AUTOMATICALLY ANCHORING, TWISTING AND WINDING FILAMENT, OR THE LIKE, ONTO A SPOOL

Disclosed is a spooling apparatus that can be threaded on the fly to anchor, controllably twist and wind filament onto a receiving spool. A receiving spool is non-rotatably mounted on a spool shaft for axial reciprocation. A lead-in pulley, whose rotational axis is perpendicular to the receiving spool axis, is spaced axially outboard with respect to the receiving spool. A flier is mounted to rotate concentrically about the receiving spool and presents a pick-up head adapted to engage the feed run of the filament as it passes between the lead-in pulley and an orienting pulley located in proximity to the inboard end of the receiving spool. The orienting pulley is canted such that the tailing run of the filament cannot be engaged by the pick-up head as it rotates with the flier although the canting of the orienting pulley disposes the feed run such that it will be engaged by the rotating pick-up head when the spool reaches a predetermined position along its range of axial reciprocation. The feed run extends through a cutting mechanism which severs the tailing run therefrom shortly after the pick-up head engages the feed run. Means are provided to grip the severed end of the feed run after severance and until such time as it becomes anchored thereto by successive overwraps. Means are also provided to assure that the twist imparted to the filament by rotation of the flier about the receiving spool will be transmitted across the pick-up head with the filament as it is wound onto the spool.