GB966607A - Improvements in or relating to a flake mica separating and film forming machine - Google Patents

Abstract

966,607. Endless conveyers. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. April 4, 1961, No. 11958/61. Heading B8A. [Also in Division B2] A conveyer belt to the surface of which a vacuum is applied, is used in a flake mica filmforming machine to convey the mica flakes and also to separate the single-thickness flakes from clumps of flakes. The conveyer comprises a foraminous belt 12 which on its upper run overlies a perforated plate 18 (Fig. 6). The latter extends to the point where it joins an unperforated baffle 19 on the lower run, and at this point the vacuum is thus broken and the flakes drop into a shoot 10. The thicker clumps of flakes, however, due to the fact that they will not bend with the belt around an idler roller 15, tend to fall into a shoot 23 by means of which they are separated out. The flakes pass from the shoot 10 to a conveyer belt 26 to which vacuum is applied in the same way as to the belt 12. The flakes generally are retained on the lower run of this belt but any excess falls on to a rotating disc 33. Flakes on the disc 33, as they pass under the belt, are agitated mechanically or pneumatically and thus may be picked up to fill any voids of flakes on the belt. The conveyer belt 26 conveys its flakes into contact with a web 37 which has previously been coated with a suitable resin binder at 38 and subjected to a dryer 43. The flakes on the conveyer belt 26 are thus transferred to the web 37 with a bonding action and a further supply of resin is applied over the flakes and the web 37 at 47. A second web is then applied continuously to the second resin layer (Fig. 2). The sandwich web thus produced then passes through further apparatus similar to that shown in Fig. 1 by means of which a further layer of mica flakes are applied and finally to apparatus in which a further web of material is placed on top of the material already formed.