishing that would be necessary were the sawing done without heating the coil. From the furnace the coil is passed in front of a metal-sawing machine and out up into shorter lengths, as before described, preferably bya rotary saw revolving at high speed. 5 This method of severing the coil is the most important feature of the invention, for the reason, among others, that it cuts clear across the coil in a plane at right angles to the axis of the coil itself, thereby cutting the metal on a line that is oblique to the length of the strand of wire or rod composing the coil instead of on a lineperpendicular to the direction of the convolution or winding, or, in other words, the out is made with respect to the completed coil and not with respect to the rod or wire composing the coil and is, as stated, perpendicular or at right angles to the axis of the coil and oblique to the axis of the individual strand of rod or wire in the coil. After leaving the sawing-machine the springs are completed so far as the salient feature of the present invention is concerned, and they are then conducted to the oiltank, Where they are immersed in the hardening-bath in the usual manner, after which they are tempered and, if desired,

japanned, all in a manner now wellunderstood and with which our invention has no particular concern.

In the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, an apparatus for carrying out the above-described method is illustrated.

Figure 1 shows in a diagrammatic way a plan of the entire apparatus. Fig.-2 is a vertical section of the furnace. Fig. 3 is a plan View of the machine for coiling the rods or wire in the manner already described. Fig. 4 is a side View of the coiling-machine. Fig. 5 is a detail of the particular part of the machine for causing the intermittent closing of the convolutions, and Fig. 6 is a view of one of the spring-blanks as it comes from the coiling-machine.

Referring to the drawings, ct denotes the mill-rolls. b 1) indicate coiling-machines,there being two of these machines only as a matter of convenience, so as to enable the winding of either right-hand or left-hand coils. These coilers are located in advance of the rolls and in such juxtaposition thereto as to effect the coiling operation while the metal is still hot.

The coiling-machine has only one peculiarity of construction which it is necessary here to describe-viz., the roller or guide which determines and regulates the spacing or pitch of the windings is automatically shifted at intervals, so as to vary the pitch and close or nearly close the convolutions, as will be described in detail farther on.

From the coiling-machine the coils pass in troughs or ways 0 0 onto a ledge din front of a furnace e, preferably having an inclined floorf, down which they roll until they bring up at the lower end against a wall or other abutment g. In the side walls of the furnace opposite this lowest point there are openings, one of which leads to a trough and into the other of which a pusher t enters for the purpose of thrusting the coil that is in line with the openings out of the furnace into the trough 72. As will be seen in Fig. 1, this trough has a transverse opening or passage through it about midway of its length, and into this passage the rotary saw 8 of a metal-, sawing machine plays for the purpose of cutting the coils as they pass along the trough from the furnace on their way to the hardening-tank Z. The saw is driven by an electric or other motor m and is arranged to be raised and lowered, so as to be projected at the proper time and at a suitable rate of speed into the crosswise passage in the trough 7t. When the coils have been severed by the saw, they are conducted along the trough and de livered into the oil-tank Z, where they are hardened in the usual way. They are subsequently tempered and, if desired, japanned, all of which steps are now well understood in spring-making.

Referring now particularly to Figs. 3, 4, and 5, the coiling machine has the usual grooved rolls 1 l and 2 2, which feed the rods or wire 19 into it in the usual manner. These rolls are mounted on the ends of suitable shafts 3 3, that are intergeared and revolve in the direction of the arrows. In addition to these the machine is provided with rolls 4 and 5, which are also positively rotated and are located in advance of the feed-rolls and serve to deflect and bend the rods or wire around the end of a mandrel which projects from the side of the machine at the point indicated in Figs. 1 and 5. As the metal is fed into the machine and coiled by these rolls it is acted on by a shunt-roller '7, whose axis is radial to the mandrel, and the position of this roller laterally with respect to the others determines the pitch of the convolutions of the coil. In order to adapt the machine to vary the pitch of these convolutions, as already described, this shunt-roller is arranged to be withdrawn laterally, so as not to deflect the wire or rod as it is being coiled. It is carried on a stud 8, projecting from the end of a rod 9, that slides in suitable ways and is operated by a lever 10 from a cam 14 on a shaft 12 in the lower part of the machine. This shaft may be operated in any suitable way; but we show it herein as driven by a worm and gear 13. On the end of the shaft 12 there is a two-part eccentric cam 14, the parts of which are preferably adjustable with respect to each other for the purpose of timing the movement of the lever 10 and determining its throw. This lever is pivoted at its upper end on a stud 15, which is made adjustable by a screw-sleeve 16, and at its lower end it is bifurcated, so as to straddle the rod 9,and at its extremity it carries a friction-roller 17 to run on the cam 14. As the rods or wire come into the machine the winding proceeds in the usual way until the predetermined length of coil has been completed, during all of which time the shunt-roller remains in fixed position, with the roller of the lever 10 traveling around the concentric part of the cam 14. When, however, the lowest part of the cam comes around, the lever 10, the rod 9, and the shunt-roller all move inward, and the pressure being thus taken off the coil it begins to wind with the convolutions closed. This action may be continued as long as desired;

but for the purposes of our invention it is more than one complete revolution of the coil, when the roller 17 passes onto the high part of the cam 14 again and the normal pitch of the coil is restored in a manner that will be understood from the previous description.

Such being the general construction and arrangement of an apparatus for carrying out our improved method further description seems unnecessary, except, perhaps, to explain that only one of the coilers will be in operation at one time, and that the points at which it is desired to close the windings of the coil will be determined by the length and character of the spring being made, and that the pusher will be timed and operated, so as to project a coil just the right distance from the furnace to have the closed part stop in the plane of the saw.

One of the complete coils is illustrated in Fig. 6. On reference to this figure it will be seen that all the coils are of uniform open pitch except that in the center,where the convolution c is shown in contact with the adjacent convolution on each side, this contact continuing for something more than one complete turn. The line a: :1; denotes the plane of cut of the saw, and it will be seen that it leaves the end convolution cut with a fiat surface that is perpendicular to the axis of the coil.

We do not desire to be limited to the making of car-springs by the abovedescribed .method, as spiral coil-springs for any purpose may be made in the same way. Neither do we desire to restrict ourselves to cutting the coils with a saw nor to heating the coils before cuttin We have described the invention as preferably carried out by taking the rods or wire in full lengths from the mill-rolls and passing them directly to the coilers; but we do not desire to be limited to either of these steps; and as to the variation in the pitch of the convolutions or helices of the coils, though we have described the closing of the windings together until in contact, we should regard a substantial closure as within our invention whether there was actual contact or not, for the cutting clear through the coils in the manner described would always leave a surface perpendicular to their axis; but in order to secure a square end for the coil, considered as a whole, it is necessary that the coils should be substantially closed when the cut is made. Neither do we desire to be limited to cutting the coil at any particular point' in its length, as the end of a single coil could be squared oil in the same way instead of cuttingmidwayof the ends of adouble length of coil.

Having thus described our invention, what we claim is- 1. In the art of making spiral coil-springs, the herein-described improvement consisting in winding a length of rod orwire into a continuous coil, diminishing the pitch of the windings at predetermined points, and severing the coil at said points in a plane at right angles to its axis.

2. In the art of making spiral coil-springs, the herein-described improvement consisting in winding a length of rod or wire into a coil, with uniform open pitch for the main portion of its length, and with closed pitch at the ends and squaring the ends by sawing it across in a plane at right angles to its axis at the points where the coils are closed.

3. In the art of making spiral coil-springs, the herein-described improvement consisting in winding a length of rod or wire into a continuous coil, diminishing the pitch of the windings at predetermined points, and dividing the product into shorter lengths at said points by severing the coil in a plane at right angles to its axis.

, 4. In the art of making spiral coil-springs, the herein-described improvement consisting in winding a length of rod or wire into a continuous coil having a uniform pitch for a predetermined distance, continuing the winding for one or more turns with coils of diminished pitch, restoring the original pitch of the coils without discontinuing the winding, and severing it into shorter lengths and simulta-' neously squaring the ends of such lengths by sawing it across at the points of diminished pitch.

5. In the art of making spiral coil-springs, the herein-described improvement consisting in windinga length of rod or wire into a continuous coil having a uniform open pitch for a predetermined distance, contin uing the winding for one or more turns with the pitch diminished so as to close the coils, restoring the original open pitch of the coils without discontinuing the winding, heating the coil, and severing it while but into shorter lengths by sawing through it in a plane at right angles to its axis at the points where the coils are closed.

In testimony whereof we affix our signatures in presence of two witnesses.

FRED H. DANIELS. CLINTON S. MARSHALL. JOHAN O. E. TROTZ.

Witnesses:

W. H. Monsu, T-HOS. MAcDUFr.

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