Abstract: An automatic forming machine for hot forging workpieces conveyed step by step through the forging area has a driven eccentric shaft upon which is mounted a connecting rod linked to an up-and-down movable tool carriage.

Abstract: A screw press has a friction clutch for coupling the driving flywheel to the press spindle. The clutch is engaged by a hydraulic piston. To maintain a constant piston stroke as the friction clutch wears, a metering piston and cylinder are interposed between the clutch operating piston and the pressure fluid supply to trap pressure fluid in the clutch operating cylinder and to top it up as required, so that the operating piston stroke corresponds essentially to the fixed stroke of the metering piston. Fluid flow to the operating cylinder bypassing the metering piston is controlled by a normally closed valve arranged to be opened positively in dependence on the position of the metering piston, as the metering piston approaches the end of its stroke in the direction for pressurizing the clutch operating piston to engage the clutch. This arrangement ensures that the clutch cannot be inadvertently locked in an engaged condition.

Abstract: In a tube-upsetting press, of the kind having a vertically split die with vertically spaced shaping faces for successive setting operations, metal tubes to be upset are handled by sets of grippers which move cyclically along a closed path perpendicular to the axes of the tubes and the die and respective grippers move cyclically towards and away from the die, these movements being so synchronized that successive tubes are gripped, moved into line with one shaping face of the die and advanced thereinto by a first gripper of the set, shifted to the next shaping face by another gripper of the set, and withdrawn from the die by a further gripper of the set after upsetting. Fixed retaining grippers hold the tubes during upsetting, and oscillating transfer grippers move the tubes laterally from a supply table into alignment with the first die-feeding grippers of the set. The drive train for the several sets of grippers is described.

Abstract: A workpiece manipulator has a first epicyclic-gear transmission having a ary input and a crank output which moves generally in a planar and rectangular path on rotation of the rotary input through a predetermined angular distance. This path has generally parallel upright sides and generally parallel top and bottom sides interconnecting the upright sides. A drive including another epicyclic-gear train is connected to this rotary input and rotates same at a speed increasing generally from a standstill to a predetermined speed then slowing generally to a standstill again twice for each travel of the output about the rectangular path. These standstills correspond respectively to intermediate positions of the crank output along the upright sides of the path.