US853881A - Machine for grinding or polishing the ends of corks. - Google Patents

Description

N01a5s,sa1. A l PAIBIIIBD MAI I4, '190mV o. IRWIN. MACHINE PoR GRINIIING 0R PoLIsHING THE' ENDS 0F Gomis.,

APPLIoATIoII FILED 00120, 190s.

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No. 853,881. JPM213NTB`1 MAY 14, 190V. o. IRWIN.

MAGHINB PUR GRINDING 0R PoLIsHING THE ENDS 0F Gomis.

APPLIOATIUN'PILBD 00T. 20, 1905.

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PATBNTBD MAY 14, 190'7.

yo. IRWIN. MAGHINE Fon GRINDING 0R POLISHINGTHE ENDS 0F Gomis.

APPLICATION FILED 00T. 20, 1905. I

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UNTTED sTATEs PATENT oEEioE.

OSCAR IRWIN, OF PITTSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, ASSIGNOR TO ARMSTRONG CORK COMPANY, PITTSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, A CORPORATION OF PENNSYLVANIA.

MACHINE FOR GRINDING OR POLISHING THE ENDS OF CORKS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented May 14, 1907.

Application filed October 20, 1905. Serial No.. 283,640.

' To all whom, t may concern:

Be it known that I, OSCAR IRWIN, of Pittsburg, Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, have invented a new and useful Machine for Grinding or Polishing the Ends of Corks, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, in Whichz 'Figure 1 is a top plan view of a machine embodying my invention, with the hopper and the upper portion of the hopper support being removed and the position of the hopper indicated by dotted lines; Fig. 2 is a front view of the machine; Fig. 3 is a sectional elevation taken on the line III-III of Fig. 2; Fig. 4 is a detail view showing the hopper distributer, and portions of the cork-feeding and assorting rollers, Fig. 5 is a plan view showing the conveyer, the grinding or polishing disk, the rotary carrier, and the adjacent parts on a larger scale; and Fig. 6 is a diagrammatic view showing the driving belt arrangement for the feeding and assorting rollers and the conveyer.

My invention relates to machines for grinding the ends of tapered corks.

My invention provides means of simple and efficient character, whereby the corks are fed automatically and successively, with great rapidity into the machine to the action of thel grinding or polishing wheel.

My invention is also designed to provide cork-feeding mechanism of such character as to operate, also to automatically size and assort, the corks, rejecting those which are either under-sized or over-sized, as well asA those which are imperfect in their formation.

I attain the above stated objects by the novel construction, arrangement and combination of parts all substantially as hereinafter specified and pointed out in the'appended.

claims.

In the drawings, 2 is a hopper into which the corks to be ground or polished are placed and from which they are fed to the machine. This hopper is supported upon a frame standard 3 forming a part of the main supporting frame 4.

5 is an agitating and distributing device by means of which the corks are successively taken from the throat portionof the hopper 2 and are delivered' into an inclined feed-tube or chute 6. The device preferably consists of a roller having a doublecone face provided with a plurality of studs or small projections 5a and formed with a Vcentral peripheral groove 5b. y

7, 7 designate two parallel spaced rollers, which are journaled in a suitable supporting frame vcarried by the standards 3, and which lie in an inclined plane, with their upper end portions below the discharge end of the feedtube or chute 6. These rollers are provided with longitudinally luted peripheral surfaces and are connected at one end by intermeshing spur-gears 9, one of said rollers being positively rotated by a ulley 10 driven in the manner hereinafter escribed, the direction of rotation of said pulley being such that the upper portions of the rollers are rotated away from each other in opposite directions.

11 is a vertical pipe or tube whose open upper end portion extends into position to re ceive the corks discharged at the lower end portions of the rollers 7 in the manner hereinafter described and whose lower end eX- tends over the horizontal portion of an. endless conveyer 12 which is carried by the rollers 13, 14 and '15. W

16 is a longitudinal guard strip which overlies the space between the rollers 7 for the purpose of holding down .the corks passing between said rollers. This strip is shown as broken away in Fig. 1 in order to more clearly show the rollers. d

17 designates the grinding or olishing disk which is secured to a shaft 18 riven by pulley 19. ,j

20 is a carrier for bringing the corks to the grinding wheel, and which consists of a circular wheel or disk secured to a shaft 21 and having its peripheral surface formed with a series ofl tapered recesses 22, each shaped to receive and hold a cork therein. In order to hold the corks in these seats while they are being ground or polished, I provide immediately above the said carrier a holding wheel 23 which is journaled in an arm or frame 24 pivoted at 25 in such a manner that its weight will hold it in resting engagement with the corks in the carrier 20 as they are successively brought to the grinding wheel. To partially counteract the weight of this wheel, and to adjust the same, I provide the spring 26 which has an upward bearing against the frame 24, its

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' idlers 56 and around the pu lower end being seated against the adjusting screw 27. By 'means of this screw the degree of pressure of the wheel 23 upon the corks may be accurately regulated.

The conveyer 12 before referred to extends to one side of the carrier 20, and in order to transfer the corks successively from the conveyer to the carrier I provide the reciprocatirg pusher 28 which is arranged to w'ork in guides 29. This pusher is actuated by an arm or rod 30 comiected to a rocker shaft 3l to which is secured an arm 32 carrying at its free end portion a roller 33, whichi s arrai` ged to contact with the teeth of a star wheel 34 secured to a shaft 35.

36 is a spring which is coiled around the shaft 31 and which operates to actuate said shaft reversely to the star wheel 34.

The shaft 35 is driven by pinion 37, through an idler pinion 37aL which meshes with a spur wheel 38 on the shaft 21 of the rotary carrier 20, and the latter is driven by the spur- gears 39, 40, 41 and 42 and pulley 43, as clearly shown in Fig. 1.

In order to insure the delivery 'of the corks to the pusher 28, at the roper intervals, the stop 44 is provided, see Figs. 1 and 5). This stop is arranged to be normally projected over the carrier 12 into the path of the corks by means of a spring 45, and is retracted from such position by means of a pivoted arm 46 which engages said stop and is also engaged by a pin or projection 47 on the pusher 28. By means of this arrangement the operation of the stop is brought into proper time relation to the operation of the pusher.

48 designates a suction-pipe, the purpose of which is to eXert an air suction upon the corks as they are pushed onto the carrier 2O and draw them back into proper position. to contact with the grinding face of the wheel 17 While any suitable arrangement of driving means may be provided for the various parts of the machine above described, I have shown the following arrangement :--The shaft 49 carries a pulley 50 driven by belt 51. The second pulley 52 on the shaft 49 is con nected by driving belt 52"L with a belt wheel 53 on the shaft of the agitator and distributer 5. The shaft 49 also carries a third pulley 54 driving a belt 55 which asses over the lley 10 on the shaft of one of the rollers 7 The said roller 7 has a belt connection 57 with a pulley 58 on the shaft of the conveyer roller 13. The grinding or polishing wheel 17 is driven by a cross-belt 59 preferably from the same shaft as the belt 51 above referred to. The direction of rotation of the various parts is indicated by the arrows.

The operation of the machine is as follows The corks from the hopper pass through the tube 6 and are delivered between the two inclined oppositely rotating feeding and assorting rollers 7. These rollers are `spaced and adjusted so that corks of the proper size. will be received and caused to hang between them in the manner shown in F 4 with their smaller ends downward, and are prevented from being thrown out by means ol the guard 1.6. The corks in this position slide successively downward between the rollers until they are discharged in to the vertical pipe 11 from which they pass to the conveyer 1.2. All corks which are under size or imperfectly formed will drop through the rollers onto the inclined chute 7"L and from thence to the vertical discharge pipe 7), while all corks which are oversize, being unable to drop between the rollers, are discharged at their lower ends. In this manner I secure a. perfect asserting and. sizing of the corks, all those which are imperfect in the. matter of size or otherwise being separated out. As the corks fall onto the conveyor 12 they are carried, small end foremost, as shown in dotted lines in Fig. 5, until they reach the stop 44. Each cork is now stopped until the pusher 28 is retracted., when the stop 44 re.- leases its cork and the latter passes to a| position in front of the said pusher and i moved by it onto the carrier wheel 2() into one of the recesses 22 where it is pressed by the holding wheel 23. As the cork is being moved by the pusher it is acted upon by the suction from the air pipe 48 and drawn into contact with the grinding or polishing` disk 17.

The machine as shown and described is designed for grinding or polishing the larger ends of corks. It may, however, he used to equal advantage upon the smaller ends by simply reversing the relations ol' the carrier 20 and the grinding wheel or disk, with aeorresponding change in the location of the. snetion pipe.

It will be apparent that the action of the. machine is very rapid and that the only manual operation necessary is that of keeping the hopper or feed receptacle 2 supplied with the cork blanks.

The advantages of my invention result from the automatic feeding of the corks in the manner described, whereby the capacity of the machine is increased very largely and the machine operator is enabled to attend to a number of machines; also in the means described whereby the defective. corks are discarded, and in the general effective operation of the machine.

It will be obvious that various changes may be made in the details of construction and arrangement, that the driving means herein described may be widely changed, and that other changes may be made in the machine without affecting my invention, since.

IVhat I claim is 1. A cork grinding or polishing machine having a feed hopper, cork feeding and asserting means to which the corks are deliv- IOS ered from the hopper and which separates out the defective corks and feeds the good corks, a grinding or polishing wheel, and means for carrying the corks discharged from the feeding and assorting device to the action of the grinding or polishing wheel; substantially as described.

2. A cork-grinding or polishing machine,

having a pair of cork-feeding rollers which feed the corks in the direction ofthe aXis of the rollers, means for delivering the corks to the said rollers in vertical position with their small ends downward a grinding or polishing wheel, and carrier mechanism intermediate the discharge of said rollers and the grinding or polishing wheel; substantially as described.

3. In a machine ofthe class described, a cork-feeding and assorting device, comprising two spaced parallel rollers, means for preventing the corks from being thrown off the rollers, and means for revolving the same; substantially as described.

4. In a cork grinding machine, a cork-feeding and assorting device, comprising two spaced parallel rollers, means for delivering the corks to the said rollers in 4vertical position with their small ends downward and means for revolving the same oppositely to each other, substantially as described.

5. In a cork grinding machine, a cork-feeding and assorting device, comprising Vtwo s aced parallel rollers sup orted in an inclined lane ,and means or receiving the corks elivered by the rollers substantially as described.

6. In a machine of the class described, a cork-feeding and assortin device, consistin of two spaced parallel ro lers having flute surfaces and supported in an inclined plane; substantially as described. y

7. In a machine of the class described, a cork-feeding device, comprising two spaced parallel inclined rollers, means for revolvin the same in opposite directions, and a guar overlying the space between the said rollers;

substantially as described.

8. In a machine of the class described, the combination with l a grinding or polishing wheel or disk, of a rotary carrier adjacent thereto, a cork-gripping or holding wheel above the said carrier, a conveyer for delivering the corks to said carrier, and an airsuction pipe having a suction opening adjacent to the said carrier; substantially as described.

9. In amachine of the class described, cork-feeding and assorting means, comprising two parallel rollers placed side by side, and spaced so as to permit undersized corks to pass between them, but to retain full sized corks, means for delivering the corks to said rollers in vertical position and means for rotating the rollers; substantially as described.

10. In a machine of the class described,

the combination of a conveyer, a stop in the path of corks on the conveyer, a cork-holding and carrier wheel, a pusher for transferring the corks from the conveyer to the said wheel, means for operating the pusher and stop in time relation to each other, a grinding or polishing wheel, and means for forcing the cork into contact with suchwheel; substantially as described.

11. In a machine of the class described, `the combination with a rotating cork carrier and Van endless conveyer, of a reciprocating pusher for transferring the corks from the conveyer to the carrier, a cork-stopping device in advance of the pusher and actuated in time relation therewith, and an air suction pipe havingy a suction opening adjacent to said carrier and pusher; substantially as described. y s

12. In a machine of the class described, the combination of a cork conveyer, a rotary cork carrier, a pusher for transferring the corks from the conveyer to the carrier, means for actuating said pusher, a cork-stop in advance of the carrier, a spring actuating said stop in one direction, and a connection with the pusher for operating the stop in a reverse direction; substantially as described.

13. In a machine of the class described, the combination with a feed hopper and a delivery device in the throat thereof, of an inclined feed-tube, and a pair of spaced parallel inclined rollers between the upper portions of which the said tube is arranged to discharge,

and means for rotating said rollers; substantially as described.

14. In a machine of the class described, a cork-feeding and assorting device comprising two parallel rollers supported in an inclined plane, means for delivering the corks to said rollers so that they will be received between the rollers in substantially vertical position, and a chute arranged to receive the corks discharged by the said rollers; substantially as described.

15. In a cork machine, a sizing device t'o and through which the cork blanks are fed, a tool for working the blanks, and transfer devices for carrying the blanks from the sizing device to the tool; substantially as described.

16. In a cork machine, a sizing device to which the cork blanks are fed, which has a channel through which the blanks are arranged to pass with their small ends downward, a tool for working the blanks, and transfer devices for carrying the blanks from the sizing. device to the tool; substantially as described.

17. In 4a cork machine, a sizing device to which the cork blanks are fed, said device consisting of spaced members forming an open channel between them through which the blanks are arranged to move with their smaller ends downward, a tool for working the blanks, and transfer devices for carrying IIO IIS

the blanks from the sizing device to the tool; substantially as described.

18. In a cork machine, a sizing channel through which the cork blanks are fed, the walls of such channel consisting of spaced members between which the blanks move with their smaller` ends downward; substantially as described.

19. In a cork machine, a sizing channel or passage of definite size and having an open bottom for a portion at least o1" its length through which under-sized cork blanks can escape, and means for separating over-sized blanks from those of the proper size 5 substantially as described. y

20. In a cork machine, a sizing channel or passage of definite size and having an open bottom for a portion at least of its length to permit the escape of under-sized cork blanks,

said channel being also arranged to permit the escape of over-sized blanks at its delivery end, and a conduit communicating with said channel or passage at an intermediate point to receive blanks of' the proper size g substantially as described.

21. In a cork-grinding machine, a sizing passage or channel through which the cork blanks are ied, and by means of which they are automatically sized and assorted, a grinding tool, and transfer devices for carrying the blanks from the sizing passage or channel to the tool substantially as described.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand.

OSCAR IRWIN Witnesses GEO. H. PARMELEE, H. M. CoRwiN

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