In the production of packaging blanks, e.g., it is a common practice to feed a web material to be engaged by creasing tools and cutting tools arranged to produce creasing lines and slits, respectively, in a pattern adapted for making a packaging design, such as a box. In the prior art, creasing wheels and cutting wheels are separately supported and arranged in tandem in machines through which the web material is advanced by feed rollers. Examples of prior art cutting wheels and creasing wheels may be found in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,072,641; 5,964,686, and 6,840,898.
Each operative engagement with a material being fed through separate stations for creasing, cutting etc., increases the risk of the material jamming in or between the separate stations. More stations also means more expensive components such as feed rollers and supporting structures, and results in machines of greater lengths. Longer machines makes the accuracy in lateral guidance of a web material more problematic, and also makes it more difficult to observe and monitor the process and to reach into the structure at maintenance work.
Another problem encountered in connection with forming slits through a corrugated paper board, e.g., is the thickness of the material, resulting from the corrugation that separates the upper paper liner from the lower paper liner. Cutting the corrugated paper board with the circular edge of a cutting wheel thus requires an excessive cutting length through the upper liner and through the corrugation, which may weaken the finished packaging and which may form crack indications that occasionally will lead to rupture. Obviously, this problem grows with increasing radial dimensions of the cutting-wheel.