Title of Invention	DEVICE AND METHODS FOR DRAWING AT LEAST ONE MATERIAL WEB OR AT LEAST ONE WEB STRAND INTO A FOLDING APPARATUS
Abstract	The invention pertains to a device for drawing in at least one material web and/or at least one strand having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure, at least one folding aligner, one crosscutting device for separating the material web transported in the superstructure and folded on the folding aligner into individual products and at least one guide rail, along which a holding part is guided in a shift-able along a path of this material web through the superstructure; a leading end of at least one material web can be fixed to the holding part. At least one guide rail is guided along the folding aligner.

Title of Invention

DEVICE AND METHODS FOR DRAWING AT LEAST ONE MATERIAL WEB OR AT LEAST ONE WEB STRAND INTO A FOLDING APPARATUS

Abstract

The invention pertains to a device for drawing in at least one material web and/or at least one strand having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure, at least one folding aligner, one crosscutting device for separating the material web transported in the superstructure and folded on the folding aligner into individual products and at least one guide rail, along which a holding part is guided in a shift-able along a path of this material web through the superstructure; a leading end of at least one material web can be fixed to the holding part. At least one guide rail is guided along the folding aligner.

Full Text	Description Devices and Methods for drawing at least one material web or at least one web strand into a folding apparatus The invention pertains to devices and methods for drawing at least one material or at least one web strand according to the introductory part of the claim 1, 2, 3, 45, 47 or 53. A folding apparatus as for example known from the document WO 00/56652 Al, comprises a superstructure in which paper webs fed by one or more printing mechanisms are guided together, eventually cut length-wise and placed on top of one another, at least one folding aligner on which a web strand of one or several paper webs in the superstructure is folded length-wise, and a cross-cutting device in which the length-wise folded web strand is split up into individual products. Very often the cross-cutting device is made up by means of a knife cylinder whose knives act together for cutting through the web strand with a support on a gripper cylinder or folding knife cylinder. The grippers of this cylinder hold the individual products yielded by the cross-cutting device tightly against the surface of the cylinder and convey them up to a transfer slot between the folding knife cylinder and a folding flap cylinder, where a folding knife drives out of the folding knife cylinder in order to introduce the product held against it along a transverse centre line into a folding of the folding flap cylinder and thus fold it across. In order to draw a paper web afresh into a printing machine, we know from the document EP 05 53 740 B1, where a holding part in the form of a rail-guided link chain part is used, to which the inclined torn-off end of the web to be drawn is fixed. The rail runs beside the intended path of the web through the printing machine up to the upper structure of a folding apparatus. There, as described in the already mentioned document WO 00/56652 Al, the web is taken over by a drawing agent in the form of two spiked belts whose spikes poke up the web at its side edges and draw it over a feed roller against the upper edge of the folding aligner as well as the folding aligner itself. 2 By virtue of the fact that on the folding aligner drawing agents are provided that are independent of the guide rails and the holding part guided against it, it can be achieved that the folding aligner can be shifted adjusted to the width of the webs to be processed in such a way, that a web folded on it enters exactly centrically into the crosscutting device. This is important for trouble-free functioning of the crosscutting device and above all the following cross-folding device. The document DE 42 10 190 A1 reveals a capping with integrated diverter that is fixed between the feed rollers and folding cylinders. The document DE 101 28 821 shows a device for guiding together of paper webs during the drawing process. The document US 3 125 335 A reveals a device for drawing material webs by means of bands. The document EP 0 418 903 A2 describes devices for drawing several webs into a rotary printing machine from the roller changers till before the folding aligners with the help of bands. From the document DE 1611 283 A we know of a device for producing cut samples, in which two cutting cylinders are attached one after the other. The document EP 1 334 940 A1 reveals a longitudinal folding aligner with a drawing mechanism for material webs. Here, a material web is guided from a first drawing agent up to shortly before the longitudinal folding aligner and then taken over there by a second, spiked drawing agent. A continuous guide rail from the roller changer up to after the longitudinal folding aligner without handover is not foreseen. It is the task of this invention to create devices and methods for drawing at least one material web or at least one web strand into a folding apparatus. 3 This task is fulfilled according to the invention through the features mentioned in the claim 1,2, 3,45, 47 or 53. The guide rail running along the folding aligner can take the web strand at least up to directly against the crosscutting device; beyond that point, auxiliary agents for automated drawing of the strands are no longer required, as there is no longer any continuous strand but only individual products. In order to ensure suitable orientation of the holding part with respect to the material web held by it during transition over the folding aligner, the guide rail is twisted at the height of the folding aligner, preferably by approx 90°. In order to be able to adapt the folding apparatus for processing web strands of different width and guide these centrically through the crosscutting device and cross-folding device, the folding aligner is shift-able parallel to the longitudinal access to the crosscutting device so that the guide rail can follow an adjusted movement of the folding aligner, a section of the guide rail lying in the run direction of the web strand before the folding aligner should be stretchable. In order to ensure precise guiding of the web strand to the crosscutting device independent of any shifting of the folding aligner, a hinge section should be provided in the guide rail between the entrance of the folding aligner and the crosscutting device. The hinge section can be realised in a simple manner by means of one or more sideways indentations in the guide rail. Beyond the hinge section, this also allows a single-piece realisation of the guide rail. The guide rail has a groove, especially a longitudinal groove with a base and two side walls, in which the holding part is guided, and the indentations separate one of the side walls and the base so that the not-separated sidewall is comparatively easily bendable. 4 As a result of a first extension of the invention the guide rail is extended up to above the crosscutting device, so that a web strand can be drawn right through the crosscutting device with the help of a holding part guided against the guide rail. During drawing of all material webs of the web strand the crosscutting device must then be in an open position; only when the material webs have been completely drawn in, the crosscutting device can be set in to motion in order to separate the white waste paper forming the leading section of the web strand. Alternatively, a capping unit for separating forerunning white paper waste from the web strand can be foreseen before the crosscutting device, and one entrance of the crosscutting device is arranged in extension of the passage direction of the web strand through the capping unit, so that after separation of the white waste paper the usable portion of the web strand runs into the crosscutting device without having to be guided by the guide rail. In order to make the introduction of the capped web strand into the crosscutting device simple and safe, its entrance is preferably arranged vertically below the capping unit, so that the peak (beginning of the web) of the usable portion of the web strand, guided by gravity, sinks into the entrance of the crosscutting device. In this extension of the folding apparatus the guide rail has a bending between the cap unit and the entrance of the crosscutting device and runs past the entrance of the crosscutting device. This design allows starting of the crosscutting device and the following parts of the folding apparatus simultaneously with the pre-connected parts of the folding apparatus or the entire printing machine even before the material webs to be drawn have reached the crosscutting device so that the time between commencement of the drawing sequence and reaching stationary operating conditions gets shortened and thus the extent of starting wastage is avoided. A storage for taking up the holding parts arranged in the extension of the guide rail beyond the folding aligner, allows drawing several material webs shortly one after the 5 other during a drawing sequence without intermediately having to move back the holding part of the material web to its initial location, in order to make the guide rail free for the holding part of another material web. The storage can be designed in a space-saving manner by means of a spiral-shaped or helical shaped rail piece that is in a position to take up one or more holding parts one after the other. A separating unit is placed before the storage for separating the holding parts from their respective material webs, so that the leading sections of the material webs taken along by the holding parts also do not have to be taken up in the storage. If the guide rail is bent past the entrance the crosscutting machine, then the separating unit should ideally be placed on the guide rail between the bend and the storage. The guide rail can stretch continuously from a roller changer of a printing mechanism placed before the folding apparatus till right into the folding apparatus. In order to be able to be process several material webs combined together, the superstructure of the folding apparatus has several paths, on which respectively at least one material web can be guided through the superstructure and to the crosscutting device, and several rail pieces that run along each of these paths unite with the guide rail before the crosscutting device. In order to guide the holding parts of the various material webs correctly at the unification points, especially when the holding parts are conveyed back to their initial locations after drawing the material webs, a diverter is respectively arranged at the unification point of the rail pieces. On at least one of the several paths preferably in the flow direction of the unification point an adhesive preparation unit is arranged which serves the purpose of making a 6 passing web strand locally adhesive, so that it remains adhered to a second, already drawn in web strand. The adhesive preparation unit could be an adhesive tape dispenser for a double sided adhesive tape or a glue dispenser. In order to activate the adhesive preparation unit at the right time, a sensor is fixed for detecting a web beginning passing through it. Drawing of material webs into the folding apparatus as described above comprises the following steps: • A first material web is guided along the guide rail to a point at which one of the rail pieces unites with the guide rail; • A second material web is guided on the rail piece also to this point and fixed to the first material web; and • The material webs fixed to one another are further guided along the guide rail and introduced into the crosscutting device. As one can see here, it is not necessary to halt one of the material webs between the various steps; rather all material webs are continuously moved from the commencement of drawing right up to reaching the crosscutting device. Drawing-in of the material webs to one another is synchronised in such a manner that the second material web is guided to the unification point only when the holding part of the first material web has passed this point and hence does not hinder the movement of the holding part of the second material web. One can also think of a drawing method, in which initially a first material web is guided along the guide rail to a point where one of the rail pieces unifies with the guide rail and when the holding part of the first material web has passed this point a second material 7 web is guided along the rail piece to this same point and from there guided further along the guide rail to the crosscutting device. The material webs can be guided right through the crosscutting device, where by the crosscutting device remains at rest till all material webs have been drawn through so that no holding part gets damaged by the crosscutting device. Alternatively, the material webs can be guided through a capping unit placed before the crosscutting unit and initially be guided past the crosscutting device with the help of the guide rail and only when the peaks of all material webs held against the holding parts have passed the capping unit, it is activated in order to cap the strand of the material webs and to allow the leading end generated during capping to enter into the crosscutting device. If during the drawing sequence the crosscutting device is also moved along in the correct phases, then from the moment the web strand starts entering into the crosscutting device it can correctly separate it into products. In order to additionally shorten the starting sequence of the folding apparatus or a printing machine containing the folding apparatus and in order to reduce the quantity of initial waste, a feed roller pair of the printing machine or the folding apparatus is switched off while drawing a material web, but is switched on again as soon as the passage of the leading end of the material web or the web strand through the feed roller pair is detected, and then it is control-driven in such a manner that the tensile stress exercised by the feed roller pair approaches a rated value foreseen for continuous print operations. Design examples of the invention are shown in the drawings and explained in details below. The following are shown: Fig. 1. A schematic side view of a device for drawing-in; 8 Fig. 2. A detailed view of a guide rail and a holding part for a material web to be drawn in guided in the guide rail; Fig.3. A detailed view of the device in the perspective of Fig. 1; Fig. 4. A detailed view of the entry region of the folding aligner; Fig. 5. A partial frontal view of the device; Fig. 6. A partial frontal view of an upper structure with two folding aligners; Fig. 7. A variation of the device shown in Fig. 5 Fig. 8. A detailed view of the folding apparatus analogous to that in Fig. 2 during processing of web strands with reduced width. Fig. 9. A detailed view of the guide rail at the height of the exit region of the folding aligner; Fig. 10. A cross-section of the guide rail; Fig. 11. A design example of a device for drawing-in; Fig. 12. An advantageous design of a chain. Fig. 1 shows a schematic side view of a folding apparatus according to the present invention. A material web 01, e.g. paper web 01, coming from a printing mechanism (not shown) runs through a cooling roller stand 02 and reaches an upper structure 03 of the folding apparatus. The upper structure 03 consists of a longitudinal cutter 04 for separating the paper web 01 coming in into several part-webs lying beside one another, a turning top 06 in which the part-webs of the paper web 01 and eventually other not shown paper webs are rearranged, shifted and/or turned transverse to the run direction (from left to right in Fig. 1) and then placed on top of one another. From the turning top 06 onwards the path of the paper web 01 stretches over an arrangement of compensating rollers 07 for compensating the web length and for controlling the feed/draw to a folding aligner 08. The folding aligner 08 and the compensating rollers 07 are held in a movable manner in a common frame in sideways direction to Fig. 1; for the sake of clarity these are shown twice in positions staggered to one another in Fig. 1. 9 From the exit of the folding aligner 08 the paper web 01 runs off through a crosscutting device 24 and a cross-folding device from a structure that is known and need not explained at this point. Along the path of the paper web 01 stretches a guide rail 09, shown in Fig. 1 as a thick black line. The guide rail 09 is shown from its entry into the pulling roller stand and up to the lower end of the folding aligner 08; it ideally stretches without interruption from the roller changer of a printing mechanism placed before the folding apparatus (not shown in Fig. 1) up to the folding aligner 08 or even beyond. The guide rail 09 has a U-shaped or, as shown in Fig. 2, a C-shaped cross-section, in whose groove 23, particularly a longitudinal groove 23, a chain piece 51 1 guided. The chain piece 51 is made up of alternately single-segmented or two-segmented links 52; 53, out of which at least one supports an arm jutting out of the groove 23. In Fig. 2 two adjacent links 53 jointly support an arm 19. The chain piece 51 and arm 19 are also referred to below as holding part 51, 19. A hook is foreseen at the end of the arm 19 in order to, with the help of a loop slung around it, fasten the leading end 54 of a paper web 01 to be freshly drawn in or with a drawing peak connected to the leading end 54. The single-segmented links 52 are elastic by themselves, e.g. in that they are made as a single part from an elastic material, or in that they have an elastic intermediate piece (not shown in Fig.2) made of spring steel or something similar, and thus allow twisting of the chain piece 51 around an axis parallel to the longitudinal direction of the guide rail 09 and bending of the chain piece 51 around an axis perpendicular to the plane of the paper web 01. Along the guide rail 09 motors are fixed at regular intervals (not shown) that support a sprocket wheel that through a slot in the side of the guide rail 09 grips into its groove 23 and sometimes between the links 52, 53 of a chain piece 51 located at the place of the sprocket wheel. The length of the chain piece 51 is selected slightly greater than the distance between two successive sprocket wheels along the guide rail 09 so that it is ensured that when the chain piece 51 is conveyed along the guide rail 09always at least one sprocket wheel is engaged with the chain piece 51 and drives it. Thus it is sufficient 10 for drawing a paper web 01 to fix its leading end 54 to the arm 19 of a chain piece 51 jutting out of the groove 23 ad subsequently setting the chain piece 51 into motion along the guide rail 09 in order to draw in the paper web 01. Fig. 3 shows, in an enlarged depiction in the same perspective as Fig. 1, the folding aligner 08 and its surrounding. The run/course of the guide rail 09 or a paper web 01 drawn in by it is shown in Fig. 3 as dash-dotted line. Two further rail pieces 12; 13 converge at a unification roller 11 with the guide rail 09 and are shown as a dotted or uniform line. On each of the rail pieces 12; 13, shortly before the unification point with the guide rail 09, there is a sensor 14, e.g. a photo cell 14 for detecting the presence of a drawn-in paper web 01, as well as an adhesive preparation unit 16 for applying the adhesive agent 15. The adhesive preparation unit 16 can be designed to apply a strip of fluid adhesive on the leading section of a paper web 01 that is guided past it along the rail piece 12 or 13; a possible structure/design of such a mechanism is described for example in the document EP 04 77 769 B1. Alternatively, as adhesive preparation unit 16, one can also consider an adhesive tape dispenser that gets shifted in width direction of the paper web -1 as soon as the photo cell 14 indicates the arrival of the paper web 01, in order to roll out a strip of double-sided adhesive tape. The adhesive preparation unit 16 can also consist of several adhesive spraying nozzles that are distributed over the paper web 01 and to which respectively a photo cell 14 is allocated, so that the moment the leading edge of a paper web 01 passes one of the adhesive nozzles it can be activated to spray a dose of adhesive on the paper web 01. This can particularly be identified in the region lying above the folding aligner 08 in Fig. 5. The point of time at which the paper web 01 guided along the rail piece 12 reaches the unification roller 11 is selected in such a way that at the same point of time a chain piece 51 that has already drawn in the paper web 01 running along the guide rail 09, 13 has passed the unification roller 11, so that the chain piece 51 coming from the rail piece 12 changes over to the guide rail 09 and can be continued to be conveyed on it. 11 As soon as this chain piece 51 has completely passed the unification roller in a similar manner another paper web can be guided over the rail piece 09, 13 and be pasted on to paper webs 01 already running over the unification roller 11. The thus obtained web strand passes a separating unit 17, e.g. a funnel-separating unit 17 with a rotating knife and a support roller that serves the purpose of ensuring that all paper webs passing it have their peak already pasted to another drawn-in paper web 01, i.e. the paper webs fed through the rail pieces 12; 13, and at this point to separate the connection between the arm 19 and the peak of the paper web that is no longer required. On a down-gate roller 18 the web strand is again deflected and lands on the steeply sloping surface of the folding aligner 08 running sharply downwards. While the web strand is drawn over the side edges of the folding aligner 08 its orientation changes; from an orientation largely perpendicular to the plane of Fig. 3 in flow direction from the down-gate roller 18, it becomes an orientation largely parallel to the plane of Fig.3. In order to be able to guide the paper beyond this orientation change, the guide rail 09 is twisted by 90° in a section 21 following the down-gate roller 18 as shown in Fig. 4 -shortened in longitudinal direction of the guide rail 09 for the sack of better depiction. For simplifying the orientation, a piece of the down-gate roller 18 and the folding aligner are shown; the axis of the down-gate roller 18 is aligned parallel to the plane of Fig. 4. After passing the down-gate roller 18, the groove 23 of the guide rail 09 is initially inclined still towards the down-gate roller 18 and the arm 19 of a holding part protrudes out of the groove 23 towards the down-gate roller 18. In the twisted section 21 the groove 23 in the perspective of Fig. 4 gradually approaches forward and pins 22 and links 52; 53 of the chain caught in the groove 23 become visible. When the twisted section 21 has run through, the orientation of the chain piece 51 is turned by 90° and the arm 19 supported by it stands transverse to the plane of Fig. 4. The three arms 19 shown in Fig. 4 do not represent the three arms 19 of the same chain piece 51 but one and the same arm 19 in different phases of movement along the guide rail 09. By means of the twisting it is 12 achieved that the paper webs 01 can still be precisely guided after passing through the folding aligner 08. The further run/course of the guide rail 09 can be better identified on the basis of Fig. 5 which shows the same structure as Fig. 3 from a perspective turned by 90°. From the lower peak of the folding aligner 08 the guide rail 09 runs vertically downwards between conveyor rollers that are switched off from one another during drawing in of the web, in order not to hinder the passage of an arm 19 carrying a web peak. The guide rail 09 is guided past the cutting clearance of a crosscutting device 24 in such a way that the paper webs 01 get introduced into the cutting clearance of this crosscutting device 24. The crosscutting device 24 consists of a cylinder 26, e.g. knife cylinder 26 and a cylinder 27, e.g., a gripper cylinder 27 and/or folding knife cylinder 27, on which supports of hard rubber are arranged (not shown) that work together with the knives of the knife cylinder 26 when the crosscutting device 24 is in operation. The cylinder 27 is ideally designed as folding knife cylinder 27 and has holding element, e.g. grippers or point spurs. During drawing-in of the paper webs 01 the cylinders 26; 27 of the crosscutting device 24 are in the shown position with knives 28 of the knife cylinder 26 aligned largely on a line parallel to the guide rail 09, so that there is a clearance open between the cylinders 26; 27 through which the paper webs 01 can be drawn. An advantageous design of the chain 51 is shown in Fig. 12. The chain 51 has rollers supported on pins 22, whereby the pins 22 are connected at a distance by means of butt straps so that the chain 51 can execute not only a swing movement around the longitudinal axis of the pins 22, the holes in the butt straps are somewhat larger than the diameter of the pins 22, so that the chain 51 can be bent transverse to the run direction or in longitudinal axis direction of the pins 22. One thus obtains in the bent condition a maximum\m bending radius R51 of 1000 mm or even preferably lesser than 600 mm ideally lesser than 500 mm. It is also possible to design the pin 22 in its longitudinal direction with different diameters, especially spherical. 13 Between the lower peak of the folding aligner 08 and the entrance of the crosscutting device 24, two more unification points 29; 31 are shown in Fig. 4 which are again met by another rail piece 32; 33 on the guide rail 09. these rail pieces 32; 33 serve the purpose of drawing further web strands that have run through other folding aligners (not shown) of the folding apparatus. For fastening these drawn web strands on to the rail pieces guided on the guide rail 09, also the guide pieces 32; 33 are respectively fitted with photo cells 14 and adhesive preparation units 16. A separating unit 30 conforming in structure and function to the funnel separating unit 17, e.g. a folding separation unit 30, is attached on to the guide rail 09 shortly before and behind the crosscutting device 24. The front folding separating unit 30 serves the purpose of separating the web strands fed through the rail pieces 32; 33 from their holding parts; the rear one separates the first drawn-in paper web 01, which forms the peak of the web strand entering the crosscutting device 24, from its holding part. When all paper webs 01 have been drawn-in through the crosscutting device 24, the crosscutting device 24 can be set into motion. In the first step, the peaks of all paper webs 01 of the web strand drawn-through are separated. Latest after all holding parts have been released from their respective paper webs 01, the operation of conveying them back against the guide rail 09 or along the rail pieces 12; 13; 32; 33 to their respective initial positions is begun. In order to ensure that at each initial position exactly one holding part is conveyed back, diverters are provided at the unification points, whose position is automatically regulated in order to convey back each holding part to an initial position allocated to it. In an analogous perspective to Fig.4, Fig. 6 shows an extension of the folding apparatus with two folding aligners 08 lying beside one another for processing four page wide paper webs 01. in this extension, for each of the folding aligners 08 and bone guide rail 09 is allocated for guiding the paper webs 01 through the crosscutting device 24. Basically it would also be possible to unite the two guide rails 09 with one another before 14 passage through the crosscutting device 24; an advantage of the guide rails 09 guided parallel however lies in the fact that always two holding parts can simultaneously pass the crosscutting device 24, so that the drawing-in of the paper webs 01 takes lesser time , and that the total paper quantity that has to be drawn through till the holding parts of all paper webs 01 have passed the crosscutting device 24, is significantly reduced. Fig. 7 and 11 show alternative developments of the course/run of the guide rail at the entrance of the crosscutting device 24. A capping unit 36 for capping the web strand drawn through is placed before the entrance of the crosscutting device 24. The guide rail 09 traverses the capping unit 36 in vertical direction directly above an entry wedge of the crosscutting device 24. below the capping unit 36 the guide rail 09 has a bent section 37 and runs above a baffle plate 38 in sideways direction to a separating unit 39 that releases the head section of each paper web 01 passing it from its holding part. The web strand that it no longer guided beyond the separating unit 39 falls freely and is thrown out the folding apparatus; the holding part is further conveyed into one or more storages 41 that are shown here as a spiral-shaped coiled guide rail. An alternative space-saving design of the storage 41 is a helical bent guide rail, preferably with the longitudinal axis parallel to the axes of the cylinders 26;,27. In this development, the cylinders 26; 27 of the crosscutting device 24 can rotate already phase-synchronous with feed rollers of the folding apparatus or parts of the printing machine connected before it, before all paper webs 01 have been completely drawn in. As soon as this is done, the capping unit 36 once separates the web strand. Simultaneously, a deflector 42 placed in the entry wedge of the crosscutting device 24 moves over from its position depicted as a continuous line to the position depicted as a dashed line, in order to safely introduce the newly created leading edge of the web strand into the crosscutting device 24. As this can run at a rotation speed adapted to its conveying velocity already at the time of capping of the web strand, the time required to reach stationary printing conditions gets reduced and hence also the quantity of wastes generated while starting the printing machine. 15 In order to be able to reduce this quantity even further, sensors like photo cells 14 can be foreseen for detecting the presence of the paper web 01; these sensors can be fixed on speed roller pairs through which a paper web 01 runs on the path from the roller changer to the crosscutting device 24, which are separated from one another while the paper web 01 is being drawn in; as soon as the sensors detect the passage of a paper web 01 through the feed roller pair, they see to it that the feed rollers get placed against one another and driven in order to create pre-given tensile stress on the concerned paper web 01. Thus, already while the paper webs 01 are drawn in, one can begin with adjustment of their tensile stress to desired values for stationary printing operation, whereby similarly the time required to reach these stationary conditions gets reduced. When paper webs 01 of different width are supposed to be processed with the folding apparatus, then for trouble-free operation it is important that these paper webs 01 pass through the crosscutting device 24 and the subsequent cross-folding device in exactly centric manner. For this, the shift-ability of the folding aligner 08, as already mentioned above in connection with Fig.l, into a direction parallel to the axes of the cylinders 26; 27 or the cutting direction of the crosscutting device 24 is necessary. This becomes clear when Fig. 3 and 8 are placed against one another. In Fig. 3, the position of the folding aligner 08 is appropriate for a paper web 01 with the maximum width that can be processed in the folding apparatus. If at the same position of the folding aligner 08 a web thinner by '2a' were to be processed then (in the perspective of Fig.3) on the left edge of the crosscutting device 24 a strip of width 'a' would remain unutilised, while the longitudinal fold like the one of a paper web 01 of maximum width would come to lie on the right edge of the crosscutting machine 24. In order to feed such a narrow paper web 01 correctly into the crosscutting device 24 it is necessary, as shown in Fig. 8, to shift the frame supporting the folding aligner 08, the uniting roller 11, the rail pieces 12; 13 and the compensation rollers 07 to the left by a distance of a/2. In order to make this possible, the guide rail 09 is designed in a telescopic manner or in any other suitable manner that can alter the length in a region 43 (see Fig. 1) between the turning cover 06 and the compensation rollers 07, and is designed in a bendable manner in the form of a joint section 44; 46 in the regions 44; 46 at the peak or at the base of the folding aligner 08, in 16 order to allow a smooth run through of the holding parts through the folding apparatus up to the storage 41 in each position that the folding aligner 08 can take up. A preferred development of such a bendable guide rail 09 is explained on the basis of Fig. 9 and 10. Fig. 9 shows a top view on a bendable section 44 or 46 and Fig. 10 shows a section through the guide rail of Fig 9 at the height of the line X - X of Fig. 9. the cutting plane is laid by one of several indentations 47 that are designed in the bending region 44 or 46 of several alternating different sides of the guide rail 09, and which respectively separate their side walls 48. The side wall 48 continuing to remain at the height of the indentation 45 can be bent much more easily than the not-indented guide rail 09, and above all it allows a controlled bending of the guide rail 09 on a plane without simultaneous twisting. A configuration of the guide rail 09, in which its section lying above the bendable region 44; 46 is bent towards the left, is shown as dotted outline in Fig. 8. The indentations 47are alternately narrowed or broadened, depending on the orientation. In order to make the principle clearer, the width of the indentations 47 and the extent of bending have been depicted in an exaggerated manner; in practise the width of the indentations47 and their deformation should not be so intensive as to endanger smooth passage of the chain links through the groove 23. This requirement can however be fulfilled without difficulties, as the required bending movement freedom of the guide rails 09 is not more than a few degrees and the bulging of the individual indentations 47 during bending is obviously lesser, the larger their number is. For the drawing in sequence, in an advantageous design there is a distance X between the guide rail 09 and the paper web 01 even for the entire folding structure., i.e. at least from the funnel-folding roller 18 conveying the unfolded paper web 01 through the path of the folding aligner 08 right up to its peak. The drawing sequence ideally takes place with the help of the printing mechanisms allocated to the web path while these are not printing. 17 List of Reference Signs 1 Material web, Paper web 2 Cooling roller stand 03 Superstructure 04 Longitudinal cutter 05 - 06 Turning top 07 Compensation roller 08 Folding aligner 09 Guide rail 10 - 11 Uniting roller 12 Rail piece 13 Rail piece 14 Sensor, photocell 15 Adhesive agent 16 Adhesion preparation mechanism 17 Separating unit, funnel separating unit 18 Funnel feed roller 19 Arm 20 - 21 Section, twisted 22 Pin 23 Groove, oblong groove 24 Crosscutting device 25 - 26 Cylinder, knife cylinder 27 Cylinder, gripper cylinder, folding knife cylinder 28 Knife 29 Uniting point 30 Separating unit folding separating unit 18 31 Uniting point 32 Rail piece 33 Rail piece 34 Diverters 35 - 36 Capping unit 37 Section, bent 38 Baffle plate 39 Separating unit 40 - 41 Storage 42 Diverter 43 Region, can be telescopically drawn out 44 Region, bendable, joint section 45 - 46 Region, bendable, joint section 47 Indentation 48 Sidewall 49 Base 50 - 51 Chain piece 52 Link, single segment 53 Link, double segment 54 End, leading a Width a/2 Distance X Distance R51 Bending radius 19 CLAIMS 1. Device for drawing at least one material web (01) and/or a strand having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure (03), at least one folding aligner (08), one crosscutting device (24) for separating the material web (01) transported in the superstructure (03) and folded on the folding aligner (08) into individual products, and at least one guide rail (09) to which a holding part (51, 19) can be fixed to a leading end (54) of at least one material web (01) and which is guided in a shift-able along a path of this material web (01) through the superstructure (03), whereby at least one guide rail (09) is guided along the folding aligner (08), having the distinctive feature that a capping unit (36) is foreseen after the folding aligner (08) and before the crosscutting device (24), for separating forerunning white paper waste from the material web (01), and the guide rail (09) has a bent section (37) between the capping unit (36) and the entrance of the crosscutting device (24) and runs past the entrance of the crosscutting device (24). 2. Device for drawing at least one material web (01) and/or a strand having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure (03), at least one folding aligner (08), one crosscutting device (24) for separating the material web (01) transported in the superstructure (03) and folded on the folding aligner (08) into individual products, and at least one guide rail (09) to which a holding part (51, 19) can be fixed to a leading end (54) of at least one material web (01) and which is guided in a shift-able along a path of this material web (01) through the superstructure (03), having the distinctive feature that the guide rail (09) stretches continuously from a roller changer of a printing mechanism placed before the folding apparatus through the folding aligner (08), and the guide rail (09) is attached till beyond the crosscutting device (24) 20 3. Device for drawing at least one material web (01) and/or a strand having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure (03), at least one folding aligner (08), one crosscutting device (24) for separating the material web (01) transported in the superstructure (03) and folded on the folding aligner (08) into individual products, and at least one guide rail (09) to which a holding part (51, 19) can be fixed to a leading end (54) of at least one material web (01) and which is guided in a shift-able along a path of this material web (01) through the superstructure (03), having the distinctive feature that several guide rails (09) are arranged; these guide rail pieces (09; 12;13;32;33) unite with the guide rail (09) before the crosscutting device (24) and after at least one folding aligner (08). 4. Device as per claim 1, 2 or 3, having the distinctive feature that the guide rail (09) is twisted at the height of the folding aligner (08). 5. Device as per claim 1, 2 or 3, having the distinctive feature that the folding aligner (08) can be shifted in the cutting direction of the crosscutting device (24). 6. Device as per claim 1, 2 or 3, having the distinctive feature that the guide rail (09) has a stretchable section (43) before the folding aligner (08) in the run direction of the material web (01). 7. Device as per claim 1,2 or 3, having the distinctive feature that the guide rail (09) has a joint section (44; 46) between the entrance of the folding aligner (08)and the crosscutting device (24). 21 8. Device as per claim 7, having the distinctive feature that the joint section (44;46) is formed by one or more indentations (47) in the guide rail (09). 9. Device as per claim 1,2 or 3 having the distinctive feature that a distance (X) of the guide rail (09) from the paper web (01) coming from a funnel feed roller (18) over the folding aligner (08) right up to its peak is largely constant. 10. Device as per claim 8, having the distinctive feature that the guide rail (09) has a groove (23) with a base (49) and two side walls (48), in which the holding part (19, 51) is guided, and the indentations (47) separate at least one of the side walls (48). 11. Device as per claim 1 or 2, having the distinctive feature that the guide rail (09) is attached till beyond the crosscutting device (24). 12. Device as per claim 2 or 11 having the distinctive feature that the crosscutting device has a knife cylinder (26). 13. Device as per claim 2 or 11 having the distinctive feature that the crosscutting device (24) has a cylinder (27) with holding system 14. Device as per claim 2, 11 or 13 having the distinctive feature that 22 the crosscutting device (24) has a cylinder (27) designed as folding knife cylinder (27) 15. Device as per claim 2 or 11 having the distinctive feature that the guide rail (09) is fitted through a recess formed by a knife cylinder (26) and a folding knife cylinder (27) 16. Device as per one of the claims 2 to 14 having the distinctive feature that a capping unit (36) is foreseen before the crosscutting device (24) for separating forerunning white paper waste from the material webs (01). 17. Device as per claim 16, having the distinctive feature that one entrance of the crosscutting device (24) is arranged in the extension of the passage direction of the material webs (01) through the capping unit (36). 18. Device as per claim 2 or 11, having the distinctive feature that the entrance of the crosscutting device (24) is arranged vertically below the capping unit (36). 19. Device as per claim 16, 17 or 18 having the distinctive feature that the guide rail (09) has a bent section (37) between the capping unit (36) and the entrance of the crosscutting device (24) and runs past the entrance of the crosscutting device (24). 20. Device as per one of the previous claims, having the distinctive feature that 23 in the extension of the guide (09) a storage (41)is arranged on each side of the folding aligner (08) for taking up the holding parts (19, 51). 21. Device as per claim 20, having the distinctive feature that the storage (41) is formed by a spiral-shaped or helical-shaped rail piece. 22. Device as per claim 20 or 21, having the distinctive feature that a separating unit (17; 30; 39) is fixed before the storage (41) for separating the holding parts (19, 51) from their respective material webs (01). 23. Device as per claim 19 and 22, having the distinctive feature that the separating unit (39) is attached on the guide rail (09)between the bent section (37) and the storage (41). 24. Device as per one of the previous claims, having the distinctive feature that the guide rail (09) stretches right through from a roller changer of a printing mechanism placed before the folding apparatus right in to the folding apparatus. 25. Device as per one of the previous claims having the distinctive feature that the device has several paths on which respectively one web strand can be guided through the superstructure (03) and to the crosscutting device (24) 26. Device as per claim 25, having the distinctive feature that several rail pieces (09; 12; 13; 32; 33) that run along each of these paths unite with the guide rail (09) before the crosscutting device (24). 24 27. Device as per claim 26, having the distinctive feature that several rail pieces (12; 13; 32; 33) that run along each of these paths unite with the guide rail (09) after at least one folding aligner (08) 28. Device as per claim 27, having the distinctive feature that respectively a diverter (34) is attached on to the uniting points (29; 31) of the rail pieces (12; 13; 32; 33). 29. Device as per claim 25 to 28, having the distinctive feature that on at least one or more paths in flow direction from a uniting point (29; 31), an adhesion preparation unit (16) is arranged for creating local adhesiveness of a web strand passing the adhesion preparation unit (16). 30. Device as per claim 29, having the distinctive feature that the adhesion preparation unit (16) is an adhesive tape dispenser or a glue dispenser. 31. Device as per claim 29 or 30, having the distinctive feature that a sensor (14) is allocated to each adhesion preparation unit (16) for detecting a web beginning passing through the adhesion preparation unit (16). 32. Device as per claim 1, 2 or 3, having the distinctive feature that the holding part (51, 19) has an end chain. 33. Device as per claim 32, 25 having the distinctive feature that the chain can be bent transverse to the transportation direction. 34. Device as per claim 33, having the distinctive feature that the chain has rollers with longitudinal axes and the virtual extension of the longitudinal axes intersect at a point in bent condition, so that the chain has a bending radius (R51) lesser than 1000 mm. 35. Device as per claim 34, having the distinctive feature that the bending radius (R51) is lesser than 600 mm. 36. Device as per claim 1, 2 or 3, having the distinctive feature that several folding aligners (08) are arranged and along each folding aligner (08) there is a guide rail (09) 37. Device as per claim 36, having the distinctive feature that at least two folding aligners (08) are arranged beside one another and a guide rail (09) is fixed along the right side of a folding aligner (08) and a guide rail (09) is arranged along the left side of the other folding aligner (08). 38. Device as per claim 37, having the distinctive feature that guide rails (09) are fixed only on both the sides away from one another and not on the adjacent sides of the folding aligners (08). 39. Device as per claim 1, having the distinctive feature that 26 at least one guide rail (09) is fixed sideways along the folding aligner (08). 40. Device as per claim 1, having the distinctive feature that at least one guide rail (09) is fixed along at least one side of the folding aligner (08) inclined at an acute angle to the transportation direction. 41. Device as per claim 24, having the distinctive feature that at least two roller changers are provided and from each roller changer a guide rail (09) stretches right into the folding aligner (08). 42. Device as per claim 1, 2, 3, 39 or 40, having the distinctive feature that the guide rail (09) is fixed at a distance from the folding aligner (08) 43. Device as per claim 1, having the distinctive feature that at least one guide rail (09), with respect to a top view on the folding aligner (08), runs almost parallel to a side edge of the folding aligner (08) 44. Device as per claim 1, 2 or 3, having the distinctive feature that in the guide rail (09) stretching without interruption from a roller changer up to beyond the folding aligner (08), a bendable chain piece (51) is fixed transverse to the transportation direction, which draws in the material web (01). 45. Method for drawing in at least one material web (01) and/or at least one strand having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure (03), at least one folding aligner (08), a crosscutting device (24) for separating the material web (01) transported in the superstructure and folded on the folding 27 aligner (08) into individual products, and a guide rail (09) to which a holding part (51, 19) can be fixed at a leading end (54) of at least one material web (01), and that can be shifted along a path of this material web (01) through the superstructure (03) with the following features: - a first material web (01) is guided along the guide rail (09) to a uniting point (29; 31), at which one of the rail pieces (12; 13; 32; 33) unites with the guide rail (09); - a second material web is guided on the rail piece (12; 13; 32; 33) to the uniting point (29; 31) and fixed to the first material web (01); and - the material webs (01) fastened on to one another are further guided along the guide rail (09) and introduced into the crosscutting device (24). 46. Method as per claim 45, In which the second material web is guided to the uniting point (29; 31) only after the holding part (19, 51) of the first material web (01) has passed the uniting point (29; 31). 47. Method for drawing in at least one material web (01) and/or at least one strand having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure (03), at least one folding aligner (08), a crosscutting device (24) for separating the material web (01) transported in the superstructure and folded on the folding aligner (08) into individual products, and a guide rail (09) to which a holding part (51, 19) can be fixed at a leading end (54) of at least one material web (01), and that can be shifted along a path of this material web (01) through the superstructure (03) with the following features: - a first material web (01) is guided along the guide rail (09) to a uniting point (29; 31), at which one of the rail pieces (12; 13; 32; 33) unites with the guide rail (09); - when the holding part (19,51) of the first material web (01) has passed the uniting point (29; 31), then a second material web is guided on the rail 28 piece (12; 13; 32; 33) to the uniting point (29; 31) and from there further guided along the guide rail (09) to the crosscutting device (24). 48. Method as per claim 47, in which the second material web is fixed on to the first material web (01) at the uniting point (29;31). 49. Method as per one of the claims 45 to 48, the material webs (01) are guided along the guide rail (09) through the crosscutting device (24). 50. Method as per one of the claims 45 to 49, having the distinctive feature that - the material webs (01) are guided through a capping unit (36) placed before the crosscutting device (24) and initially guided past the crosscutting device (24) with the help of the guide rail (09); when the peaks (54) of all material webs (01) have passed the capping unit (36) it is activated to cap the material webs (01); and - the leading end (54) created during capping enters into the crosscutting device (24). 51. Method as per claim 50, in which during the drawing process the crosscutting device (24) is moved along in a phase-correct manner. 52. Method as per one of the claims 45 to 51, in which the holding parts (19, 51) of all material webs (01) are first collected in a storage (41) connected to the guide rail (09) and after finishing the printing sequence are transported back in reverse direction along the guide rail (09) to a respective starting position. 29 53. Method for drawing in at least one material web (01) and/or at least one strand having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure (03), at least one folding aligner (08), a crosscutting device (24) for separating the material web (01) transported in the superstructure and folded on the folding aligner (08) into individual products, and a guide rail (09) to which a holding part (51, 19) can be fixed at a leading end (54) of at least one material web (01), and that can be shifted along a path of this material web (01) through the superstructure (03) with the following features: - a first material web (01) is fixed on to a holding part (51, 19) in a roller changer; - this first material web (01) is transported on this holding part (51, 19) through at least one printing mechanism, over at least one folding aligner(08) and through the crosscutting device (24); after the crosscutting device (24) the first material web (01) is separated from this holding part (51, 19). 54. Method as per claim 53, having the distinctive feature that a second material web (01) is fixed to another holding part (51, 19) in another roller changer; - the second material web (01) is transported on this other holding part (51, 19) through at least one printing mechanism over at least one folding aligner (08) and through the crosscutting device (24); after the crosscutting device (24), through which the first material web (01) is guided on the first holding part (51, 19), the second material web (01) is separated from this other holding part (51, 19). Dated this 19th day of OCTOBER 2006 The invention pertains to a device for drawing in at least one material web and/or at least one strand having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure, at least one folding aligner, one crosscutting device for separating the material web transported in the superstructure and folded on the folding aligner into individual products and at least one guide rail, along which a holding part is guided in a shift-able along a path of this material web through the superstructure; a leading end of at least one material web can be fixed to the holding part. At least one guide rail is guided along the folding aligner.

Full Text

Description
Devices and Methods for drawing at least one material web or at least one web
strand into a folding apparatus
The invention pertains to devices and methods for drawing at least one material or at least one web strand according to the introductory part of the claim 1, 2, 3, 45, 47 or 53.
A folding apparatus as for example known from the document WO 00/56652 Al, comprises a superstructure in which paper webs fed by one or more printing mechanisms are guided together, eventually cut length-wise and placed on top of one another, at least one folding aligner on which a web strand of one or several paper webs in the superstructure is folded length-wise, and a cross-cutting device in which the length-wise folded web strand is split up into individual products. Very often the cross-cutting device is made up by means of a knife cylinder whose knives act together for cutting through the web strand with a support on a gripper cylinder or folding knife cylinder. The grippers of this cylinder hold the individual products yielded by the cross-cutting device tightly against the surface of the cylinder and convey them up to a transfer slot between the folding knife cylinder and a folding flap cylinder, where a folding knife drives out of the folding knife cylinder in order to introduce the product held against it along a transverse centre line into a folding of the folding flap cylinder and thus fold it across.
In order to draw a paper web afresh into a printing machine, we know from the document EP 05 53 740 B1, where a holding part in the form of a rail-guided link chain part is used, to which the inclined torn-off end of the web to be drawn is fixed. The rail runs beside the intended path of the web through the printing machine up to the upper structure of a folding apparatus.
There, as described in the already mentioned document WO 00/56652 Al, the web is taken over by a drawing agent in the form of two spiked belts whose spikes poke up the web at its side edges and draw it over a feed roller against the upper edge of the folding aligner as well as the folding aligner itself.

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By virtue of the fact that on the folding aligner drawing agents are provided that are independent of the guide rails and the holding part guided against it, it can be achieved that the folding aligner can be shifted adjusted to the width of the webs to be processed in such a way, that a web folded on it enters exactly centrically into the crosscutting device. This is important for trouble-free functioning of the crosscutting device and above all the following cross-folding device.
The document DE 42 10 190 A1 reveals a capping with integrated diverter that is fixed between the feed rollers and folding cylinders.
The document DE 101 28 821 shows a device for guiding together of paper webs during the drawing process.
The document US 3 125 335 A reveals a device for drawing material webs by means of bands.
The document EP 0 418 903 A2 describes devices for drawing several webs into a rotary printing machine from the roller changers till before the folding aligners with the help of bands.
From the document DE 1611 283 A we know of a device for producing cut samples, in which two cutting cylinders are attached one after the other.
The document EP 1 334 940 A1 reveals a longitudinal folding aligner with a drawing mechanism for material webs. Here, a material web is guided from a first drawing agent up to shortly before the longitudinal folding aligner and then taken over there by a second, spiked drawing agent. A continuous guide rail from the roller changer up to after the longitudinal folding aligner without handover is not foreseen.
It is the task of this invention to create devices and methods for drawing at least one material web or at least one web strand into a folding apparatus.

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This task is fulfilled according to the invention through the features mentioned in the claim 1,2, 3,45, 47 or 53.
The guide rail running along the folding aligner can take the web strand at least up to directly against the crosscutting device; beyond that point, auxiliary agents for automated drawing of the strands are no longer required, as there is no longer any continuous strand but only individual products.
In order to ensure suitable orientation of the holding part with respect to the material web held by it during transition over the folding aligner, the guide rail is twisted at the height of the folding aligner, preferably by approx 90°.
In order to be able to adapt the folding apparatus for processing web strands of different width and guide these centrically through the crosscutting device and cross-folding device, the folding aligner is shift-able parallel to the longitudinal access to the crosscutting device so that the guide rail can follow an adjusted movement of the folding aligner, a section of the guide rail lying in the run direction of the web strand before the folding aligner should be stretchable.
In order to ensure precise guiding of the web strand to the crosscutting device independent of any shifting of the folding aligner, a hinge section should be provided in the guide rail between the entrance of the folding aligner and the crosscutting device.
The hinge section can be realised in a simple manner by means of one or more sideways indentations in the guide rail. Beyond the hinge section, this also allows a single-piece realisation of the guide rail.
The guide rail has a groove, especially a longitudinal groove with a base and two side walls, in which the holding part is guided, and the indentations separate one of the side walls and the base so that the not-separated sidewall is comparatively easily bendable.

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As a result of a first extension of the invention the guide rail is extended up to above the crosscutting device, so that a web strand can be drawn right through the crosscutting device with the help of a holding part guided against the guide rail. During drawing of all material webs of the web strand the crosscutting device must then be in an open position; only when the material webs have been completely drawn in, the crosscutting device can be set in to motion in order to separate the white waste paper forming the leading section of the web strand.
Alternatively, a capping unit for separating forerunning white paper waste from the web strand can be foreseen before the crosscutting device, and one entrance of the crosscutting device is arranged in extension of the passage direction of the web strand through the capping unit, so that after separation of the white waste paper the usable portion of the web strand runs into the crosscutting device without having to be guided by the guide rail.
In order to make the introduction of the capped web strand into the crosscutting device simple and safe, its entrance is preferably arranged vertically below the capping unit, so that the peak (beginning of the web) of the usable portion of the web strand, guided by gravity, sinks into the entrance of the crosscutting device.
In this extension of the folding apparatus the guide rail has a bending between the cap unit and the entrance of the crosscutting device and runs past the entrance of the crosscutting device. This design allows starting of the crosscutting device and the following parts of the folding apparatus simultaneously with the pre-connected parts of the folding apparatus or the entire printing machine even before the material webs to be drawn have reached the crosscutting device so that the time between commencement of the drawing sequence and reaching stationary operating conditions gets shortened and thus the extent of starting wastage is avoided.
A storage for taking up the holding parts arranged in the extension of the guide rail beyond the folding aligner, allows drawing several material webs shortly one after the

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other during a drawing sequence without intermediately having to move back the holding part of the material web to its initial location, in order to make the guide rail free for the holding part of another material web.
The storage can be designed in a space-saving manner by means of a spiral-shaped or helical shaped rail piece that is in a position to take up one or more holding parts one after the other.
A separating unit is placed before the storage for separating the holding parts from their respective material webs, so that the leading sections of the material webs taken along by the holding parts also do not have to be taken up in the storage.
If the guide rail is bent past the entrance the crosscutting machine, then the separating unit should ideally be placed on the guide rail between the bend and the storage.
The guide rail can stretch continuously from a roller changer of a printing mechanism placed before the folding apparatus till right into the folding apparatus.
In order to be able to be process several material webs combined together, the superstructure of the folding apparatus has several paths, on which respectively at least one material web can be guided through the superstructure and to the crosscutting device, and several rail pieces that run along each of these paths unite with the guide rail before the crosscutting device.
In order to guide the holding parts of the various material webs correctly at the unification points, especially when the holding parts are conveyed back to their initial locations after drawing the material webs, a diverter is respectively arranged at the unification point of the rail pieces.
On at least one of the several paths preferably in the flow direction of the unification point an adhesive preparation unit is arranged which serves the purpose of making a

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passing web strand locally adhesive, so that it remains adhered to a second, already drawn in web strand.
The adhesive preparation unit could be an adhesive tape dispenser for a double sided adhesive tape or a glue dispenser.
In order to activate the adhesive preparation unit at the right time, a sensor is fixed for detecting a web beginning passing through it.
Drawing of material webs into the folding apparatus as described above comprises the following steps:
• A first material web is guided along the guide rail to a point at which one of the
rail pieces unites with the guide rail;
• A second material web is guided on the rail piece also to this point and fixed to
the first material web; and
• The material webs fixed to one another are further guided along the guide rail and
introduced into the crosscutting device.
As one can see here, it is not necessary to halt one of the material webs between the various steps; rather all material webs are continuously moved from the commencement of drawing right up to reaching the crosscutting device.
Drawing-in of the material webs to one another is synchronised in such a manner that the second material web is guided to the unification point only when the holding part of the first material web has passed this point and hence does not hinder the movement of the holding part of the second material web.
One can also think of a drawing method, in which initially a first material web is guided along the guide rail to a point where one of the rail pieces unifies with the guide rail and when the holding part of the first material web has passed this point a second material

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web is guided along the rail piece to this same point and from there guided further along the guide rail to the crosscutting device.
The material webs can be guided right through the crosscutting device, where by the crosscutting device remains at rest till all material webs have been drawn through so that no holding part gets damaged by the crosscutting device. Alternatively, the material webs can be guided through a capping unit placed before the crosscutting unit and initially be guided past the crosscutting device with the help of the guide rail and only when the peaks of all material webs held against the holding parts have passed the capping unit, it is activated in order to cap the strand of the material webs and to allow the leading end generated during capping to enter into the crosscutting device.
If during the drawing sequence the crosscutting device is also moved along in the correct phases, then from the moment the web strand starts entering into the crosscutting device it can correctly separate it into products.
In order to additionally shorten the starting sequence of the folding apparatus or a printing machine containing the folding apparatus and in order to reduce the quantity of initial waste, a feed roller pair of the printing machine or the folding apparatus is switched off while drawing a material web, but is switched on again as soon as the passage of the leading end of the material web or the web strand through the feed roller pair is detected, and then it is control-driven in such a manner that the tensile stress exercised by the feed roller pair approaches a rated value foreseen for continuous print operations.
Design examples of the invention are shown in the drawings and explained in details below.
The following are shown:
Fig. 1. A schematic side view of a device for drawing-in;

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Fig. 2. A detailed view of a guide rail and a holding part for a material web to be
drawn in guided in the guide rail;
Fig.3. A detailed view of the device in the perspective of Fig. 1;
Fig. 4. A detailed view of the entry region of the folding aligner;
Fig. 5. A partial frontal view of the device;
Fig. 6. A partial frontal view of an upper structure with two folding aligners;
Fig. 7. A variation of the device shown in Fig. 5
Fig. 8. A detailed view of the folding apparatus analogous to that in Fig. 2 during
processing of web strands with reduced width.
Fig. 9. A detailed view of the guide rail at the height of the exit region of the
folding aligner;
Fig. 10. A cross-section of the guide rail;
Fig. 11. A design example of a device for drawing-in;
Fig. 12. An advantageous design of a chain.
Fig. 1 shows a schematic side view of a folding apparatus according to the present invention. A material web 01, e.g. paper web 01, coming from a printing mechanism (not shown) runs through a cooling roller stand 02 and reaches an upper structure 03 of the folding apparatus. The upper structure 03 consists of a longitudinal cutter 04 for separating the paper web 01 coming in into several part-webs lying beside one another, a turning top 06 in which the part-webs of the paper web 01 and eventually other not shown paper webs are rearranged, shifted and/or turned transverse to the run direction (from left to right in Fig. 1) and then placed on top of one another. From the turning top 06 onwards the path of the paper web 01 stretches over an arrangement of compensating rollers 07 for compensating the web length and for controlling the feed/draw to a folding aligner 08.
The folding aligner 08 and the compensating rollers 07 are held in a movable manner in a common frame in sideways direction to Fig. 1; for the sake of clarity these are shown twice in positions staggered to one another in Fig. 1.

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From the exit of the folding aligner 08 the paper web 01 runs off through a crosscutting device 24 and a cross-folding device from a structure that is known and need not explained at this point. Along the path of the paper web 01 stretches a guide rail 09, shown in Fig. 1 as a thick black line. The guide rail 09 is shown from its entry into the pulling roller stand and up to the lower end of the folding aligner 08; it ideally stretches without interruption from the roller changer of a printing mechanism placed before the folding apparatus (not shown in Fig. 1) up to the folding aligner 08 or even beyond.
The guide rail 09 has a U-shaped or, as shown in Fig. 2, a C-shaped cross-section, in whose groove 23, particularly a longitudinal groove 23, a chain piece 51 1 guided. The chain piece 51 is made up of alternately single-segmented or two-segmented links 52; 53, out of which at least one supports an arm jutting out of the groove 23. In Fig. 2 two adjacent links 53 jointly support an arm 19. The chain piece 51 and arm 19 are also referred to below as holding part 51, 19. A hook is foreseen at the end of the arm 19 in order to, with the help of a loop slung around it, fasten the leading end 54 of a paper web 01 to be freshly drawn in or with a drawing peak connected to the leading end 54.
The single-segmented links 52 are elastic by themselves, e.g. in that they are made as a single part from an elastic material, or in that they have an elastic intermediate piece (not shown in Fig.2) made of spring steel or something similar, and thus allow twisting of the chain piece 51 around an axis parallel to the longitudinal direction of the guide rail 09 and bending of the chain piece 51 around an axis perpendicular to the plane of the paper web 01.
Along the guide rail 09 motors are fixed at regular intervals (not shown) that support a sprocket wheel that through a slot in the side of the guide rail 09 grips into its groove 23 and sometimes between the links 52, 53 of a chain piece 51 located at the place of the sprocket wheel. The length of the chain piece 51 is selected slightly greater than the distance between two successive sprocket wheels along the guide rail 09 so that it is ensured that when the chain piece 51 is conveyed along the guide rail 09always at least one sprocket wheel is engaged with the chain piece 51 and drives it. Thus it is sufficient

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for drawing a paper web 01 to fix its leading end 54 to the arm 19 of a chain piece 51 jutting out of the groove 23 ad subsequently setting the chain piece 51 into motion along the guide rail 09 in order to draw in the paper web 01.
Fig. 3 shows, in an enlarged depiction in the same perspective as Fig. 1, the folding aligner 08 and its surrounding. The run/course of the guide rail 09 or a paper web 01 drawn in by it is shown in Fig. 3 as dash-dotted line. Two further rail pieces 12; 13 converge at a unification roller 11 with the guide rail 09 and are shown as a dotted or uniform line. On each of the rail pieces 12; 13, shortly before the unification point with the guide rail 09, there is a sensor 14, e.g. a photo cell 14 for detecting the presence of a drawn-in paper web 01, as well as an adhesive preparation unit 16 for applying the adhesive agent 15. The adhesive preparation unit 16 can be designed to apply a strip of fluid adhesive on the leading section of a paper web 01 that is guided past it along the rail piece 12 or 13; a possible structure/design of such a mechanism is described for example in the document EP 04 77 769 B1. Alternatively, as adhesive preparation unit 16, one can also consider an adhesive tape dispenser that gets shifted in width direction of the paper web -1 as soon as the photo cell 14 indicates the arrival of the paper web 01, in order to roll out a strip of double-sided adhesive tape.
The adhesive preparation unit 16 can also consist of several adhesive spraying nozzles that are distributed over the paper web 01 and to which respectively a photo cell 14 is allocated, so that the moment the leading edge of a paper web 01 passes one of the adhesive nozzles it can be activated to spray a dose of adhesive on the paper web 01. This can particularly be identified in the region lying above the folding aligner 08 in Fig. 5.
The point of time at which the paper web 01 guided along the rail piece 12 reaches the unification roller 11 is selected in such a way that at the same point of time a chain piece 51 that has already drawn in the paper web 01 running along the guide rail 09, 13 has passed the unification roller 11, so that the chain piece 51 coming from the rail piece 12 changes over to the guide rail 09 and can be continued to be conveyed on it.

11
As soon as this chain piece 51 has completely passed the unification roller in a similar manner another paper web can be guided over the rail piece 09, 13 and be pasted on to paper webs 01 already running over the unification roller 11.
The thus obtained web strand passes a separating unit 17, e.g. a funnel-separating unit 17 with a rotating knife and a support roller that serves the purpose of ensuring that all paper webs passing it have their peak already pasted to another drawn-in paper web 01, i.e. the paper webs fed through the rail pieces 12; 13, and at this point to separate the connection between the arm 19 and the peak of the paper web that is no longer required.
On a down-gate roller 18 the web strand is again deflected and lands on the steeply sloping surface of the folding aligner 08 running sharply downwards. While the web strand is drawn over the side edges of the folding aligner 08 its orientation changes; from an orientation largely perpendicular to the plane of Fig. 3 in flow direction from the down-gate roller 18, it becomes an orientation largely parallel to the plane of Fig.3. In order to be able to guide the paper beyond this orientation change, the guide rail 09 is twisted by 90° in a section 21 following the down-gate roller 18 as shown in Fig. 4 -shortened in longitudinal direction of the guide rail 09 for the sack of better depiction. For simplifying the orientation, a piece of the down-gate roller 18 and the folding aligner are shown; the axis of the down-gate roller 18 is aligned parallel to the plane of Fig. 4. After passing the down-gate roller 18, the groove 23 of the guide rail 09 is initially inclined still towards the down-gate roller 18 and the arm 19 of a holding part protrudes out of the groove 23 towards the down-gate roller 18. In the twisted section 21 the groove 23 in the perspective of Fig. 4 gradually approaches forward and pins 22 and links 52; 53 of the chain caught in the groove 23 become visible. When the twisted section 21 has run through, the orientation of the chain piece 51 is turned by 90° and the arm 19 supported by it stands transverse to the plane of Fig. 4. The three arms 19 shown in Fig. 4 do not represent the three arms 19 of the same chain piece 51 but one and the same arm 19 in different phases of movement along the guide rail 09. By means of the twisting it is

12
achieved that the paper webs 01 can still be precisely guided after passing through the folding aligner 08.
The further run/course of the guide rail 09 can be better identified on the basis of Fig. 5 which shows the same structure as Fig. 3 from a perspective turned by 90°. From the lower peak of the folding aligner 08 the guide rail 09 runs vertically downwards between conveyor rollers that are switched off from one another during drawing in of the web, in order not to hinder the passage of an arm 19 carrying a web peak. The guide rail 09 is guided past the cutting clearance of a crosscutting device 24 in such a way that the paper webs 01 get introduced into the cutting clearance of this crosscutting device 24. The crosscutting device 24 consists of a cylinder 26, e.g. knife cylinder 26 and a cylinder 27, e.g., a gripper cylinder 27 and/or folding knife cylinder 27, on which supports of hard rubber are arranged (not shown) that work together with the knives of the knife cylinder 26 when the crosscutting device 24 is in operation. The cylinder 27 is ideally designed as folding knife cylinder 27 and has holding element, e.g. grippers or point spurs. During drawing-in of the paper webs 01 the cylinders 26; 27 of the crosscutting device 24 are in the shown position with knives 28 of the knife cylinder 26 aligned largely on a line parallel to the guide rail 09, so that there is a clearance open between the cylinders 26; 27 through which the paper webs 01 can be drawn.
An advantageous design of the chain 51 is shown in Fig. 12. The chain 51 has rollers supported on pins 22, whereby the pins 22 are connected at a distance by means of butt straps so that the chain 51 can execute not only a swing movement around the longitudinal axis of the pins 22, the holes in the butt straps are somewhat larger than the diameter of the pins 22, so that the chain 51 can be bent transverse to the run direction or in longitudinal axis direction of the pins 22. One thus obtains in the bent condition a maximum\m bending radius R51 of 1000 mm or even preferably lesser than 600 mm ideally lesser than 500 mm.
It is also possible to design the pin 22 in its longitudinal direction with different diameters, especially spherical.

13
Between the lower peak of the folding aligner 08 and the entrance of the crosscutting device 24, two more unification points 29; 31 are shown in Fig. 4 which are again met by another rail piece 32; 33 on the guide rail 09. these rail pieces 32; 33 serve the purpose of drawing further web strands that have run through other folding aligners (not shown) of the folding apparatus. For fastening these drawn web strands on to the rail pieces guided on the guide rail 09, also the guide pieces 32; 33 are respectively fitted with photo cells 14 and adhesive preparation units 16.
A separating unit 30 conforming in structure and function to the funnel separating unit 17, e.g. a folding separation unit 30, is attached on to the guide rail 09 shortly before and behind the crosscutting device 24. The front folding separating unit 30 serves the purpose of separating the web strands fed through the rail pieces 32; 33 from their holding parts; the rear one separates the first drawn-in paper web 01, which forms the peak of the web strand entering the crosscutting device 24, from its holding part.
When all paper webs 01 have been drawn-in through the crosscutting device 24, the crosscutting device 24 can be set into motion. In the first step, the peaks of all paper webs 01 of the web strand drawn-through are separated.
Latest after all holding parts have been released from their respective paper webs 01, the operation of conveying them back against the guide rail 09 or along the rail pieces 12; 13; 32; 33 to their respective initial positions is begun. In order to ensure that at each initial position exactly one holding part is conveyed back, diverters are provided at the unification points, whose position is automatically regulated in order to convey back each holding part to an initial position allocated to it.
In an analogous perspective to Fig.4, Fig. 6 shows an extension of the folding apparatus with two folding aligners 08 lying beside one another for processing four page wide paper webs 01. in this extension, for each of the folding aligners 08 and bone guide rail 09 is allocated for guiding the paper webs 01 through the crosscutting device 24. Basically it would also be possible to unite the two guide rails 09 with one another before

14
passage through the crosscutting device 24; an advantage of the guide rails 09 guided parallel however lies in the fact that always two holding parts can simultaneously pass the crosscutting device 24, so that the drawing-in of the paper webs 01 takes lesser time , and that the total paper quantity that has to be drawn through till the holding parts of all paper webs 01 have passed the crosscutting device 24, is significantly reduced.
Fig. 7 and 11 show alternative developments of the course/run of the guide rail at the entrance of the crosscutting device 24. A capping unit 36 for capping the web strand drawn through is placed before the entrance of the crosscutting device 24. The guide rail 09 traverses the capping unit 36 in vertical direction directly above an entry wedge of the crosscutting device 24. below the capping unit 36 the guide rail 09 has a bent section 37 and runs above a baffle plate 38 in sideways direction to a separating unit 39 that releases the head section of each paper web 01 passing it from its holding part. The web strand that it no longer guided beyond the separating unit 39 falls freely and is thrown out the folding apparatus; the holding part is further conveyed into one or more storages 41 that are shown here as a spiral-shaped coiled guide rail. An alternative space-saving design of the storage 41 is a helical bent guide rail, preferably with the longitudinal axis parallel to the axes of the cylinders 26;,27.
In this development, the cylinders 26; 27 of the crosscutting device 24 can rotate already phase-synchronous with feed rollers of the folding apparatus or parts of the printing machine connected before it, before all paper webs 01 have been completely drawn in. As soon as this is done, the capping unit 36 once separates the web strand. Simultaneously, a deflector 42 placed in the entry wedge of the crosscutting device 24 moves over from its position depicted as a continuous line to the position depicted as a dashed line, in order to safely introduce the newly created leading edge of the web strand into the crosscutting device 24. As this can run at a rotation speed adapted to its conveying velocity already at the time of capping of the web strand, the time required to reach stationary printing conditions gets reduced and hence also the quantity of wastes generated while starting the printing machine.

15
In order to be able to reduce this quantity even further, sensors like photo cells 14 can be foreseen for detecting the presence of the paper web 01; these sensors can be fixed on speed roller pairs through which a paper web 01 runs on the path from the roller changer to the crosscutting device 24, which are separated from one another while the paper web 01 is being drawn in; as soon as the sensors detect the passage of a paper web 01 through the feed roller pair, they see to it that the feed rollers get placed against one another and driven in order to create pre-given tensile stress on the concerned paper web 01. Thus, already while the paper webs 01 are drawn in, one can begin with adjustment of their tensile stress to desired values for stationary printing operation, whereby similarly the time required to reach these stationary conditions gets reduced.
When paper webs 01 of different width are supposed to be processed with the folding apparatus, then for trouble-free operation it is important that these paper webs 01 pass through the crosscutting device 24 and the subsequent cross-folding device in exactly centric manner. For this, the shift-ability of the folding aligner 08, as already mentioned above in connection with Fig.l, into a direction parallel to the axes of the cylinders 26; 27 or the cutting direction of the crosscutting device 24 is necessary. This becomes clear when Fig. 3 and 8 are placed against one another. In Fig. 3, the position of the folding aligner 08 is appropriate for a paper web 01 with the maximum width that can be processed in the folding apparatus. If at the same position of the folding aligner 08 a web thinner by '2a' were to be processed then (in the perspective of Fig.3) on the left edge of the crosscutting device 24 a strip of width 'a' would remain unutilised, while the longitudinal fold like the one of a paper web 01 of maximum width would come to lie on the right edge of the crosscutting machine 24. In order to feed such a narrow paper web 01 correctly into the crosscutting device 24 it is necessary, as shown in Fig. 8, to shift the frame supporting the folding aligner 08, the uniting roller 11, the rail pieces 12; 13 and the compensation rollers 07 to the left by a distance of a/2. In order to make this possible, the guide rail 09 is designed in a telescopic manner or in any other suitable manner that can alter the length in a region 43 (see Fig. 1) between the turning cover 06 and the compensation rollers 07, and is designed in a bendable manner in the form of a joint section 44; 46 in the regions 44; 46 at the peak or at the base of the folding aligner 08, in

16
order to allow a smooth run through of the holding parts through the folding apparatus up to the storage 41 in each position that the folding aligner 08 can take up.
A preferred development of such a bendable guide rail 09 is explained on the basis of Fig. 9 and 10. Fig. 9 shows a top view on a bendable section 44 or 46 and Fig. 10 shows a section through the guide rail of Fig 9 at the height of the line X - X of Fig. 9. the cutting plane is laid by one of several indentations 47 that are designed in the bending region 44 or 46 of several alternating different sides of the guide rail 09, and which respectively separate their side walls 48. The side wall 48 continuing to remain at the height of the indentation 45 can be bent much more easily than the not-indented guide rail 09, and above all it allows a controlled bending of the guide rail 09 on a plane without simultaneous twisting.
A configuration of the guide rail 09, in which its section lying above the bendable region 44; 46 is bent towards the left, is shown as dotted outline in Fig. 8. The indentations 47are alternately narrowed or broadened, depending on the orientation. In order to make the principle clearer, the width of the indentations 47 and the extent of bending have been depicted in an exaggerated manner; in practise the width of the indentations47 and their deformation should not be so intensive as to endanger smooth passage of the chain links through the groove 23. This requirement can however be fulfilled without difficulties, as the required bending movement freedom of the guide rails 09 is not more than a few degrees and the bulging of the individual indentations 47 during bending is obviously lesser, the larger their number is.
For the drawing in sequence, in an advantageous design there is a distance X between the guide rail 09 and the paper web 01 even for the entire folding structure., i.e. at least from the funnel-folding roller 18 conveying the unfolded paper web 01 through the path of the folding aligner 08 right up to its peak.
The drawing sequence ideally takes place with the help of the printing mechanisms allocated to the web path while these are not printing.

17
List of Reference Signs
1 Material web, Paper web
2 Cooling roller stand

03 Superstructure
04 Longitudinal cutter
05 -
06 Turning top
07 Compensation roller
08 Folding aligner
09 Guide rail
10 -
11 Uniting roller
12 Rail piece
13 Rail piece
14 Sensor, photocell
15 Adhesive agent
16 Adhesion preparation mechanism
17 Separating unit, funnel separating unit
18 Funnel feed roller
19 Arm
20 -
21 Section, twisted
22 Pin
23 Groove, oblong groove
24 Crosscutting device
25 -
26 Cylinder, knife cylinder
27 Cylinder, gripper cylinder, folding knife cylinder
28 Knife
29 Uniting point
30 Separating unit folding separating unit

18

31 Uniting point
32 Rail piece
33 Rail piece
34 Diverters
35 -
36 Capping unit
37 Section, bent
38 Baffle plate
39 Separating unit
40 -
41 Storage
42 Diverter
43 Region, can be telescopically drawn out
44 Region, bendable, joint section
45 -
46 Region, bendable, joint section
47 Indentation
48 Sidewall
49 Base
50 -
51 Chain piece
52 Link, single segment
53 Link, double segment
54 End, leading
a Width
a/2 Distance
X Distance
R51 Bending radius

19
CLAIMS
1. Device for drawing at least one material web (01) and/or a strand having several
material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure (03), at least one
folding aligner (08), one crosscutting device (24) for separating the material web
(01) transported in the superstructure (03) and folded on the folding aligner (08)
into individual products, and at least one guide rail (09) to which a holding part
(51, 19) can be fixed to a leading end (54) of at least one material web (01) and
which is guided in a shift-able along a path of this material web (01) through the
superstructure (03), whereby at least one guide rail (09) is guided along the
folding aligner (08),
having the distinctive feature that
a capping unit (36) is foreseen after the folding aligner (08) and before the crosscutting device (24), for separating forerunning white paper waste from the material web (01), and the guide rail (09) has a bent section (37) between the capping unit (36) and the entrance of the crosscutting device (24) and runs past the entrance of the crosscutting device (24).
2. Device for drawing at least one material web (01) and/or a strand having several
material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure (03), at least one
folding aligner (08), one crosscutting device (24) for separating the material web
(01) transported in the superstructure (03) and folded on the folding aligner (08)
into individual products, and at least one guide rail (09) to which a holding part
(51, 19) can be fixed to a leading end (54) of at least one material web (01) and
which is guided in a shift-able along a path of this material web (01) through the
superstructure (03),
having the distinctive feature that
the guide rail (09) stretches continuously from a roller changer of a printing mechanism placed before the folding apparatus through the folding aligner (08), and the guide rail (09) is attached till beyond the crosscutting device (24)

20
3. Device for drawing at least one material web (01) and/or a strand having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure (03), at least one folding aligner (08), one crosscutting device (24) for separating the material web (01) transported in the superstructure (03) and folded on the folding aligner (08) into individual products, and at least one guide rail (09) to which a holding part (51, 19) can be fixed to a leading end (54) of at least one material web (01) and which is guided in a shift-able along a path of this material web (01) through the superstructure (03), having the distinctive feature that
several guide rails (09) are arranged; these guide rail pieces (09; 12;13;32;33) unite with the guide rail (09) before the crosscutting device (24) and after at least one folding aligner (08).
4. Device as per claim 1, 2 or 3,
having the distinctive feature that
the guide rail (09) is twisted at the height of the folding aligner (08).
5. Device as per claim 1, 2 or 3,
having the distinctive feature that
the folding aligner (08) can be shifted in the cutting direction of the crosscutting device (24).
6. Device as per claim 1, 2 or 3,
having the distinctive feature that
the guide rail (09) has a stretchable section (43) before the folding aligner (08) in the run direction of the material web (01).
7. Device as per claim 1,2 or 3,
having the distinctive feature that
the guide rail (09) has a joint section (44; 46) between the entrance of the folding aligner (08)and the crosscutting device (24).

21
8. Device as per claim 7,
having the distinctive feature that
the joint section (44;46) is formed by one or more indentations (47) in the guide rail (09).
9. Device as per claim 1,2 or 3
having the distinctive feature that
a distance (X) of the guide rail (09) from the paper web (01) coming from a funnel feed roller (18) over the folding aligner (08) right up to its peak is largely constant.
10. Device as per claim 8,
having the distinctive feature that
the guide rail (09) has a groove (23) with a base (49) and two side walls (48), in which the holding part (19, 51) is guided, and the indentations (47) separate at least one of the side walls (48).
11. Device as per claim 1 or 2,
having the distinctive feature that
the guide rail (09) is attached till beyond the crosscutting device (24).
12. Device as per claim 2 or 11
having the distinctive feature that
the crosscutting device has a knife cylinder (26).
13. Device as per claim 2 or 11
having the distinctive feature that
the crosscutting device (24) has a cylinder (27) with holding system
14. Device as per claim 2, 11 or 13
having the distinctive feature that

22
the crosscutting device (24) has a cylinder (27) designed as folding knife cylinder
(27)
15. Device as per claim 2 or 11
having the distinctive feature that
the guide rail (09) is fitted through a recess formed by a knife cylinder (26) and a folding knife cylinder (27)
16. Device as per one of the claims 2 to 14
having the distinctive feature that
a capping unit (36) is foreseen before the crosscutting device (24) for separating forerunning white paper waste from the material webs (01).
17. Device as per claim 16,
having the distinctive feature that
one entrance of the crosscutting device (24) is arranged in the extension of the passage direction of the material webs (01) through the capping unit (36).
18. Device as per claim 2 or 11,
having the distinctive feature that
the entrance of the crosscutting device (24) is arranged vertically below the capping unit (36).
19. Device as per claim 16, 17 or 18
having the distinctive feature that
the guide rail (09) has a bent section (37) between the capping unit (36) and the entrance of the crosscutting device (24) and runs past the entrance of the crosscutting device (24).
20. Device as per one of the previous claims,
having the distinctive feature that

23
in the extension of the guide (09) a storage (41)is arranged on each side of the folding aligner (08) for taking up the holding parts (19, 51).
21. Device as per claim 20,
having the distinctive feature that
the storage (41) is formed by a spiral-shaped or helical-shaped rail piece.
22. Device as per claim 20 or 21,
having the distinctive feature that
a separating unit (17; 30; 39) is fixed before the storage (41) for separating the holding parts (19, 51) from their respective material webs (01).
23. Device as per claim 19 and 22,
having the distinctive feature that
the separating unit (39) is attached on the guide rail (09)between the bent section (37) and the storage (41).
24. Device as per one of the previous claims,
having the distinctive feature that
the guide rail (09) stretches right through from a roller changer of a printing mechanism placed before the folding apparatus right in to the folding apparatus.
25. Device as per one of the previous claims
having the distinctive feature that
the device has several paths on which respectively one web strand can be guided through the superstructure (03) and to the crosscutting device (24)
26. Device as per claim 25,
having the distinctive feature that
several rail pieces (09; 12; 13; 32; 33) that run along each of these paths unite with the guide rail (09) before the crosscutting device (24).

24
27. Device as per claim 26,
having the distinctive feature that
several rail pieces (12; 13; 32; 33) that run along each of these paths unite with the guide rail (09) after at least one folding aligner (08)
28. Device as per claim 27,
having the distinctive feature that
respectively a diverter (34) is attached on to the uniting points (29; 31) of the rail pieces (12; 13; 32; 33).
29. Device as per claim 25 to 28,
having the distinctive feature that
on at least one or more paths in flow direction from a uniting point (29; 31), an adhesion preparation unit (16) is arranged for creating local adhesiveness of a web strand passing the adhesion preparation unit (16).
30. Device as per claim 29,
having the distinctive feature that
the adhesion preparation unit (16) is an adhesive tape dispenser or a glue dispenser.
31. Device as per claim 29 or 30,
having the distinctive feature that
a sensor (14) is allocated to each adhesion preparation unit (16) for detecting a web beginning passing through the adhesion preparation unit (16).
32. Device as per claim 1, 2 or 3,
having the distinctive feature that
the holding part (51, 19) has an end chain.
33. Device as per claim 32,

25
having the distinctive feature that
the chain can be bent transverse to the transportation direction.
34. Device as per claim 33,
having the distinctive feature that
the chain has rollers with longitudinal axes and the virtual extension of the longitudinal axes intersect at a point in bent condition, so that the chain has a bending radius (R51) lesser than 1000 mm.
35. Device as per claim 34,
having the distinctive feature that
the bending radius (R51) is lesser than 600 mm.
36. Device as per claim 1, 2 or 3,
having the distinctive feature that
several folding aligners (08) are arranged and along each folding aligner (08) there is a guide rail (09)
37. Device as per claim 36,
having the distinctive feature that
at least two folding aligners (08) are arranged beside one another and a guide rail (09) is fixed along the right side of a folding aligner (08) and a guide rail (09) is arranged along the left side of the other folding aligner (08).
38. Device as per claim 37,
having the distinctive feature that
guide rails (09) are fixed only on both the sides away from one another and not on the adjacent sides of the folding aligners (08).
39. Device as per claim 1,
having the distinctive feature that

26 at least one guide rail (09) is fixed sideways along the folding aligner (08).
40. Device as per claim 1,
having the distinctive feature that
at least one guide rail (09) is fixed along at least one side of the folding aligner
(08) inclined at an acute angle to the transportation direction.
41. Device as per claim 24,
having the distinctive feature that
at least two roller changers are provided and from each roller changer a guide rail
(09) stretches right into the folding aligner (08).
42. Device as per claim 1, 2, 3, 39 or 40,
having the distinctive feature that
the guide rail (09) is fixed at a distance from the folding aligner (08)
43. Device as per claim 1,
having the distinctive feature that
at least one guide rail (09), with respect to a top view on the folding aligner (08), runs almost parallel to a side edge of the folding aligner (08)
44. Device as per claim 1, 2 or 3,
having the distinctive feature that
in the guide rail (09) stretching without interruption from a roller changer up to beyond the folding aligner (08), a bendable chain piece (51) is fixed transverse to the transportation direction, which draws in the material web (01).
45. Method for drawing in at least one material web (01) and/or at least one strand
having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure (03),
at least one folding aligner (08), a crosscutting device (24) for separating the
material web (01) transported in the superstructure and folded on the folding

27
aligner (08) into individual products, and a guide rail (09) to which a holding part (51, 19) can be fixed at a leading end (54) of at least one material web (01), and that can be shifted along a path of this material web (01) through the superstructure (03) with the following features:
- a first material web (01) is guided along the guide rail (09) to a uniting
point (29; 31), at which one of the rail pieces (12; 13; 32; 33) unites with
the guide rail (09);
- a second material web is guided on the rail piece (12; 13; 32; 33) to the
uniting point (29; 31) and fixed to the first material web (01); and
- the material webs (01) fastened on to one another are further guided along
the guide rail (09) and introduced into the crosscutting device (24).
46. Method as per claim 45,
In which the second material web is guided to the uniting point (29; 31) only after the holding part (19, 51) of the first material web (01) has passed the uniting point (29; 31).
47. Method for drawing in at least one material web (01) and/or at least one strand
having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure (03),
at least one folding aligner (08), a crosscutting device (24) for separating the
material web (01) transported in the superstructure and folded on the folding
aligner (08) into individual products, and a guide rail (09) to which a holding part
(51, 19) can be fixed at a leading end (54) of at least one material web (01), and
that can be shifted along a path of this material web (01) through the
superstructure (03) with the following features:
- a first material web (01) is guided along the guide rail (09) to a uniting
point (29; 31), at which one of the rail pieces (12; 13; 32; 33) unites with
the guide rail (09);
- when the holding part (19,51) of the first material web (01) has passed the
uniting point (29; 31), then a second material web is guided on the rail

28
piece (12; 13; 32; 33) to the uniting point (29; 31) and from there further guided along the guide rail (09) to the crosscutting device (24).
48. Method as per claim 47,
in which the second material web is fixed on to the first material web (01) at the uniting point (29;31).
49. Method as per one of the claims 45 to 48,
the material webs (01) are guided along the guide rail (09) through the crosscutting device (24).
50. Method as per one of the claims 45 to 49,
having the distinctive feature that
- the material webs (01) are guided through a capping unit (36) placed
before the crosscutting device (24) and initially guided past the
crosscutting device (24) with the help of the guide rail (09);
when the peaks (54) of all material webs (01) have passed the capping unit (36) it is activated to cap the material webs (01); and
- the leading end (54) created during capping enters into the crosscutting
device (24).
51. Method as per claim 50,
in which during the drawing process the crosscutting device (24) is moved along in a phase-correct manner.
52. Method as per one of the claims 45 to 51,
in which the holding parts (19, 51) of all material webs (01) are first collected in a storage (41) connected to the guide rail (09) and after finishing the printing sequence are transported back in reverse direction along the guide rail (09) to a respective starting position.

29
53. Method for drawing in at least one material web (01) and/or at least one strand
having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure (03),
at least one folding aligner (08), a crosscutting device (24) for separating the
material web (01) transported in the superstructure and folded on the folding
aligner (08) into individual products, and a guide rail (09) to which a holding part
(51, 19) can be fixed at a leading end (54) of at least one material web (01), and
that can be shifted along a path of this material web (01) through the
superstructure (03) with the following features:
- a first material web (01) is fixed on to a holding part (51, 19) in a roller
changer;
- this first material web (01) is transported on this holding part (51, 19)
through at least one printing mechanism, over at least one folding
aligner(08) and through the crosscutting device (24);
after the crosscutting device (24) the first material web (01) is separated from this holding part (51, 19).
54. Method as per claim 53,
having the distinctive feature that
a second material web (01) is fixed to another holding part (51, 19) in another roller changer;
- the second material web (01) is transported on this other holding part (51,
19) through at least one printing mechanism over at least one folding
aligner (08) and through the crosscutting device (24);
after the crosscutting device (24), through which the first material web (01) is guided on the first holding part (51, 19), the second material web (01) is separated from this other holding part (51, 19).
Dated this 19th day of OCTOBER 2006
The invention pertains to a device for drawing in at least one material web and/or at least one strand having several material webs into a folding apparatus with a superstructure, at least one folding aligner, one crosscutting device for separating the material web transported in the superstructure and folded on the folding aligner into individual products and at least one guide rail, along which a holding part is guided in a shift-able along a path of this material web through the superstructure; a leading end of at least one material web can be fixed to the holding part. At least one guide rail is guided along the folding aligner.

DEVICE AND METHODS FOR DRAWING AT LEAST ONE MATERIAL WEB OR AT LEAST ONE WEB STRAND INTO A FOLDING APPARATUS

Documents:

Inventors:

PCT Conventions: