Importance

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Abstract

Apparatus for removing and opening successive folded sheets of a stack has a transfer conveyor whose gripper engages the folded backs of successive sheets and propels them into the elongated channel of a straight guide extending tangentially of the flanges of the transfer conveyor. When a sheet is released, its folded back is leading and the sheet continues to travel in the channel. Such sheet is braked by a stop which is moved at the speed of the sheet during disengagement of the sheet from the transfer conveyor, which has a clamping device that grips the folded back of the sheet, which moves at a gradually decreasing speed subsequent to engagement of its clamping device with the folded back to brake the sheet in the channel, and which is disengaged from the sheet not later than at the time when one or both front edge portions of the sheet are engaged by rotary spreading members which open the sheet during removal from the channel and drop the opened sheet onto a roof-shaped evacuating conveyor. The transfer conveyor cooperates with an auxiliary conveyor during movement of a sheet from the magazine toward and into the channel, and the auxiliary conveyor is disengaged from the sheet not later than when the stop begins to brake the sheet by reducing the speed of movement of the folded back in a direction deeper into the channel. The stop is moved forwardly simultaneously with removal of the sheet from the guide by the spreading members or immediately thereafter so as to extend across the path of the next sheet while such next sheet enters into and advances in the channel.

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First Claim