Abstract: The present invention is an assembly and method for continuously manufacturing fasteners. A die press actuated at a first speed receives the contoured wire into a die having a piercing element for piercing an aperture and a cutting element for cutting a fastener from the wire. A guide receives the fasteners from the die press and a drive unit engages the fasteners oriented by the guide and conveys the fastener to an elevated height relative to a tapping device. The guide redirects the fasteners by a first router. The fasteners are gravity fed into the first router and redirected to one of the tapping devices. Each tapping device has a tapping element for forming internal ribs in the aperture of the fastener. The tapping devices each actuates at a second speed that in aggregate is generally equal to the first speed of the die press.

Abstract: An assembly line for continuously manufacturing fasteners from a rod with a groove for receiving a wire for retaining the fasteners in a strip includes a receiver for receiving the rod. A die press is arranged to receive the rod from the receiver and includes a piercing member for piercing an aperture in each fastener and a cutting member for cutting each fastener from the rod. A tapping member provides ribs to an inner wall of the aperture formed in the fastener by the piercing member. An inspector inspects the internal rib formed into the inner wall of the aperture disposed in the fastener verifying exactness of the aperture and the rib. A wire inserter inserts the wire into the groove forming a strip of connected fasteners. The inserter receives the fasteners sequentially from the inspector after verification of the exactness of the aperture disposed in each fastener.

Abstract: A high speed apparatus for assembling washers on headed parts such as bolt blanks, wherein individual washers are mechanically positively placed and seated onto individual blanks. The apparatus includes a linear transfer mechanism for progressively shifting the blanks through successive stations at which a washer is first placed on the end of a blank, is then "stuffed" axially along the shank of the blank, and is then positively abutted with the head. Various movements of the washers and blanks are effected by individual servomotors that greatly simplify the complexity of the apparatus, provide timing/stroke flexibility, and independent control.

Abstract: A device for feeding rivets around a small radius curve includes a rivet guide shoe that fits into a recess in a movable shuttle body that can be moved to position a drill cavity, the rivet insertion device, and a rivet die sequentially under the machine axis for drilling, rivet insertion, and rivet upsetting. The rivet guide shoe has a curved, arched slot which is aligned with the delivery end of the rivet supply line when the shuttle is in its rivet insert position. The rivet is blown through the rivet supply line into the curved, arched slot in the rivet guide shoe. It travels around the slot and enters a rivet guide tube that is fitted into the end of the slot and has an axial passage equal in diameter to the diameter of the curved, arched slot, so the rivet encounters no edges or other discontinuities in the transition from the slot to the guide tube.

Abstract: In production of a lock nut used for fastening in cooperation with a bolt, a tubular material of a polygonal transverse cross section is machined into a crude block integrally made up of an angled main body and a truncated cone having a common, circular cente hole which is then tapped, a series of crude blocks are periodically and intermittently supplied to and registered at a shaping center provided on a holder assembly, each crude block is compressed with a compression mould to deform its tapped hole into a polygonal transverse cross section in the region of its truncated cone, and a lock nut thus produced are delivered out of the shaping center after compression. The process is fully automatized and the deformed transverse cross section of the rapped hole assures halmless, elastic, blanced fastening on a bolt in screw engagement of the lock nut.