The present invention relates to the handling of heavy coils of metal packing wire to be transported from the wire factory to the place of use, so that the wire can be reeled off from the coil there and used for packing objects such as pulp bales. The invention relates first and foremost to heavy coils of the order of 1 ton in weight having a wire diameter of about 3 mm. The diameter of the coil is about 1 metre, and the length of the coil is about 1 metre; the coil has a cylindrical central core with a diameter of about 30 cm.

The coil is secured after manufacture with four bands and has until now been placed upright on a pallet for transport by lorry or in a container. On arrival at the place of use, the pallet is handled using a travelling crane, a fork lift truck and/or a pallet truck. The coils on the pallets are kept in a storage area, from where they are taken as required, in most cases using a fork lift truck whose fork engages beneath the pallet. The pallet is then set down on a specially executed base plate with vertical sleeves to accept a central upright consisting of four tubes arranged in a square pattern. This upright is pushed down into the central core of the coil, and the ends of the four tubes engage with the sleeves with the help of a bayonet coupling for locking the tubes.

A special reeling-off crown is raised manually to a height of approximately 2 metres and is pushed down onto the upright whilst being guided along the tubes which prevent rotation of the crown. This will eventually rest

on the upper end of the coil.

The bands which hold the coil together are then cut away, and the wire can then be reeled off, when it is guided by means of the crown.

The operations referred to above and the arrangements utilized in conjunction therewith present certain inconveniences. The use of pallets involves additional costs, since it is not economically viable to return to the wire factory those pallets which are used for long journeys between different countries. The pallets are scrapped, resulting in not inconsiderable additional costs. Furthermore, the pallets prevent optimum use of the cargo volume during transport, which in turn involves correspondingly greater transport costs. Access with a fork lift truck is often difficult when unloading from the transport vehicle, and in certain cases it is necessary to drag out the pallet with a coil standing on it, which on occasion causes the coil to fall from the pallet, when the coil can suffer damage due to the wire becoming disarranged.

The accurate positioning of the pallet above the special base plate which is to accept the upright must take place at the correct point above the sleeves which are to be connected to the ends of the tubes of the upright. This can be a time-consuming procedure in certain cases and can increase the job time for handling.

Once the upright has been lowered into the central core of the coil and has been attached to the base plate, which can be a quite difficult operation, the crown must finally be raised to a height of almost two metres before it can be lowered over the end of the standing upright. As the crown weighs approximately 20 kg, this raising operation is quite heavy work which can lead to physical

injury if it is not done by personnel with sufficient physical strength. The working methods and arrangements used until now are unsatisfactory, especially if the workforce is female, which is increasingly the case in the industrial sectors in question.

The object of the invention is, therefore, to make available a method for handling coils of wire of the kind in question in such a way as to render the use of pallets unnecessary, and to permit the coil of wire with its reeling-off crown to be placed in its working position on a vertical upright rapidly and without the personnel having to perform heavy and hazardous lifting operations.

For this purpose the invention relates to both a method and an arrangement for eliminating the above-mentioned inconveniences.

The method in accordance with the invention exhibits the characteristics which can be appreciated from the characterizing part of Patent Claim l, and the arrangement in accordance with the invention for the execution of the method exhibits the characteristics which can be appreciated from Patent Claim 2.

In accordance with the invention, the coils of wire are loaded in a horizontal attitude for transport to the user, when they occupy less cargo space than when the coils are transported on pallets in the familiar way. The coils are held together in the customary fashion with four securing bands.

The oils are stored in a horizontal attitude at the user J premises. They are collected from the storage area using a travelling crane, a fork lift truck or some other lifting arrangement which holds the coil in a horizontal attitude and moves it to the arrangement in accordance

with the invention, the central upright of which has been pivoted down into its horizontal attitude. The coil is now moved into a position in which it is coaxial with the upright, when it can easily be placed on the upright. Finally, no great difficulty is now encountered in raising the reeling-off crown by about one metre, until it is on a level with the horizontal upright, and in advancing the crown into position against the coil. These operations have not required the use of a pallet which must then be scrapped.

The central upright is then pivoted back up into its vertical working attitude with the help of hydraulic cylinders or compressed air cylinders, whereupon reeling off of the wire from the coil can begin. In order to prevent the possibility of the reeling-off crown being carried with it by the wire and thrown from the upright, the upright in accordance with one appropriate embodiment of the invention is equipped with a catch to prevent the crown from being drawn axially upwards along the upright.

These and other characterizing features and advantages of the invention are explained below in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, which show an appropriate embodiment of the arrangement in accordance with the invention.

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a reeling-off crown in the form of a double-conical wire cage with four guide arms at the top and at the bottom.

Fig. 2 is a view from the front of the arrangement in accordance with the invention having a frame which supports a central upright which, by means of hydraulic cylinders or compressed air cylinders, is capable of being pivoted between a horizontal and a vertical end positions, in conjunction with which the coil of wire and

the crown are shown as dotted and dashed lines on the upright, which is in its raised vertical attitude.

Fig. 3 is a schematic view from the side which shows how a horizontal coil of wire is placed on the horizontal central upright, whereupon this is pivoted up into its vertical attitude.

Fig. 4 is a schematic view from above with the upright in its vertical attitude.

Fig. 5 is a separate view from above of the upright in its vertical attitude to an enlarged scale and equipped with a locking arrangement in the arrangement in accordance with the invention.

Fig. 6 is a section through the locking arrangement in the arrangement in accordance with the invention in its neutral position with the locking arms retracted.

Fig. 7 is the same section as in Fig. 6 along the line 7- 7 in Fig. 5, with the locking arms extended into their locking position.

The method in accordance with the invention is described briefly above and is specified in greater detail in Patent Claim 1, for which reason the following description relates essentially to an appropriate embodiment of the arrangement in accordance with the invention.

As will be appreciated from Fig. 2, a central upright 10 is supported by a transverse base component 12, which, at its ends, has vertical swinging arms 14 (Fig. 3) which are pivotally mounted at their upper ends on two coaxial shafts 16 which are supported by two lateral components 18 of the frame.

On the base component is a base ring 20 which serves as the bed for a vertical coil 22 of wire consisting of packing wire 24 which is to be unwound by drawing the wire upwards and winding it off turn by turn.

For the purpose of guiding the wire during reeling off, a reeling-off crown 26 is placed on the upright and rests on the upper end of the coil 22. The crown is executed to the design which can be appreciated from Fig. 1 and is equipped with four upper guide arms 28 and four lower guide arms 30.

The upright 10 consists of a square tube 32 with four diagonal, outward-facing longitudinal flanges 34 at the corners for the purpose of forming four longitudinal guide grooves 36. When the coil 22 is placed on the upright 10, the arms 28, 30 are guided in the guide grooves 36 between the flanges so as to prevent rotation of the coil during reeling off.

The crown is of double-conical form and is executed as a wire cage with an outer ring 40 which guides the wire during reeling off. Also present are elastic lengths of hose which form outward-facing arms 42, which the wire must deflect during reeling off. A certain braking effect is achieved in this way, in order to avoid the formation of kinks in the wire.

Fig. 3 uses dotted and dashed lines to show the upright 10 pivoted down into its horizontal attitude, where a horizontal coil 22A of wire is supported by a fork 45A of a fork lift truck or by a so-called centre spike 45B of a fork lift truck, or by means of a sling 45C which is introduced through the central core of the coil and is attached to a lifting line, which can be suspended from a fork lift truck or a travelling crane. The horizontal coil 22a is held on a level with the horizontal upright

10 and is moved onto it.

The crown 26 is then raised until it is level with the horizontal upright 10 and is pushed onto it and secured with a catch mechanism of the kind described below. Finally, the upright is pivoted up into its vertical attitude with the help of two hydraulic or compressed air cylinders 44 as far as the position shown in Fig. 2, in which the coil 22 is in its vertical attitude together with the crown.

The four securing bands (not illustrated here) are cut away, whereupon the coil is ready for reeling off.

As will be appreciated from Figs. 5 to 7, the upright 10 is equipped at its upper end with a catch mechanism 46 with two extendable locking arms 48, 50, which are capable of being retracted into a neutral position in two rectangular openings =>2, 54 in opposite walls 56, 58 (Fig. 7) of the square tube in accordance with Fig. 6, and which are capable of being extended into a locking position in accordance with Fig. 7, when they are intended to prevent the crown from being drawn up unintentionally in the event of the wire kinking and becoming caught in the crown during reeling off. The crown is prevented in this way from being thrown from the upright and possibly causing damage or injury.

Each locking arm consists of a sheet metal arm bent into the shape of an ^» L' with a long shank 60 and a short shank 62, which at its inner end has a downward-bent edge 64. Attached to the inside of the long shank by welding are two arms 66, each of which is mounted on its own axle 68 secured between the walls of the square tube.

An extension arm 70 and 72 is attached by welding to the upper end of the arms 66. The arms 70, 72 of the two

locking arms are capable of being pivoted past one another, as can be appreciated from Fig. 7.

On their inner edges these extension arms are formed into the shape of cam surfaces 74 and 76 in contact with a locking body in the form of a cylinder 78 supported by the link arm 80, which are in turn pivotally connected to an actuating arm 82 which is pivotally supported at the upper end of the central upright on an axle 84.

A compression spring 86 is held under tension between the locking arms 48, 50.

With the locking arms in their extended position as shown in Fig. 7, the spring 86 holds them in this position which can be determined by the lower edges 64 moving into engagement with the lower edges of the openings 52, 54. The actuating arm 82 is retracted into a position above the upper end of the upright, in conjunction with which the cylinder 78 is caused to move to its free position. Instead of the edges 82 forming a stop, the arms 70, 72 can be caused to come into contact with the cylinder 78 when the locking arms are fully extended, whereby further extension is limited by the cylinder 78. The end position of the actuating arm in Fig. 7 is limited by stops 86A on the insides of the tube 32.

When the coil of wire and the reeling-off crown are pushed onto the central upright in its pivoted-down horizontal attitude in accordance with Fig. 3, the actuating arm 82 is in its extended position, and the locking arms are in their retracted neutral position in accordance with Fig. 6, where the lower end 30 and the upper end 28 of the crown are shown as dotted and dashed lines.

Before pivoting the upright 10 up from its horizontal

attitude, the arm 82 is moved to the locking position in Fig. 7, when the shape of the cam surfaces 74, 76 is such that the cylinder 78 can escape from their grip relatively easily, i.e. such that the manual force of the actuating arm is relatively small so as to permit convenient handling, especially when the actuating arm is to be pivoted out from the position in Fig. 7 at the same time as the cylinder is to press against the cam surfaces 74, 76, causing the locking arms to pivot against the effect of the spring 86 into the neutral position in Fig. 6.

Fig. 7 shows how the short shanks 62 of the locking arms form stops for the upper end of the reeling-off crown.

The locking arrangement is thus of simple execution, reliable, and convenient to operate.

As will be appreciated from the above description, the coil 22A of wire can be handled without a pallet. The coil can be manoeuvred during loading and unloading by rolling it on the ground. The horizontal coil can easily be moved into position for placing on the horizontal upright. The crown need only be raised to a sufficient height to allow it to be pushed onto the horizontal upright, which is then pivoted up with the help of hydraulic or compressed air cylinders into its working position, in which the crown is locked to prevent it from being pulled from the upright during reeling off.