Deere & Company

Robert A Tufts

Raymond D Gold

Merle S Schillerstrom

Merl S Schillerstrom

A method of sorting rivets or similarly shaped articles, and apparatus therefor. Rivets are directed along a track to a notch where they are supported in a shank-down attitude against a rotating gauging wheel having a plurality of gauging holes conforming generally to the shape of the shank. The wheel is rotated so the gauging holes move upwardly with respect to the shanks while grooves in the periphery of the wheel guide the shanks toward the holes. Rivets with a uniform shank will settle into the holes so their heads are below the periphery, while rivets with bent, gouged, burred or oversized shanks will not settle fully into the holes. A rivet kicker timed to the rotation of the wheel ejects rivets not fully settled in the holes. Fully settled rivets are blown out of the gauging holes into a tube where they are conveyed by air towards a riveting machine.

Method and apparatus for sorting rivets

A fluid comparator assembly which is clamped to the floor of a cotton harvesting unit and includes an arm for contacting the top of a spindle. The arm is operably connected to a fluidfilled cylinder communicating with a gauge. As the picker bar drum is rotated and a different spindle contacts the arm, any deviation in spindle height will be indicated by a change in fluid column height on the gauge. The cross-sectional area of the cylinder is much greater than that of the gauge column so a small deviation in spindle height results in a large, easily readable change in fluid column height. Each spindle bar is shimmed so that the maximum deviation as indicated by the change in column height is within the desired tolerance.

Growing community of inventors

Bondurant, IA, United States of America

Robert A Tufts