Abstract: At least two flexible belts each having a pair of longitudinal edges are fed parallel to each other to a uniting station with one edge of one unfinished belt transversely confronting one edge of the other unfinished belt. The two unfinished belts are laterally separated at the station so that their one edges are spaced from and parallel to each other and a separator belt is inserted into a space defined between the one edges. Then the two unfinished belts and the separator belt are fed together into a press, and are there hot pressed.

Abstract: A belt-fabrication apparatus for producing belts from layers of vulcanizable material and steel-wire reinforcement includes a coil frame from which the reinforcement wire may be withdrawn, passed through a wire clamp, covered with vulcanizable layers, subjected to pressing in a vulcanizing press, and engaged by a traction and/or clamp device downstream of the press as part of the belt, the latter being taken up on a coil. According to the invention, slack is prevented from forming (or is taken up) in the wire by providing each of the supply coils with a drive sprocket and a slip clutch between this sprocket and the reel, a plurality of such sprockets being engaged by a common chain driven by a motor tending to rotate the reels in senses opposite to the direction of rotation of the reels for paying out the wire.