PURPOSE: To enable pattern boxes on a catch pan placed on a conveyor frame to be fully automatically sent to a draining device, and said boxes to be always kept in a prescribed number of stages.

CONSTITUTION: After placing a draining pattern box 7' in which a piece of bean curd has been put on the central part of a catch pan 7, a holding device 6 is lowered downward from front and rear edge parts of the catch pan 7, and a holding metal fitting 6' is closed keeping said situation to permit the front and rear edge parts of the catch pan 7 to be held with the holding parts 6" of said metal fitting. Then, after lifting an elevation guide device 4' part and then the whole of a device to the uppermost position, and stopping them, a traversing guide device 3' part is traversed to the left, the left side edge part of the catch pan 7' is forced to make close contact with the folded metal fitting of a positioning device and stopped, and thus the catch pan 7 is placed on a chain conveyor frame 1. Then, guide rollers 18 of the catch pan 7 are guided and inserted into guide rails 2' of guide columns 2 located before and behind the central portion of said frame 1, and the pattern boxes 7 are repeatedly transferred and placed on the catch pan metal fitting 11 placed on the supporting metal fitting 12 mounted under the guide columns 2 such that said pattern boxes 7 arranged in a previously set number of stages are always kept as they are.