Coors Brewing Company

Coors Container Company

James Allen Gulka

Dennis Ray Erickson

John William Burns

Jack Devin McKeehan

Peter Vischer

Robert L Frenkel

A glass bottle production line comprising a bottle mold which has a plurality of mold cavities arranged in a predetermined order for forming bottles from glass parisons and for transferring the bottles to a conveyor in a predetermined sequence corresponding to the predetermined order of the mold cavities. The conveyor has a hot end portion and a cold end portion for receiving bottles from the bottle mold at an elevated temperature at the hot end portion and conveying the bottles to the cold end portion. A hot bottle inspector located at a fixed inspection station along the conveyor at the hot end portion non-touchingly inspects the bottles as the bottles are conveyed past the inspection station by the conveyor. A mold transfer signal and bottle detection signal are processed to determine the mold cavity used to produce the bottle detected at the inspector's station.

Hot bottle inspection apparatus

Hot bottle inspection apparatus and method

A method and apparatus for separating a generally rectangular array of containers into a single file line of similarly oriented single file containers. The array is comprised of a plurality of rectangular containers, some having transverse orientations and some having longitudinal orientations. The method of the invention includes advancing all the containers of the array into a number of lines of advancing containers, turning the containers with transverse orientations to longitudinal orientations, and converging the various transversely spaced and longitudinally oriented containers into a single file line of longitudinally oriented containers. The apparatus for practicing the invention may include a number of successive conveyor stations each having various conveyor means such as belts or rollers which sequentially advance the containers generally in a longitudinal path of movement. The conveyor means separates the containers into a number of multiple generally parallel separate paths of movement and changes the orientation of certain ones of the containers to subsequently effect a common orientation of all the containers. The conveyor means also combines the commonly oriented containers in the separate paths of movement into one row in a single path of movement wherein all the containers are in a commonly oriented relationship.

Method and apparatus for separating a palletized array of containers

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Arvada, CO, United States of America

James Allen Gulka