US2012293A - Splitting machine - Google Patents

Description

7, 1935. R. B. WOODCOCK ET AL 2,012,293

SPLITTING MACHINE Filed April 23, 1934 2 Sheets-Sheet l Patented Aug. 27, 1935 "UNETED STATES Ztihitd SPLITTING Reginald Boyd Woodcock MACHINE I and Hubert Boothroyd,

Leicester, England, assignors to United Shoe Machinery (lorporation, Paterson, N. J., a corporation of New Jersey Application April 23, 1934, Serial No. 721,866 In Great Britain April 3, 1934 2 Claims. (oi. 69-'-l3) This invention relates to machines for splitting sheet material and is herein illustrated as embodied in a machine for splitting sole blanks in the manufacture of boots and shoes.

In the manufacture of shoes the soles are prepared by dieing-out blanks of proper shape from a hide and then splitting a thin shaving from the flesh side of each blank to produce a sole of uniform thickness throughout. Machines for performing this splitting operation commonly comprise a fixed knife and two rolls for feeding the sole blanks to the knife the finished sole passing between one of the rolls and the knife and the shaving passing between the knife and the other roll. In order to split the blank accurately, the edge of the knife should be located'as near as possible to the bite of the rolls. There must, however, be enough space or clearance between each roll and the adjacent face of the knife to the rearof its edge to permit easy passage of the finished sole between one roll and one face of the knife and of the shaving between the other roll and the other face of the knife.

The present invention provides an improved machine in which the edge of the knife is located close to the bite of the rolls and at the same time the requisite clearance for the sole and the shaving is present in all positions which the rolls may occupy.

Referring now to the accompanying drawings,

Fig. l is a front elevation of a machine in which the present invention is embodied, certain parts having been broken away, and

Fig. 2 is an end elevation of the machine with certain parts broken away.

The machine is an improvement upon the machine of United States Letters Patent No. 894,- 8539, granted August 4, 1908, upon an application filed in the name of Frederick J. Nash; and before describing in detail what is new, a brief description of what is old will be given.

Th sole blank or other piece of work is presented over a table 3 in position to be fed by a gage roll 5 and a feed roll I to a knife 9 which is adjustably bolted to the frame of the machine. The bearings ll of the gage roll are slidable toward and from the knife, and have integral with their tops blocks it provided with inclined faces. The inclined faces of these blocks are held, by compression springs 15, against cooperating wedges it carried by a slide-bar ll, said slidebar being adjustable to the right and left, as viewed in Fig. 1, by turning a hand-wheel l8. Turning the hand-wheel in one direction permits the springs IE to move the gage roll 5 away from the knife, while turning it in the other direction movesthe gage roll toward the knife. Thus the gage roll may be adjusted into any desired position'and. held from movement away from the knife. The finished sole passes between this roll and the knife, the position into which this roll is adjusted thus determining the thickness of the finished sole. A pointer is, actuated by the slide-bar ii, and a scale 2! indicate the distance of the gage roll above the knife edge. The bearings of the feed roll 7 are mounted in the outer ends of arms 23, the inner or rear ends of which are pivoted to theframe of the machine about the axes of alined studs 25 carried by the frame, said'bearings being urged upwardly by heavy springs 27. Stop screws 29, located in the paths of movement of the arms 23, limit the extent of upward movement of said arms and thus determine the distance between the rolls when no work is passing through the machine. Both rolls are driven so that a sole blank pre sented grain side up over the table 3 is seized by the rolls and fed past the knife. The finished sole passes over the knife, its thickness depending upon the position into which the gage roll 5 was previously adjusted; and the shaving, which is removed from the flesh side of the sole blank, passes under the knife, the heavy springs 21 yielding to permit it to pass.- As thus far described, the machine is or may be substantially the same as the patented machine, and no further detailed description of it will be given, reference being made to the patent.

In the patented machine the bearings of the rolls are mounted for movement in a substantially vertical path at right angles to the plane of the knife; and when the edge of the knife is located close to the bite of the rolls, such a construction does not provide, in all positions which the rolls may occupy, sufficient clearance, back of the knife edge between the rolls and the beveled faces of the knife, for the free passage of the sole and the shaving respectively which are produced when a sole blank is split. In order to overcome this difficulty, the bearings of the rolls of the present machine are constrained to move in paths which diverge from the knife toward the front of the machine. Thus, when the rolls move away from the knife edge to provide for a thicker finished sole or a thicker shaving, they also move away from the beveled faces of the knife back of the knife edge and thus provide more space for the passage between the rolls and said beveled faces of said sole or said shaving or both, as the case may be.

To this endthe bearings ll of the gage roll 5 are slidably mounted in guideways, the walls of one of which are indicated at 3| in Fig. 2, which are inclined upwardly from the knife edge and toward the front of the machine; and the alined studs 25, On which the supporting arms 23 of thefeed roll '8 are pivoted, are located considerably below the level of the axis of the feed roll. The result of these mountings is that the paths of the rolls diverge from the knife toward the front of the machine; and this permits the edge of the knife to be located closer to the bite of the rolls than would otherwise be possible.

Inasmuch as many sole blanks are not of uniform thickness throughout, it is desirable that the feed roll '1 should be so mounted as to be able to tilt so that one end may at times be higher than the other. To this end the supporting arms 23 are not pivoted directly to the studs Instead, each arm 23 has screwed into its lower rear end a stud 33, the smooth portion of the stem of which is rotatable in a block integral with one end of a pivot stud 25. The feed roll 3 may therefore be moved down bodily away from the knife and may also tilt or tip lengthwise to accommodate itself to a sole blank which is thicker at one edge than at the opposite edge.

ihe gage roll 5 and the feed roll 1 are driven by gears from a driving shaft 37 in the following manner so as to permit them to move bodily in the diverging paths described above Without disturbing the mesh of the gears. The shaft of the gage roll 5 has fast to one end thereof (the lefthand end as viewed in Fig. 1) a large gear 39;

disturbingthe mesh of the gear 39 with the pinion 4|.

The pinion 4! meshes with an idle pinion 4-3 which in turn meshes with a pinion fast to the driving shaft 31. The shaft of the feed roll 1 has fast to one end (the right-hand end as viewed in Fig. 1) a large gear 41. This gear meshes with an idle pinion 49 which in turn meshes with a pinion 51 fast on the driving shaft 31, the gear 41 and pinion 49 being arranged as shown so that a plane passed through the axes of the pinion 49 and the feed roll 7 is substantially at right angles to the path of yielding movement of the feed roll.

Having described our invention, What we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. A splitting machine having, in combination, a knife, a gage roll and a yielding feed roll movable in paths which diverge from the knife toward the front of the machine, supporting arms in the outer ends of which the bearings of the feed roll are carried, pivots mounted in the frame of the machine and extending substantially parallel to the axis of the feed roll, and other pivots carried by said arms, connected to the first-named pivots and extending substantially perpendicular to the axis of the feed roll.

2. A splitting machine having, in combination, a knife, a gage roll and a yielding feed roll movable in paths which diverge from the knife toward the front of the machine, supporting arms in the free ends of which the bearings of the feed roll are held, studs carried by the other ends of the arms, blocks in which the studs are rotatable, and other studs with which said blocks are rigid, said other studs being rotatable in bearings in the frame and located at right angles to the axes of said first-namedstuds.

REGINALD BOYD WOODCOCK.

HUBERT BOOTHROYD.

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