Abstract: A web rewind apparatus includes an interior rider roll unit moving with a turret and engaging the winding roll during winding and particularly during indexing to move a new core in place and remove the winding roll. The rider rill is pivotally mounted within the roll support, rotates with the rewinding roll and engages the roll during rewinding or during indexing only. In another form, the rider roll is mounted on the turret by a linear slide and a counterweight member. A coupling connects the rider roll unit and the counterweight member to create an essentially zero gravity force by the rider roll unit. A pistonless cylinder is coupled to the counterweight to apply a constant surface force on the rider roll and thereby on the winding roll. The rider roll is mounted on the slide unit in a suitable bearing unit with the axis of the rider roll parallel to the winding axis. Adjustable bearing units mounted to the slide and permit skewing of the rider roll relative to the winding axis.

Abstract: A web rewind unit includes a turret with spaced spindles and cores for receiving the web. A slide is mounted on the turret beneath the web moving over the core at the winding station. A knife bracket is pivotally secured to the slide. A power cylinder positions the slide between a web cut position and a retracted position. A pivot unit connects between the knife bracket and the main cylinder unit. A pneumatic cylinder loads the pivot unit. A stop unit is mounted to the machine frame and includes an adjustable member for establishing angular orientation of the cutting knife to accurately locate the knife with respect to the web during the cutting action. An air bar is mounted above the web path and moves down through the web as the knife pivots. The free web end of the web moves into the new core. The air bar includes a cam which engages a cam roller on the bracket and pivots the knife to cut the web.

Abstract: A paper web rewind device includes a rewind turret having circumferentially spaced support members with end chucks for rotatably supporting tubular cores on which a web is rewound. Each set of supports is separately rotated and the turret is rotated to locate one core at a rewind station and the second core at an unload/load station. A rider roll at the rewind station is pivotally mounted and moves upwardly onto the core and then outwardly as the roll diameter increases. Just prior to completion of a rewound roll, the turret rotates and moves the rewinding roll while continuing to wind web thereon and also moves a new core to the loading station with rider roll moved to engage the new core. The moving web engages the new core which is rotated at winding speed. A sensor senses the turret position and is operable to decrease the winding speed of the wound roll to create a slack loop between the new core and the wound roll.

Abstract: A coater includes an impression cylinder and a gravure cylinder rotatably mounted. A first pivot arm unit is pivoted on the impression cylinder shaft and supports a pivot shaft. Depending pivot arms on the shaft support an offset cylinder to one side of the impression cylinder and above the gravure cylinder. Nip adjustment units for the pivot arm unit and the depending pivot arms each include a pre-loaded ball bearing lead screw coupled to a slide housing and a separate power cylinder connected to the pivot unit and pivot arms respectively. The power cylinder unit forces the pivot structure into engagement with the lead screw follower which acts as a stop. A stepping motor rotates the lead screw and accurately positions the stop and thereby the pivot structure as a result of the power cylinder units. The lead screws separately control the nip setting of the off-set cylinder relative to the impression cylinder and the gravure cylinders.

Abstract: A coater includes a gravuer roll rotatably mounted in a fountain of coating material. A doctor blade engages the roll and doctors material from the surface. A curved predoctor deflector opens upstream of the material and has an inclined upper edge at about the level of the material to form a wedge-shaped gap forcing material into the roll. The deflector bottom is spaced from the fountain bottom to define a return path. A curved deflector at the doctor blade collects doctored material from the doctor blade and returns it to the return path. The predoctor generates a reverse material flow in the fountain creating a pressure at the return path to create a smooth circulation of coating material and essentially constant level in the said container.

Abstract: A rotary die cutter includes a frame having spaced side plates. An anvil roll and a die plate roll are rotatably supported in bearing housings which are mounted in vertical slots in the side plates. A roll gap adjustment unit includes a lead screw and a follower member fixedly attached to the anvil bearing housing. The lead screw is threaded into said follower and projects upwardly. A thrust bearing is mounted on the sprocket and the upper bearing housing rests on the thrust bearing. An actuator is mounted to the side frame and a chain and sprocket couples it to the gap sprocket. The actuator includes a gear reduction drive means having a rotating input dial and an output coupled to the actuator sprocket to rotate the chain and sprocket at the rate of substantially one revolution for each one hundred revolutions of the input dial. Cam roller units engage the outer bottom ends of the anvil roll. Spring-loaded preload cam roller units engage the opposite top ends of the die cut roll.

Abstract: A five roll calendar apparatus includes five rolls mounted in a common horizontal plane, including three heated rolls with first and second covered rolls. Each heated roll includes an inner rigid core having an outer finished surface. A plurality of grooves are formed by machining the face of the core and a thin sleeve is shrunk fit onto the core to seal the grooves and establish heat transfer passageways. The size of the passageways, the separating lands and the shell thickness are such that the temperature at the surface of the roll is essentially constant over the portions of the cavity and the adjacent core body. The thin outer wall establishes a short time response for correcting the temperature of the web. The center roll is rotatably fixed and the other rolls are individually loaded toward the fixed roll for controlling of nip pressure. The covered rolls are mounted in suitable slide supports. The end rolls are mounted to a torque shaft which provides a high degree of squareness to the roll loading.

Abstract: In a rotary press wherein ink nozzles apply different colored inks to different sections of an inking cylinder along the length thereof, and wherein excess inks run off of the inking cylinder into a compartmented inking pan, an anilox cylinder, by which ink is transferred from the inking cylinder to a plate cylinder, rotates on an axis that is fixed relative to a stationary frame for the press. The ink pan and its dividers are also stationarily secured to said frame. The plate cylinder and an impression cylinder that cooperates with it for imprinting a web are rotatably supported on sliders that carry those cylinders for bodily motion towards and from the anilox cylinder and one another.

Abstract: In apparatus having a pair of spaced apart cylinders rotatable on respective axes that are substantially parallel and lie in a common plane, each cylinder has at each end thereof a smaller diameter concentric bearer ring. Each bearer ring on each cylinder is adjacent to a bearer ring on the other. For each bearer ring there is a roller supporting member that is movable in directions parallel to said plane and transverse to said axes, each roller supporting member being adjacent to its bearer ring, between that bearer ring and an adjacent roller supporting member. Two rollers on each supporting member, at opposite sides of said plane, rollingly engage its bearer ring. An adjustable spacer member reacting between adjacent supporting members substantially on said plane hold them spaced apart by an adjustably variable distance that determines the distance between the cylinders.

Abstract: Packs of product move along a defined path, compressed in the grip of carrier jaws. A pair of webs of thermoplastic sheet material move towards said path from opposite sides thereof and are joined at a heat-fused seam to form an effective continuous strip across said path and into which a pair of carrier jaws moves with its pack. Pressure jaws converge just behind the carrier jaws to form the strip into a loop around the carrier jaws and produce two parallel, slightly spaced heat-fused seams between which the webs are severed and one of which connects the ends of said loop to form a band around the carrier jaws while the other connects the webs into a strip for formation of the next band. Until the band-completing seam has cooled, the carrier jaws keep the pack compressed enough to prevent seam rupturing tension on the band, then diverge enough to tension the band slightly, whereupon band and pack, in unison, are slid endwise out of engagement with the carrier jaws.

Abstract: Defectively made absorbent articles (e.g., disposable diapers) are shredded for reclamation, and their fluff fillers, mixed with undesired scraps, are fed downwardly towards a forwardly moving horizontal stretch of a conveyor screen. Fluff fibres are forced into a collecting chamber under said screen stretch by maintaining a subatmospheric pressure therein to generate a downward air flow through the screen. Above the stretch are a succession of separating chambers. Under the screen stretch, near the front of each such chamber, is an air outlet from which air is blown upward to lift material off of the screen. Near the front of each chamber, above the screen, is a paddle wheel rotor that propels lifted material rearwardly in the chamber, thus maintaining agitated circulation of material in each separating chamber. When one separating chamber is overloaded, excess material is carried on the screen into the next forward one.

Abstract: In web rewinding apparatus for producing hard-wound individual rolls, a knife for cutting through the web is carried for substantially radial extension and retraction by a cutoff roll which cooperates with a bed roll around which the web has substantial wrap. When extended, the knife enters a longitudinal slot in the bed roll, in which there is a row of fixed pins. A web impalement pusher bar, extended from the cutoff roll along with the knife, impales the web onto the pins. Transfer pads carried by the bed roll extend, to detach the web from the pins and clamp it against a new core. Cores onto which web is wound are supported by six mandrels spaced circumferentially around a turret that carries them, in turn, to each of six fixed stations. Coaxial with each mandrel on the turret is a rotatable driver and a normally disengaged clutch which, when engaged, transmits rotation of its driver to its mandrel. Alternate drivers around the turret are driven from one motor, the remaining drivers by a second motor.

Abstract: In an automatic web rewinding machine having core supporting mandrels carried by an indexingly rotated turret, the chuck arm for supporting the free end of each mandrel is swung between a closed mandrel engaging position and an open position by a reversible pneumatic rotary actuator controlled by a two-position valve. Each actuator and its valve are constrained to rotate with the turret, and they receive pressure air through a hollow turret shaft. A cam follower plunger of the valve is biased to an extended condition at which the actuator tends to hold the chuck arm closed. When a mandrel is established at the unloading station at which wound cores are removed from it, a signal from a turret position sensor causes extension of a first movable cam segment at said station, retracting the plunger and thus opening the chuck arm.

Abstract: A printing press ink fountain has means for applying different colored inks to different sections of a circumferentially grooved fountain roll for subsequent transfer to an anilox roll, printing cylinder, and moving web. Ink dams or dividers, each having a hole through which the fountain roll extends, divide the ink fountain into separate ink compartments and cooperate with the fountain and anilox rolls to prevent ink transfer between adjacent sections on each roll. Each divider has a circumferential edge around its hole which extends into a fountain roll groove. Each divider also has a grooved edge which rides against the anilox roll. Air ports are provided along these edges and compressed air is expelled therethrough to provide air seals to prevent ink transfer along the rolls.

Abstract: Apparatus for applying a continuous embossing pattern to webs of material such as paper or the like and a method for producing an embossing surface. The apparatus includes rollers which receive a web or webs of such material therebetween and removable embossing plates secured to the surface of the rollers and having an embossing surface for embossing the webs. The rollers are constructed such that they have magnetic properties whereby the embossing plates which are comprised of magnetically attracted material can be held against the roller surface. The plates are positioned in closely adjacent relationship with respect to each other such that they provide a continuous embossing pattern around the surface of the roller. The plates and the rollers also include mutually engaging registering means which permit the plates to be accurately aligned with respect to the roller surface.