lower shaft being located in fixed bearings and the upper shaft being located in bearings in vertically slidable members the slidable members are adjustable in the vertical direction by wedge shaped elements operable by adjusting screws screwing the wedges out or in will move the vertically slidable member respectively down or up to further engage or disengage the gear like teeth of the upper intermeshing roll with the lower intermeshing roll micrometers mounted to the side frames are operable to indicate the depth of engagement of the teeth of the intermeshing roll air cylinders are employed to hold the slidable members in their lower engaged position firmly against the adjusting wedges to oppose the upward force exerted by the material being stretched these cylinders may also be retracted to disengage the upper and lower intermeshing rolls from each other for purposes of threading material through the intermeshing equipment or in conjunction with a safety circuit which would open all the machine nip points when activated a drive is typically utilized to drive the stationery intermeshing roller if the upper intermeshing roller is to be disengagable for purposes of machine threading or safety it is preferable to use an antibacklash gearing arrangement between the upper and lower intermeshing rollers to assure that upon reengagement the teeth of one intermeshing roller always falls between the teeth of the other intermeshing roller and potentially damaging physical contact between addenda of intermeshing teeth is avoided if the intermeshing rollers are to remain in constant engagement the upper intermeshing roll typically need not be driven drive may be accomplished by the driven intermeshing roller through the material being.