A folding device generally has a folding or a transport cylinder, which has a first group of function elements, such as spur needle strips or sheet grippers, for example, for use in holding paper which is to be processed, against the cylinder. It also has, as a second group of function elements, a folding blade which, working together with folding rollers or with a folding jaw of a further cylinder, creates a fold in the paper conveyed on the folding cylinder.
In order to be able to process paper of different formats, or to form different folds, the function elements such as the spur needle strips or the sheet grippers of a folding cylinder, which are used for holding the paper to be processed, and the folding blades, are mounted on different partial cylinders. These partial cylinders have, in respect to each other, a defined freedom of rotary movement in relation to the shaft of the folding cylinder.
DE 197 55 428 A1 and DE 295 02 222 U1 both disclose folding cylinders which each have two cylinder bodies supporting folding mechanisms, which two cylinder bodies can be rotated in relation to each other.
Later published EP 1 264 689 A2 and EP 1 260 474 A1 both describe folding devices with a first and a second partial cylinder, which together constitute a body of the cylinder and which are rotatable relative to each other, and each one of which supports a first or a second group of function elements, which are distributed over the circumference of the cylinder, wherein its own drive motor for rotatory driving the partial cylinder is assigned to each partial cylinder.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,057,064 describes a folding jaw cylinder driven by a gear wheel. The two partial cylinders, which support folding jaws, are driven by a different motor only for the purpose of displacing them relative to each other in the circumferential direction.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,120,049 shows a multi-part bucket wheel, whose parts have different gear mechanisms.