Flaccid articles (socks for example) are not easily handled in an automated process. After such articles are manufactured (usually knitted), they are put through a dyeing process, from which they emerge spunned dry (slightly wet) and in a crumpled heap. Thereafter, they are dried, formed and stacked in a laid out manner in preparation for rider attachment and ultimate packaging. It is towards the threefold problem associated with automating the drying, forming and stacking process that the present invention is directed.
The prior art has addressed this threefold problem, the most notable which are Coulston et al, U.S. Pat. No. 1,126,619; Griffin, U.S. Pat. No. 2,136,902 and Annas, Sr., U.S. Pat. No. 4,166,556. Exemplary of the prior art teachings is Annas which employs a plurality of upstanding internally heated forms to form and dry the socks as they come from the dyeing process. Annas uses a hexagonal shaped table with three upstanding heated forms affixed along side the terminal free edges of each of the six hexagonal sides. Such a structure mandates a complicated slip ring electrical circuit to supply heating current to the interior of each form as the forms are indexed (three at a time) into a position for stripping where socks are grasped by a grasping means (three at a time), stripped by a vertical upstanding frame to which the grasping means are affixed, thence moved in an upward and then afterwards in a downward and pivoting lateral fashion so that the frame comes to a halt in a horizontal position. At this instance, the grippers open, causing the articles to be deposited on a carrier.
There are two major drawbacks to this kind of apparatus: (1) the amount of electrical energy it consumes and (2) only tube socks (not socks having a heel and toe) may be processed. Because the machine operator must hand load the machine (put the socks on the form), the indexing table with its electrically heated forms are exposed to ambient conditions. Heat is wasted because the electrical forms are exposed. There is no way to solve this energy wasteful problem because the operator must have access to the forms in order to load them. It would be desirable if the waste heat coming off this machine could be recycled within an enclosed chamber.
In the Annas apparatus, the dried tube sock (tube sock only) is stripped from the upright form by grasping the sock (while it is still on the form) at opposite ends of the article, namely the welt and the toe regions. While in the thus grasped mode, the socks are traversed upward (to strip the article from the form) then laterally and simultaneously downwardly to a horizontal position and upon attaining this position, the grasping means are opened and the socks are deposited on a carrier means, a stacking operation. If for any reason, any one of the grasping means do not grasp and hold the socks as intended, the stacking operation is compromised. Experience has shown that even with the proper initial grasping, if one or more graspers fail to continuously hold the socks as it moves from its on form status to the horizontal pre-released state, stacking is compromised. This difficulty usually occurs after stripping but before deposition on the carrier.
In contrast to Annas, the present invention provides apparatus whereby a chamber is employed to simultaneously contain heat, dry, set and form socks (either tube or heel and toe type) disposed on a sock form. Throughout this disclosure, the term ("flaccid articles") is used interchangeably with the word "sock(s)." Each sock or flaccid article form is removably connected to a separate form carrier that carries a sock on which the sock is traversed into and out of the heating chamber. The form carrier along with its individual sock form is transported out of the heating chamber to a stripping station, to a loading station and back into the heating chamber by means of series of interfacing tracks.
Instead of employing a plurality of graspers to simultaneously remove a plurality of socks from a like number of forms by grasping such socks at their opposite ends as does Annas, the present invention, strips socks (either tube or heel-toe type) from the forms one at a time, transports them to a tray, deposits them on the tray and then deposits the sock on a flat receiver in a stack until the flat receiver is covered with a layer of stacks of socks. Subsequently, the flat receiver is indexed 90.degree., lowered a predetermined distance (the height of a stack of socks) and then a second and like layer of sock stacks are deposited, at which time the flat receiver with its stacks of laid out socks is removed and then another flat receiver is provided and the process is repeated.