The present invention relates to a flame cutter for severing a continuously movable strand; it includes feed means for the strand, and discharge means for a severed portion of the strand. A carriage, which carries a welding torch, may be moved on rails along the longitudinal direction of the strand, includes a device for measuring the length of a portion of the strand to be cut off.
Flame cutting means of the aforesaid type have been known from the prior art, for example, from German laid-open patent application DE-OS No. 2,262,949, German Pat. DE-AS No. 2,416,937, or from German Pat. DE-AS No. 2,411,972.
Reference is also made to the pending application by Rupert Auer, assignor to the assignee of the present invention, entitled, "Welding Torch for Arc Welding, including a Consumable Electrode", Ser. No. 13,516, filed on Feb. 21, 1979.
In devices of the prior art, the flame cutter is displaced itself by means of its clamping arrangement in a longitudinal direction from the movable strand during the flame cutting process. Following completion of the cut, the clamping arrangement is released, and the machine returns by means of its own drive to its initial position, so that it may be clamped again to the strand, and so that a new flame cut may be started.
It has already been proposed in German Pat. DE-AS No. 2,226,251 to set the machine by means of so-called carriers onto the movable workpiece, in lieu of such a clamping arrangement, so as to move the machine during the flame cutting process.
This type of motion of the machine or carriage by means of a clamping arrangement leads, however, to problems, if a plurality of strands is to be cut by a machine of this type. Here it is necessary, so as not to endanger the parallel course of these strands, in view of the pressing forces exerted by the clamping arrangement, to arrange a distance piece between the strands, as can, for example, be ascertained from German Pat. DE-AS No. 2,209,288, or to keep the two strands apart by means of an additional clamping arrangement acting from above, as has been, for example, proposed by German Pat. DE-OS No. 2,253,650.