Appeal No. 97-3065 Page 8
Application No. 08/452,747
the diaper fabricating machine but it will be understood that
it will be positioned between vacuum drum 20 and sheet 13
which overlays backup roll 22 as previously described with
respect to Figure 3. Referring to Figure 11, the transfer
device comprises a rotor generally designated by the numeral
125. A pair of grippers 126 and 127 are mounted in rotor 125.
Gripper 126 is fixed in the rotor. Gripper 127 is slidable
axially. As shown in Figure 13, there is another pair of
grippers 128 and 129 diametrically opposite on the rotor from
grippers 126 and 127. Gripper 128 is fixed in the rotor and
gripper 129 is reciprocable axially relative to fixed gripper
128. The grippers are provided with a plurality of vacuum
ports 130 and 136. The grippers have a plurality of rather
sharp elements such as pins 132 and 138 adjacent the vacuum
ports to supplement the gripping force on the elastic segment
which force is created by the vacuum ports. The operation of
the transfer device of Figures 11-13 will now be briefly
described. In Figure 13, the rotor is at a rotational
position wherein stationary gripper 126 and its cooperating
movable gripper 127 are both engaged with an unstretched
elastic segment and are about to strip the segment 14 from
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Last modified: November 3, 2007