Abstract: Towels or other segments of sheet material are moved along an upper pair of downwardly inclined guide plates 31, 32, and the side edge portions 16 of the segments are folded inwardly and under the central portion 20 of the segment and under the upper guide plates. The leading end portion of the segment is moved off the lower ends of the upper guide plates and onto a lower pair of guide plates 34, 35 that are coextensive with the upper guide plates, the two pairs of guide plates are then separated, and a fold blade 101 moves upwardly between the separated guide plates to form a cross fold 106 intermediate the ends of the segment. The movement of the intermediate folded portion of the segment is continued in an upwardly-inclined direction, which pulls the leading and trailing end portions together.

Abstract: A manually fed folding machine comprising a horizontally reciprocal fold plate for making a first fold in an article, a pivotally movable fold bar clamps the leading edge of the article while the first fold is made and then unclamps the leading edge and carries it about a second predetermined fold line and into superposed relation with the first fold line. A vertically reciprocable fold knife is pivotally connected to spring-clip clamps and the vertically reciprocable fold knife is elevated to move the clamps into clamping position against the article during the second fold and the fold knife is then lowered against the article to impart a third fold while simultaneously lifting the clamps from the article.

Abstract: A stacker for flat flexible sheets, such as pillow cases, is provided to add sheets to the bottom of a stack without relative frictional movement between the articles being stacked or between the stacking mechanism and the stacked articles. The stacker comprises a stacking plate, clamp bars adjacent the leading edge of successive sheets, and a fold bar movable in a fixed path above and rearwardly of the stacking plate against the upper surface of successive sheets while gripped at their leading edges. Movement of the fold bar under the stack while the leading edge of the sheet is clamped at the front of the stack folds the sheet on itself while the fold bar moves beyond the clamping mechanism toward the rear of the stack and positions the surface of the sheet opposite that engaged by the fold bar against the lower surface of a previously stacked sheet without frictional movement between the two sheets or between the fold bar and the last stacked sheet.