Illinois Tool Works Inc.

Edward J McArdle

Bryant Edwards

Stanley R Krogman

Francis H Bourgeois

An apparatus for high-speed transfer of plants from an array arranged in ranks and rows to a transplanting location. The apparatus incorporates structure which positively locates and stabilizes the individual plants during their path of travel from the array to their predetermined transplanting location as well as structure which permits each rank of the array to be removed as a unit for transfer to the path of travel. The apparatus is also designed to eliminate the top growth of each plant from interfering with individual placement and movement of the plants.

Plant transfer mechanism

Method and apparatus for multipackaging bottle-like containers as they are continuously moved through the apparatus. Continuously moving jaw stations incorporating opposing pairs of upstanding shell-like stretching members coact to continuously highly stretch a tube of thermoplastic material and release the stretching force after the plurality of bottles to be packaged are placed within the perimeter of the stretched tube.

Packaging apparatus

A multipackaging method and apparatus for multipackaging containers with a stretchable plastics material device or carrier that essentially uses the containers as the carrier applicating elements.

Multipackaging method and apparatus

A high-speed planting method and machine in which a plurality of plants are provided in a plurality of webs. The webs are flexible and each web carries a plurality of plants fixed in an array of a plurality of adjacent rows and substantially perpendicular ranks. In the method and machine, each web is bent in a curve about an axis parallel to the ranks of plants, and during the bending operation each leading rank of plants is ejected from the web as a group. Concurrently with that operation, each removed rank of plants is conveyed toward the ground, and each plant in each conveyed rank is successively set into the ground in spaced relation along a line.

High-speed planting method and machine

A machine and method for applying an apertured carrier to containers to form a carrier pack are disclosed. The machine includes a lug wheel which draws a carrier web from a stock and positions the carrier web at a preliminary station. A plurality of angularly spaced pins are mounted on each side of a pinwheel, and these pins engage secondary carrier apertures formed at locations spaced apart from the primary apertures. As the pinwheel turns, a spreader cam forces the pins axially apart to transversely deform the carrier without substantially deforming it in a longitudinal direction. So oriented, the carrier is forced over a plurality of containers to form a pack. A plow then positively disengages the carrier and containers constituting the pack from the pins.

Growing community of inventors

Morton Grove, IL, United States of America

Edward J McArdle