A conveyor for articles of various thicknesses includes a continuous conveyor belt driven around spaced rollers and a stationary housing that encloses the belt. Spaced groups of brushes or bristles are secured on the outwardly facing surface of the belt such that the ends of the bristles may slide across an opposed surface of the housing. The bristles are inclined toward the direction of travel or conveyance of the belt in order to catch the edges of the conveyed article and impart a positive thrust to the articles within the conveyor. The flexibility of the bristles allows for the accommodation of articles of various sizes and thicknesses and minimizes damage to the conveyor or article in the event of jam up.
Apparatus for changing the orientation of stacks of paper sheets has two parallel transporting units each having at least one belt conveyor with outwardly extending bristles which engage the stacks and reduce the likelihood of unpredictable slippage of the lowermost sheets of the stacks relative to the adjacent reaches of the belt conveyors while the stacks are advanced from a stack supplying conveyor to a stack receiving conveyor. At the same time, the stacks are caused to change their orientation by turning about axes extending at right angles to the adjacent reaches of the belt conveyors as a result of travel of the conveyor or conveyors forming part of one of the transporting units at a speed which is greater than the speed of the conveyor or conveyors of the other transporting unit. Each belt conveyor can have an outer layer of velour with a pile of outwardly extending bristles, an inner layer of textile fabric, and a synthetic plastic intermediate layer which is bonded to the inner and outer layers. The bristles on those reaches of the conveyors which support the stacks are inclined with reference to the direction of transport of the stacks.
This innovation describes a slice stacker, designed in particular for cheese slices and other slice-shaped objects, consisting of a brush belt with resting overhead or lower shot belts, which register slices from the top or from the bottom.
A method and a device are disclosed for stacking unpacked processed cheese slices. Single stacks consisting of a plurality of superimposed processed cheese slices are continuously supplied by a transportation device to a first turning station. At the first turning station, the single stacks are individually rotated through 90.degree. in the direction of transportation. These rotated single stacks subsequently are supplied to a second turning station. At the second turning station, two or more single stacks are arranged behind one another in a row and then are rotated together through 90.degree. in the direction of transportation. Thus, the two or more single stacks come to rest on top of one another and form a multiple stack of processed cheese slices.
