Method and apparatus for simultaneously rolling and slitting metal strip

Abstract From the Canadian patent

Metal strip is slit by passage between a pair of rollers which are flanged and mate together in close tolerance interfitting relationship to completely contain and confine the strip cross section. The rollers compressively work the full width of the strip thereby, significantly reducing its thickness. The working portions of each of the rolls have at least two neighboring roll surfaces which are offset in a direction radially with respect to their axes of rotation, i.e. in a "stepped" relationship, the amount of offset being sufficiently great for simultaneously separating the strip into at least two resultant substrips while the thickness of the substrips is being significantly reduced. …