Citizen Watch Company, Ltd.

Humio Maeno

Hiroshi Ikeda

Tetsuya Yamamoto

Wataru Ito

A material-feeding device (,) includes a base (,), a material passage (,) formed on the base, at least one guide member (,) provided in the material passage and having a material-guide surface (,), a direction-correcting roller assembly (,) provided in the material passage, and a conveyor roll mechanism (,) disposed downstream of the direction-correcting roller assembly in relation to a material-feeding direction, for conveying a material along the material passage. The direction-correcting roller assembly (,) includes a pair of integrally rotatable polygonal rollers (,) having a common rotation axis oblique to the material-guide surface and a freely rotatable ball (,) opposed to the pair of polygonal rollers and elastically supported in an operative position closer to the polygonal rollers to define a gap between the ball and each of the polygonal rollers for allowing the material to be inserted into the gap when the ball is in the operative position. The direction-correcting roller assembly (,) holds the material between the pair of polygonal rollers (,) and the ball (,), and intermittently feeds the material toward the guide members (,).

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Tokorozawa, Japan

Humio Maeno