Artos Engineering Company

John J Toben

Herbert M Stoehr

Flat metal strip of indeterminate length is apertured in a punch press having a flying die set to define a lengthwise succession of identical workpiece blanks connected by strap-like portions of the strip adjacent to its longitudinal edges. That press, each time it operates, makes two apertures that define respective end edges of a blank. The strip is pulled lengthwise through that press by roller forming apparatus which imparts a predetermined transverse profile to it and propels it through a flying shear press whereby each blank is severed from the rest of the strip. On a conveyor having two stretches bridged by the severed blank and moving faster than the strip the severed blank is carried to a folding press. There a ram rises from between the conveyor stretches, lifting the blank off of the conveyor and clamping it against a folding die. The ram raises the blank and the die until the die is stopped, whereupon the ram rises somewhat more to fold the blank, then descends to bring the workpiece down onto other conveyor stretches that carry it away.

Apparatus for producing elongated workpieces of predetermined transverse

Disclosed is a roller forming machine for converting a flat metal strip into a louver having long, narrow fins that extend lengthwise of the strip and are all bent laterally in one direction oblique to the plane of the strip. The fins are produced by a pair of fin forming rollers which slit the strip and bend out the fins to a larger acute angle to the plane of the strip than is desired in the finished louver. The strip then tends to twist along its length due to asymmetrical residual stresses generated by fin formation. To remove the twist, the strip is passed between cylindrical straightening rollers whereby the fins are bent partway back towards coplanarity with the strip, thus generating new residual stresses which oppose the original ones due to fin forming. One straightening roller is adjustable towards and from the other so that said new residual stresses can be empirically brought into equilibrium with the original ones.

Growing community of inventors

Milwaukee, WI, United States of America

John J Toben