| 摘要 |
<p>A problem encountered in the folding art deals with the folding of different sizes of sheets so as to produce substantially uniformly sized and oriented bundles. The instant invention purposes to solve this problem by utilizing an apparatus wherein sheets (15) are moved in an unfolded condition along their lengths on a horizontal conveyor (36, 38) grasped at the opposite sides of their leading edge, stretched at their leading edge and fed into a nip roll (70) of a folder. The nip roll progressively moves the sheet down an inclined guide plate (100) toward first and second clamp assemblies (108 & 109). The clamp assemblies alternately grasp and draw the sheet forward thereby folding the sheet in an accordion fold (29). The sheet is then conveyed along its folded length out the ends of the two clamp assemblies to a winding fork (160) where the accordion folded sheet is grasped by and folded about the winding fork in a flat spiral configuration and then is moved off the ends of the tines of the winding fork.</p> |
