A material handling device comprises a roller conveyor component having rollers which are separated by gaps; a cage component which includes rows of uprights, the spacing and the thickness of the uprights in each row being such as to permit their insertion into said gaps and their movement through the gaps; crosspieces interconnecting the uprights of one row only with corresponding uprights of other rows, the crosspieces extending parallel to the axes of the rollers and being insertable in the gaps; a motor for effecting relative movement between the cage and the conveyor perpendicularly to each other such that the uprights and the crosspieces can move through the gaps.
Machine and service truck assembly for loading, unloading and storing ceramic tiles comprises a loading-unloading machine provided with a vertically mobile head constituted by a plurality of horizontal, parallel projecting brackets which are coplanar and each of which is provided upperly with a motorized roller. The head is arranged for sideways insertion into a truck constituted by a plurality of flat vertical parallel frames provided with horizontal transverse equidistant bars which overall constitute support surfaces, with the brackets inserted between the frames.
A buffer storage unit for substantially plate-like ceramic articles includes at least one carriage movable along a feed-in path and adapted to contain a plurality of articles, and being formed by plural frames laid in vertical planes and attached to a carrier structure, each frame including a pair of vertical uprights to which are attached plural horizontal bar elements which define a plurality of planes for supporting the articles. A roller carrier is operative to insert rollers through vertical spaces left between the frames in a vertical direction. Engagement elements flank the carriage and is operative to hold the rollers in position during a loading/unloading step. The engagement elements are provided with elastic members at least at one of the roller ends.
Apparatus is disclosed for heating a plurality of sheets of plastic material between adjacent ones of a plurality of vertically stacked and individually heated platens. The platens are vertically displaceable together and relative to one another, and any two vertically adjacent platens are vertically separable relative to a fixed horizontal pass line to facilitate removing a heated plastic sheet from between the platens and introducing a plastic sheet to be heated therebetween. Vertical separation is achieved by latching the upper one of two adjacent platens in a fixed holding position above the pass line and lowering the lower one of the two platens and any other platens of the stack therebeneath to position the upper surface of the lowered platen at the pass line. Sheet discharge and feed mechanisms are then operable respectively to remove a heated sheet from the lower platen and introduce a sheet to be heated onto the lower platen. In a preferred mode of operation, plastic sheets to be heated are sequentially introduced betweem adjacent ones of the platens from the top of the stack to the bottom thereof and are thereafter removed from between the platens in the same sequence, the elapsed time between introduction and removal providing the required soak time for preparing the plastic sheets for a forming or shaping operation such as in a press.
