American Laundry Machinery Inc.

Sarupinder Gill

Manohar Mohan

An automatic shirt pressing apparatus includes at least a loading station, a pressing station and a movable support upon which a plurality of shirt receiving bucks are mounted for movement between the loading and pressing stations. A buck vacuum supply arrangement is associated with each of the bucks. A movable vacuum supply tube is arranged to successively be removably connected to the buck vacuum arrangement of each of the bucks when the buck located at the loading station, to travel with each of the bucks to a pressing station while remaining connected thereto and to be disconnected from the buck vacuum arrangement once a pressing operation is initiated. A method of pressing a shirt using such an automatic shirt pressing apparatus is also described. The method includes the steps of dressing a shirt on a respective buck located at a loading station, supplying a vacuum negative pressure to a vacuum arrangement of the respective buck located at the loading station to hold at least a front tail of the shirt against the respective buck, maintaining the vacuum negative pressure supplied to the vacuum arrangement of the respective buck continuously and uninterruptedly while moving the respective buck from the loading station to a pressing station, initiating pressing of the shirt against the respective buck, releasing vacuum negative pressure supplied to the vacuum arrangement of the respective buck once the pressing of the shirt has commenced, and returning the vacuum source to the loading station independently of the buck located in the pressing station.

Automatic shirt pressing apparatus including a vacuum system and

A shirt pressing apparatus includes a buck upon which a shin can be loaded before transferring the buck into a cabinet for pressing and finishing of the shirt. Movable with the buck is a pair of rods which have attached thereto cuff clamps. In accordance with the invention, each of the cuff clamps includes a pair of longitudinally chamfered pinch bars which are mounted in a clamp housing and biased into engagement with each other. The pinch bars are preferably made of Teflon.TM. and are readily replaceable when worn. The cuff portions of the shirts to be pressed are loaded between the pinch bars of the cuff clamps from below while the rods are located adjacent the buck. Thereafter, the rods are extended away from the buck to place sleeves of the shirt in tension during the pressing and finishing operation. When the shirt is finished and comes out of the cabinet, the rods remain in their extended positions during unloading of the shirt.

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Westchester, OH, United States of America

Sarupinder Gill