DEVICE FOR GRASPING AND DETACHING THE LEADING END OF A WOUND ROLL

An apparatus for engaging and loosening the beginning of a sheet of material, such as paper, fabric, thin plastic, and/or metal foil, that is wound onto a core to form a reel, so that the material can be used in a subsequent machine, such as a packaging machine. In order to provide such an apparatus, which preferably prepares automatically delivered reels, without manual action, so that it can be further used by a machine, the inventive apparatus includes: a mounting plate; at least two rollers rotatably mounted on the mounting plate and supporting the reel, with one of the rollers being motor-driven; a gripper-like pick-up mechanism for engaging the beginning of the sheet of material when the latter had been secured to the reel for transportation purposes; the pick-up mechanism has a first arm, in the form of a doctor blade, for passing below the beginning of the sheet of material or below a self-sticking strip that secures this beginning; the pick-up mechanism also has a second arm; a mechanism for yieldingly pressing the pick-up mechanism against the periphery of the reel, and in particular for pressing the second arm against the doctor blade in a controlled manner to effect the engagement of the beginning of the sheet material or of the self-sticking strip; the pick-up mechanism is movably mounted in such a way that it executes a nearly tangential movement relative to the reel.