A foundry mold conveyor system for the intermittent movement or indexing of pallets or other mold carriers successively first past a mold receiving station where a foundry sand mold is placed on each empty pallet, then to and through a jacket transfer station where a conventional jacket is placed on each palletized mold, then past a pouring station where each palletized and jacketed mold is poured with molten metal, then back to and through the jacket transfer station where the jacket is lifted from each poured palletized and jacketed mold, then past a mold discharge station where the poured mold is pushed from each pallet, and finally back through the mold receiving station where a fresh sand mold is again placed on each empty pallet. Pallet movements are effected in longitudinal and transverse paths and jacket placing and withdrawal operations are conducted at a single intersection (jacket transfer station) between a longitudinal path and a transverse path by simple up and down vertical motions of a jacket lifter at such intersection. Also, the use of a double length index on one path permits, despite the intersection, an endless system without paths passing over or under one another.
A casting mould consisting of closely collected uniform mould parts is advanced stepwise on a conveyor path by a main piston, exerting an endwise pressure on the endmost mould part, and by an auxiliary mould advancing device incorporating a hydraulic cylinder, the piston of which is greater than said main piston. Hydraulic fluid displaced by the main piston is supplied to the hydraulic cylinder together with additional hydraulic fluid admitted through a differential pressure valve responding on the pressure difference between the two sides of the main piston.
An improved method for the production of castings is disclosed, according to which the flasks are stripped from the sand moulds subsequently to pouring the molten metal in the moulds and the initial cooling of the castings, the flasks are directly forwarded to a moulding machine, the stripped moulds with the castings held therein being forwarded along a longer cooling path on a rotating guide. The implementation is composed by two straight conveying paths connected at the respective ends by a semicircular path along the straight guide sections the stripping machines and the moulding machines are arranged.
Molds are conveyed from the delivery end (2) of a molding machine (1) to a cooling conveyor (3) or an extractor station. By this procedure the molds (4) are principally conveyed in a direction away from the molding machine in close contact with each other on the first conveyor (5), where the pouring takes place. Then the molds (4) are conveyed back in the direction of the molding machine (1) on a second conveyor (6) running parallel to the first conveyor, on which second conveyor the initial cooling and solidification takes place. The molds with the partially cooled castings are then pushed on to a cooling conveyor (3) or an extractor station by the action of a reciprocating ejector element (7). The molds (4) are checked when being delivered from the molding machine (1), and molds (4') with irregularities or flaws are pushed away transversely (8) from the first conveyor (4) in the direction of the second conveyor (6) immediately after having left the molding machine (1), after which the molds (4) are conveyed on away from the cooling conveyor (3) or the extraction station by the action of an ejector element (7). The ejector element (7) has an ejector blade (12), which can be swung up above the level of the molds (4), whereby a pallet cross-conveyor (8), which is adapted to move empty pallets between the two conveyors can at the same time be used during its return stroke to take molds (4') direct from the delivery end of the molding machine to the ejector position at the exit end of the second conveyor (6).
An intermittently moving gondola-type conveyor for handling pallet-supported foundry sand molds includes stations along the curvilinear path of said conveyor where (1) each freshly made mold is invested with a weighted jacket; (2) each jacketed mold is moved to a position to receive molten metal; (3) each of said metal-filled molds is moved through a cooling zone; (4) at the end of said cooling zone, the weighted jacket is removed and transferred to an on-coming freshly made mold, and (5) said cooled metal casting and its surrounding unjacketed sand mold is subsequently discharged said conveyor; each gondola being movably suspended from an overhead curvilinear post-supported upper track, and stabilized against lateral swinging by movable attachments to a lower parallel track also supported by the vertical posts.
There is disclosed an apparatus wherein permanent molds for casting metals and the like, supported by carriers, proceed along a closed track comprising a forward path and a return path, thereby maintaining their original order. The carriers with molds are advanced along the forward path step-by-step with most operations then being performed. At the end of the forward path they are shifted sidewards to the return path where they are driven by a continuous drive toward the end of the return path, to be at this place again shifted sidewards to the start of the forward path. By changing the number of carriers in the return path, the conditions for cooling the molds are altered and thus castings of different size may be produced without changing the fundamental cycle of the apparatus.
