Stacking of materials

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Turning to the drawings, a stacking assemblage 10 in accordance with the invention is positioned between a receiving or staging position P1 and an outbound or loading position P2.
Items to be stacked, such as individual bundles B, reach the receiving position P1 over an infeed conveyor 20, which terminates in staging platform 21.
To facilitate the movement of the bundles B on the platform 21, its surface 22 has a set of raised spheroids 23.
In some cases, it is advantageous to further facilitate the movement of the bundles across the surface 22 by substituting ball bearings for the spheroids 23.
Once a bundle arrives at the staging area, it is moved by an operator 0 to a platen 11 of the stacking assemblage 10, where it forms a part of a prescribed pattern of bundles in a single tier or layer.
The surface 11s of the platen 11 may be an ordinary plane, but it may also be similar to the surface 22 of the staging platform 21 to facilitate movement of the bundles, or it may be formed by rotatable cylinders of the kind commonly employed in conveyors.
After each tier is completed by the operator O on the platen 11, the stacking assemblage 10 is operated to deposit the tier at the loading position P2 on an outbound conveyor 30.
As can be seen from FIG.
1, a prior tier T1 is already located at the loading position P2; and a prior stack S1 that has been formed by the stacking assemblage 10 is farther down the outbound conveyor 30.
The stack S1 is made up of various tiers, of which tiers T'1 and T'2, and parts of tiers T'3 and T'4 are visible.
The stack S1 and the tier T1 are formed on a support sheet 41 which is taken from a stack 40.
In some cases pallets are substituted for the support sheets 41.
In other cases no support sheet is needed.
It will be noted that the tiers T'1 through T'4 of the stack S1 have alternative configurations in order to increase the stability of the overall stack.
Each bundle B is illustratively rectangular, being formed by a substack of collapsed boxes which are to be imprinted and filled with merchandise