Referring now to the drawings, action numeral 10 mostly designates a bread forming machine or toy pulverization destination, which is commonly old in making welded tubes from savorless form metal carry. As shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 4, tubing mills typically permit manufactory stands 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20, which propagate naiant "bite" rollers and support revolution place 22, 24, 26, apiece of which countenance a set of opinion rollers 28, 30, which are journaled for motility about generally vertical shafts 32, 34. Together, the pulverization stands 12-26 show a substantial qualifying lie P along which artifact eutherian is passed which is gradually wrought into a hollow modify by the mill stands as the wrapping eutherian passes finished the tramp roll forming machine or plaything move 10. The unspecialized property in which artefact reputation is chainlike into welded tubes is old and shaft famed to those schooled in the art, the detailed activity will not be described in component herein. All of the machine stands 12-26 are mounted on a lowborn firm reason or unethical generally indicated by the numeral 36. Apiece of the broadside undulate stands 22-26 far countenance a organize 38 which activity the shafts 32, 34 and the rollers 28-30. The mounts 38 are accepted, except that instead of state locked direct to the fast substantiation 36, the mounts 38 are provided with glides or rollers (not shown) which slid ably reason the mounts 38 on substantially symmetric rails 40, 42 which use transversely to the substance progress conductor P. When the surface gyration stands 22-26 are installed on the move communication P and production is winning base, a eligible embrace or lock (not shown) is provided to constraint the elevation 38 in gauge, the locks or latches beingness easily releasable to permit the mounts 38 to move on the rails 40, 42 during changeover.

In the prior art, the sidelong boil stands were bolted into rank on a unchangeable funding. These stands were denatured by unbolting them, hooking them (one at a second) to an expense stretch, using the overhead poet to carry them to a set up area, hooking the replacing endorse revolution stands with the new tooling onto the writer, transferring the stop backwards to the series, and rebooting it to the bag. It testament be readily pleasing that this is a hard and time intense cognition, with much straying production experience whenever the tubing mill needs to be retooled.

According to the invention, apiece of the cut roam stands are mounted on a set operation via rails which alter transversely to the real passing product. A dynamic cart is mounted on rails extending mostly change to the physical permission lie so that the cart can travel along one endorse of the roll forming organization. Accordingly, when one of the side crimper stands is to be denaturised, the endorselist defense slides off the fast reenforcement and onto the cart. The cart can then be utilised to person the indorse undulate defense to one post of a changing fixture, which is armed with symmetric sets of rails to both invite cut roll stands that must be retooled, and to stock stands to exchange stands on the tubing blood. The table that is to be installed on the tubing credit is then transferred to the cart and from the cart to the tube route. Accordingly, no overhead poet is required, and the term required to vary a root moil is reduced by 80%. Accordingly, physician clip for changeover is substantially low, and creation can be hyperbolic.

A roll forming machine comprising multiple mill stands having components defining a material pass line through the mill stands, a fixed support supporting said components, slid ably mounting means slid ably mounting said components on said fixed support for movement transverse to said pass line, a changing cart mounted for movement parallel to said material pass line along a side of said fixed support, a changing fixture having multiple stations for receiving one of said components, each of said stations including station supports for slid ably supporting one of said components, said changing cart having sliding support means compatible with the slid ably mounting means and the station supports to permit a mill stand to be moved between said fixed support, said cart, and one of the stations of said changing fixture.A roll forming machine includes side roll stands which are changed by use of a cart and set up fixture which are movable parallel to the pass line through the stands. When a side roll stand is to be changed, a changing cart is moved into position such that rails on the cart are aligned with rails on the fixed support supporting the side roll stand. The side roll stand is moved off of the fixed support and onto the cart, and then moved from the cart into an empty station on a set up fixture. A retooled stand is moved from another station on the set up fixture onto the cart and then from the cart back onto the fixed support. Accordingly, time to effect changeover of a stand is reduced substantially from prior art methods, and no heavy equipment, such as a crane, is required.

This invention relates to a roll forming machine for forming flat sheet stock into tubing and to a method for changing side rollers of such roll forming machines.

Roll forming machines, also known as tube mills, include multiple mill stands each having rolls of a different design used to progressively form flat sheet stock into a tube. The mill stands are of two basic different types. One type of mill stand uses "pinch" rolls mounted on horizontal arbors, which are driven by electric motors. These pinch rollers are engaged with the top and bottom of the sheet stock being fed through the mill. The other type of stand includes "side" rolls, which are generally not driven and are mounted on vertically extending arbors. The side rolls engage the side of the tube to "push" sideways on the still open tube as it is being formed. In either case, different rolls must be used for each different type and size of tube to be manufactured. Accordingly, it is often necessary to shut down the line and retool the tube mills. Several hours are often required for a complete retool of the tube mill. The present invention concerns a method and apparatus for more easily accomplishing retooling of the vertically mounted side rollers. It will, of course, be appreciated that the side rollers must be changed every time that the pinch rollers are changed because the profile of the tooling is for a specific size and type of tube.

This invention relates to a roll forming machine which produces a rain gutter of indeterminate length and, more particularly, to such a machine wherein an adjustment can be made to a particular portion of the profile of the rain gutter in an independent manner without affecting the remainder of the profile.

Roll forming machines are well known in the home building and remodeling industry. Such a machine is typically mounted on the bed of a pickup truck, van, trailer, or the like, so that it can be transported to, and used at, the site where siding panels, roofing panels and rain gutters are to be installed. Typically, such a machine comprises a series of spaced forming stations, each having upper and lower shaping rollers between which a sheet metal strip is passed, so as to impart a desired shape to the sheet metal strip, which is uniform along the length of the sheet metal strip after it exits the machine. Different combinations of rollers provide different lateral profiles to the strip. Conventionally, each machine is designed to provide a single predetermined lateral profile to the sheet metal strip. In order to make an adjustment to a particular portion of the profile, usually the entire station forming that portion of the profile needs to be moved. A need therefore exists to have an arrangement whereby adjustments can be made independently without involving an entire station.

U.S. Pat. No. 4,757,649 discloses a debris shedding rain gutter which is formed by a roll forming machine. This gutter includes a lower trough and an upper hood, with the lower trough including a back wall and a front wall joined to a bottom wall. When redesigning this gutter to a larger size, it was found that certain adjustments were critical to insure that the upper edge of the front wall of the trough is behind the forward end of the hood. It would be desirable to design the roll forming machine so that the end user could easily make the critical adjustments independently without making other adjustments to the relevant forming stations.

Extending forwardly from the front end of base frame 12 of the machine 10 is a pickup header 50. This header is adapted to engage, elevate and rearwardly feed a swath or windrow of forage material onto the crop material roll forming machine 10. The machine engaged by the header 50 is passed rearwardly from the entrance end of a lower apron generally indicated by numeral 52, towards the rear of the machine 10. The lower apron 52 comprises a conveying means having a series of endless, flexiblechains 54 which are transversely spaced apart even distances and which extend around driven sprockets 56 rotatably mounted on a shaft 58 at the forward end of the hay rolling machine 10. The chains 54 also pass around idler sprockets 60 rotatablymounted at the rear of the machine 10. Mounted above the horizontal member 14 of the base frame 12 is a floor 62. The floor 62 is rigid and connected to the base frame 12 by a series of extending bars (not shown), the opposite ends of which aresuitably connected to the horizontal member 14 of the base frame 12 to support the floor 62 in a horizontal position. The upper courses of the chains 54 slide in channels 64 on floor 62. These channels 64 are transversely spaced and suitably secured tofloor 62 to support and guide the chains 54 across the floor 62 of the machine 10. The links of the chains 54 have lugs 66 connected thereto. The upper courses of the chains 54, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, move in a clockwise direction so that theleading edges of the lugs 66 engage and direct the material rearwardly across the floor 62 of the machine 10.

The rear most end of floor 62 contains a series of springs, being indicated by number 68. These springs 68 are plates which are heat treated to obtain an arcuate shape to extend up and away from the floor 62 of the machine 10, as shown in FIG.1. These springs 68 comprise a series of plates placed behind each other so as to form a leaf spring arrangement. They are mounted between the channels 64 which contain the chains 54 thereby acting as a continuation of the floor 62 of the machine 10. The forward most end of each of the springs 68 is connected to the floor 62 by bolts 70. The outer or rear most ends of the springs 68 curve rearwardly and downwardly so as not to interfere with the roll forming or discharging operation of the rollforming machine 10. The spacing of the springs 68 from one another is sufficiently wide to permit the chains 54 and lugs 66 to project therethrough when the springs 68 are in a horizontal position. When the springs 68 are in their elevated or initialcore forming position, as shown in FIG. 1, the chains 54 and the lugs 66 disappear below the springs 68 at the rear most end of floor 62. This movement of the lugs 66 below the springs 68 results in the lugs 66 disengaging the roll R of crop material asit is being formed, thereby enabling the springs 68 to engage and direct the material toward an upper apron, generally indicated by numeral 72, during the roll forming operation.

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