Bag slow down

Claim 1

In a thermoplastic bag making machine including stacker belts comprising vertically opposed narrow belts for receiving and longitudinally transporting bags, as they are produced, to a stacking table, corrugating wheels and a bag retarding device located at the discharge of said stacker belts, an independent electrically operable variable speed drive driving the stacker belts and the corrugating wheels, said retarding device comprising two contra-rotating vertically spaced shafts mounting axially extending radially projecting pads cooperating to simultaneously momentarily engage opposite panels of each bag adjacent its trailing edge during one revolution of said shafts, the improvement in the combination of said stacker belts and said retarding device comprising adjusting the speed of said variable speed drive for driving said stacker belts at a speed that effects a selected longitudinal separation of the successive bags conveyed to the stacking table, each shaft of said retarding device mounting at least two equally circumferentially spaced pads, drive means derived directly from the drive of said bag machine, for rotating said vertically spaced contra-rotating shafts at a speed such that the peripheral speed of the radially projecting pads is less than the speed of the bags conveyed by said stacker belts, said contra-rotating shafts being synchronized so that the pads on one shaft making contact at a rate corresponding to the rate at which the bags are discharged toward the stacking table by said stacker belts, whereby the rotational rate of said contra-rotating shafts, by virtue of mounting two pads retards two successive bags during one revolution.