Apparatus and method for providing uniform stretched edges of strip material for splicing

摘要

A strip of resilient material (12) is clamped uniformly across the width of the material at a first position by vertically spaced clamps (42,44) which are separated to stretch a section of the material beyond the elastic limit. The stretched section of material (36) is released and transported on a horizontal conveyor (24) to a second position where the stretched section is cut by a cutter (26) providing edges of reduced thickness which are suitable for overlapping other stretched edges of reduced thickness for splicing.