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Abstract

An apparatus and method for producing and bagging decorative grass, such as Easter grass. The apparatus includes an extruder, a godet, a slitter, a cutter, a bagging assembly and a programmable logic controller. The extruder produces a continuous sheet of material, which is fed by the godet into the slitter and cutter. A thickness gauge is provided between the extruder and slitter to measure the thickness of the sheet of material. The slitter has a row of blades which slit the sheet into a continuous length of slitted material. The cutter includes a rotatable blade which transversely cuts the slitted material into a number of individual filaments. The sheet of material is urged through the slitter and cutter by the godet and an air flow produced by a blower. The blower then forces the filaments to the bagging assembly, which has a rotatable turret, an inserter and a bag handler. The turret has a number of magazines for receiving from the cutter and for discharging the filaments into bags. The programmable logic controller is operatively connected to the components of the apparatus to coordinate the production and bagging of the filaments. Utilizing computations from the width, density and thickness of the sheet, the programmable logic controller rotates the turret and actuates the inserter in response to the number of revolutions of the cutter blade to deposit a uniform weight of filaments into each magazine of the turret and, in turn, into each bag.

First Claim