| 摘要 |
Ball-ender apparatus for securing an annular ball to a wire musical instrument string. A carriage reciprocable between front and rear positions carries a rotatable ball support spindle. An upstanding ball feed tube receives a column of balls from an oscillating hopper and has retractable gating pins for dropping a ball at a time on the forward end of the ball support spindle. Wire is fed behind the ball and past a substantially L-cross-section guide plate. The length of wire fed is determined in proportion to rotation of a timing wheel. A de-reeling device leads the wire from a supply reel in a serpentine path and reduces starting tension on the wire. Upon rearward movement of the carriage, spindle and ball, which severs the fed wire length upstream of the ball and forms the wire length into a U-shape about the ball, clamp actuator cones cause clamp members to engage the legs of said wire U-shape forward of the ball tightly. Rotation of the spindle and ball then twists such wire legs together in a first twist securing the wire length to the ball. In the single twist embodiment, subsequent forward return of the spindle and carriage causes an ejector member guided on the ball feed tube to eject the interconnected ball and wire from the spindle. However, in a double twist modification, the ejection step is proceeded by engagement of lock twist jaws with the wire legs forward of the first twist area, momentary interposition of a stop in the path of carriage advancement, release of the clamp members and rotation of the spindle to form the wire legs into a lock twist. Guide rods adjacent the guide plate guide the ejected interconnected wire length and ball to a point of removal from the apparatus. |
