Abstract: An adjustable guide arrangement for aligning a substrate such as a shoe upper to be treated with a reinforcing substance, onto a biased plate of a rotatable cube for subsequent pressing against a carrier belt of a reinforcing machine. The guide arrangement comprises a housing adjustably supported on a frame portion of the machine, the housing holding a piston and cylinder unit having a piston rod therefrom which secures a guide bracket. The bracket has several slots therein which each adjustably support a guide pin. The guide pins are registerable with the biased plate, and act as an adjustable backstop for the substrate as they are being loaded onto the rotatable cube. The piston rod is retractable into the cylinder, to pull the guide pins out of the way of the cube as it is caused to rotate.

Abstract: An arrangement of articulated grippers for holding a substrate such as a shoe upper to be treated with a reinforcing substance onto a rotatable cube for pressing against a carrier belt of a reinforcing machine. The gripper comprise arms arranged on two sides of a biased plate, each arm being pivotable about a pintle, the arms each having an end which has a wheel in rolling contact with an extension of the biased plate, the other end of each arm having a pivotable flange which is contactable with the outer surface of a substrate loaded onto the biased plate, so as to hold that substrate thereon as the cube rotates during subsequent machine operation.

Abstract: The method of aligning and loading a substrate onto a powder reinforcement machine wherein a guide pin arrangement is adjusted with respect to settings on a portion of the machine frame and then adjusted distancewise from the machine frame, the guide pins themselves then adjusted with respect to the guide pin support, to facilitate alignment of substrates on the machine, the settings being repeatable for differently contoured substrates if desirable. The guide pin support being shiftable for removal from the path of a substrate transport cube, permitting rapid alignment of successive substrates of a particular configuration.