Improvements in or relating to article-gauging apparatus

887,524. Sorting by gauging. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. Ltd. Dec. 3, 1959 [Dec. 3, 1958], No. 39004/58. Class 106 (2). Apparatus for gauging and sorting articles 2 comprises an article support 4, a gauging head 6 carrying at least two gauging members 8 movable independently with respect to the head 6 and a corresponding number of signal control means 13 arranged to control directing means 16 to direct the article into one of two reception channels according to the dimension gauged. As shown, bottles 2 are carried on a conveyer 1 and are pushed into the gauging position by a member 3, stops 5 locating the bottles accurately. The gauging head 6 is then lowered over the bottle and gauging rods 8 enter the neck of the bottle. Three such rods are used, equally spaced around the neck, but two only are shown. They are biased against a stop 12 and have tapered ends 9 to aid entry into the bottle neck. If the diameter is too small contacts 13 are broken and after the bottle has been gauged (and the gauging head withdrawn) it is returned to the conveyer 1 and discharged into a rejection channel 17. The apparatus will also check the alignment of the bottle neck and reject those which are not vertical. Also described are gauging devices which check the external diameter or both the internal and external diameters, or test whether the diameters lie within specified tolerance ranges. The electric contacts may be replaced by a photo-responsive device in which each rod 8 carries a shutter moving in front of a screen having a slit placed transversely to the direction of movement of the rod 8, there being a lamp on one side of the screen and a photoresponsive device on the other. The conveyer may be a rotary conveyer with a number of gauging heads rotating with the conveyer and one mounted above each object thereon. Means may also be provided for rotating the gauging members relatively to the article to check the circularity, but preferably the apparatus includes three or more gauging members angularly spaced around the circumference for this purpose.