The present invention pertains to a device for forming the spine region and/or the adjacent joint areas of book cases.
Known book production machines for the mechanized production of books comprise devices for transporting and devices for processing the supplied book blocks, devices for transporting and devices for processing the supplied book cases, as well as devices for joining one respective book block with an assigned book case, which is also referred to as the so-called casing-in process. Book production machines of this type are designed in such a way that the book blocks, the book cases, as well as the books, are always aligned symmetrically to the center plane of the book blocks that divides the book block at half the block thickness. Prior to the casing-in process, the book cases are performed with respect to the desired shape of the spine and the adjacent joint areas. Known devices used for this purpose lift out the spine region of the extended book case relative to a pair of rails that hold down the joint areas of the book case. These rails are realized in the form of flat hold-down rails or in the form of wedge-shaped joint forming rails with rounded forming areas and positioned in dependence on the width of the spine by means of automatic adjusting drives provided for this purpose. With respect to its width and contour, the forming component that lifts out the spine region of the book case corresponds to the spine.
Conventional forming components used for preforming book cases for books with a straight spine essentially consist of a base plate and a pair of parallel rails that are spaced apart from one another in accordance with the spine width. The rails are screwed to the base plate in oblong holes such that the forming component can be adapted to the width of the spine. This is realized by removing the forming component from the device for reasons of accessibility, manually fixing the rails in the desired position and subsequently reinserting the forming component into the device. This means that a significant effort is required for adjusting the device to the desired spine width and that a machine down-time and therefore an interruption of production are required for correcting the adjustment.
In order to simplify this adjustment of the forming component for books with a straight spine, EP 2 325 020 A1 proposes an adjusting mechanism that couples the two rails lifting out the spine region by means of pushers such that they are inevitably adjusted parallel, as well as symmetrical, to the aforementioned center plane of the book blocks. If the book block should not be cased into the book case symmetrically in order to subsequently arrange additional elements such as, e.g., a plastic packaging for compact discs or a so-called jewel case within the book, the book case needs to be displaced transverse to the transport direction between the preforming process and the casing-in process. Due to the joint areas and the preforming process, however, the book case is weakened, in particular, in the direction of the spine width such that the displacement transverse to the transport direction and therefore in the direction of the spine width requires a reduced production speed and represents a source for malfunctions and diminished production quality.
The production of books with a rounded spine requires forming components that not only correspond to the shape of the book to be produced with respect to their width, but also with respect to the curvature of their surface that faces the book case. The large number of different spine widths and curvatures results in a plurality of required forming components and a corresponding set-up effort. In order to reduce the variety of forming components, slight deviations from the ideal shape, particularly with respect to the width, and quality losses caused thereby are frequently accepted.
EP 1 350 634 B1 proposes a forming component for the production of books with a rounded spine, wherein said forming component comprises a closed frame and a plurality of discs that are adjacently arranged in this frame in a height-adjustable fashion. The discs feature individually formed, arc-shaped oblong holes, wherein the entire disc assembly is threaded onto bolts with these oblong holes such that the discs are adjusted to different heights in accordance with the arc shape of the oblong holes by moving these bolts in the longitudinal direction of the forming component and the contour of the forming component can reproduce different radii that are approximated with step profiles. In this case, the quality of the forming surface is decisively influenced by the material thickness of the discs. The disadvantages of this forming component can be seen in the required space for the frame that encloses the disc assembly, as well as the required fixing of the discs with additional means after the adjustment process. Due to the coupled adjustment of the discs, such a forming component also can respectively produce only one contour in dependence on the spine width. Several forming components of this type are required if spines with different curvature radii should be produced for book blocks with the same thickness, wherein these forming components differ with respect to the progression of the grooves in the discs.