Western Electric Company, Inc.

Byron Lee Small

Eugene Raymond Cocco

Edwin C Hardesty

Gordon Foreman Bloxham

Daniel Marion Steinert

Claude Paren Brezeale

Charles McGonigal

William G Pflugrad

George Frank Besnyo

A retractile telephone cord of this invention has a retractility which decreases substantially linearly from each end to a center of its length and an extensibility which increases substantially linearly from each end to a center of its length. The cordage includes a plurality of conductors which are individually insulated with a first plastic material and which are disposed in a planar array, and a jacket of a second plastic material which encloses the array. The jacket is formed about the array to provide a cross-section transversely of the cordage which includes at least one side that is parallel to the array. In making the retractile cord, a length of the cordage is wound helically about a mandrel with the one side of the cross-section of the cord being in engagement with the mandrel. This prevents any axial twisting of the cordage as it is wound on the mandrel and subsequent to the heating of the cord and the reversing of the direction of the helical wind, results in a cord having the above-mentioned retractility and extensibility properties.

Tapered retractile cords

A plurality of groups of mandrels are arranged for movement successively through a plurality of workstations with each group being worked on at a station while other groups are being worked on simultaneously at other stations to produce continuously automatically groups of retractile cords. Cordage is fed from a supply into clamping engagement with each of the mandrels in the group in a cord-loading position and then wound helically in a plurality of spaced-apart convolutions on each of the mandrels of that group after which the wound cords are severed from the cordage supplies. The wound cords are advanced incrementally through a heating zone, wherein the cords are exposed to radiant heating supplemented by preheating of the mandrels, while cordage is being wound on the next successive groups of mandrels. The wound cords in each group are advanced through a cooling zone and then to an unloading station where they are removed from the mandrels while the pitch of the helices of the convolutions is reversed and the tendency of the convolutions to enlarge is minimized.

Method of making retractile cords

A plurality of groups of mandrels are arranged for movement successively through a plurality of workstations with each group being worked on at a station while other groups are being worked on simultaneously at other stations to produce continuously automatically groups of retractile cords. Cordage is fed from a supply into clamping engagement with each of the mandrels in the group in a cord-loading position and then wound in a plurality of spaced-apart convolutions on each of the mandrels of that group after which the wound cords are severed from the cordage supplies. The wound cords are advanced incrementally through a heating zone, wherein the cords are exposed to radiant heating supplemented by preheating of the mandrels while cordage is being wound on the next successive groups of mandrels. The wound heated cords in each group are advanced through a cooling zone and then to an unloading station whereat the wound cords are removed from each mandrel to reverse the pitch of the helices of the convolutions and in a manner that the pulling forces imparted thereto are such that the tendency of the convolutions to enlarge is minimized.

Apparatus for making retractile cords

Coiling and binding of strand material such as telephone cordage is accomplished by revolving cyclically spaced coiling heads mounted rotatably on a rotatably mounted turret between one position where a length of deformable tie material is preloaded on the coiling head and another position whereat a predetermined number of convolutions of cordage are wound on the coiling head such that the tie spans diametrically of and extends beyond the convolutions. The winding in the other position occurs while the tie of the previously wound cordage now in the one position is formed about the cordage such that each end portion of the tie encloses and binds together an adjacent plurality of corresponding portions of the convolutions whereafter the coiled, bound cordage is ejected from the head in the one position. The hed in the one position is loaded with another tie while the coiled cordage on the head in the other position is severed from a supply preparatory to the revolving of the heads to interchange the positions thereof to facilitate another cycle of operation in which the coiled cordage moved into the one position is bound and the head preloaded with a tie has convolutions wound thereon in the other position.

Growing community of inventors

Baltimore, MD, United States of America

Byron Lee Small