Thomas J. Lipton Co., Division of Conopco, Inc.

Lipton, Division of Conopco, Inc.

Molins Plc

Lipton, Inc.

Thomas J. Lipton Co.,

Thomas J. Lipton Co., Divison of Conopco, Inc.

Thomas J. Lipson Co., Division of Conopco, Inc.

James Goodwin

Geoffrey W Vernon

Thomas William Bailey

Andrew John Cleall

Michael J Cahill

James R Stembridge

William M Buckley

David Robert Seaward

Peter Ernest Willett

Simon Charles Martin

Harvey William Appelbe

An apparatus ( ) for securing a fastening strip ( ) to a web ( ) of packaging material comprises an anvil ( ) which defines a support surface for the web. The support surface has an elongate recess ( ) for receiving the fastening strip. There is a moveable sealing device ( ) disposed opposite and below the support surface and a retractable support element ( ) disposed between the support surface and sealing device. A feeding arrangement feeds the fastening strip along the recess and between the support element and the support surface arrangement. Suction is applied via a vacuum chamber ( ) to hold the fastening strip in the recess and permit the support element to be retracted to a position which permits the sealing device to move the web into engagement with the support surface and the fastening strip with the fastening strip received in the recess to permit sealing of the fastening strip to the web.

Method and apparatus for producing bags having a recloseable fastener

The formation of a tubular web in a form-fill process is achieved by drawing the web along a tapering guide (6) and then along a forming tube (20) the axis of which is at a small angle to the guide plate and intersects the guide. The web is drawn along the guide and tube by opposed drive rollers (24) at a station along the length of the forming tube, the rollers gripping the edges of the web together. The side margins of the web are folded over from a central portion when the web travels along the guide plate but the side edges are brought together only after they reach the forming tube. The drive rollers (24) or sealing rollers (26) further along the forming tube seal the edges together to form a closed tube.

Web shaping method and means

A valve (16) reciprocates with a constant stroke in the former tube (2) of a form-fill apparatus to dispense doses of filling material from the tube by ejecting the material through an outlet nozzle (8). The size of the doses is adjustable, in one form of the invention, by feeding the material is fed through an adjustable dosing opening immediately adjacent the valve. In another form of the invention, the valve (16) is adjustably positionable relative to the former tube (2) to vary the mean position of reciprocation of the valve relative to the tube. In a further form of the invention, an adjustably controllable head of material is maintained in the former tube to determine the rate at which it is fed to the valve (16).

Dosing apparatus and method

A process and apparatus are described for producing drawstring packets. The packets are produced by forming thread loops (L) with tags (T) attached to their ends and placing the packet web material (W) onto the portions of a the loops further from the tags. After securing the loops in their shaped form temporarily to one face of the web, the tags and the remaining portions of thread are placed on the other face of the web to be attached there releasably. In subsequent processing the secured loop portions lie inside the packets and the tags outside. The process allows relatively precise location of the loops so that packets can be produced with the loops in a peripheral channel (P) sealed from the contents of the packets but able to move to contract the package when the ends of the loop are pulled.

Packets and their manufacture

A tagged packet carries a tag which is attached to the main body of the packet by a thread. The thread comprises polypropylene so as to be attachable by heat sealing to the body. The body is made up of layers of sheet material also comprising thermoplastic material to allow the body to be closed by heat seals. The thread is secured to the face of the body at one edge at the same time as that edge is heat sealed and the heating for the thread seal is applied from the opposite face of the body whereas the adjacent regions of edge seal spaced from the thread has the heating applied through the first face. This arrangement gives closer control of the different conditions required for securing the thread and for sealing together only the sheet material of the body.

Apparatus for heat sealing of a thread to a web

A tagged packet carries a tag which is attached to the main body of the packet by a thread. The thread comprises polypropylene so as to be attachable by heat sealing to the body. The body is made up of layers of sheet material also comprising thermoplastic material to allow the body to be closed by heat seals. The thread is secured to the f ace of the body at one edge at the same time as that edge is heat sealed and the heating for the thread seal is applied from the opposite face of the body whereas the adjacent regions of edge seal spaced from the thread has the heating applied through the first face. This arrangement gives closer control of the different conditions required for securing the thread and for sealing together only the sheet material of the body.

Heat sealing of thread to a web

A method and apparatus are provided for assembling together tags (6), thread (8) and a web of envelope material for producing tagged packets. The tags are held on spaced seats on the periphery of a rotary carrier (2) and the thread is laid over the carrier and the tags. It is formed into a convoluted shape on the peripheral surface of the carrier between the tags by laterally displaceable holding pins (12) or by being dispensed onto the carrier by a displaceable guide (50). The web is brought against the tags and thread and attached to them maintaining the convoluted pattern of the thread. The assembly of web, thread and tags is suitable for a subsequent form-filling operation to complete the packets.

Method and apparatus for the production of tagged packets

Transferring rod-like articles

Shaped articles are cut from a web by correspondingly shaped cutters on a drum cooperating with an anvil drum. The web is engaged by conveyor bands which pass around the cutter and anvil drums and form a continuing conveying path for the web away from the drums. The conveyor bands are clear of the article shapes cut in the web which can thus be positively separated from the web by pusher means to be drawn away from the web by their own conveying means.

Producing shaped articles

A method and apparatus are described for tag and thread assembly for tagged infusion packets. Spaced tags from a strip of tags and a length of thread are laid over each other on the periphery of a first assembly wheel and the thread is drawn out in loops between successive tags. The spaced tags and looped thread are transferred to a second assembly wheel where they are connected to a web of sheet material that is to form the infusion packets. The web is subsequently formed into a series of compartments in which infusion material is contained. The compartments are severed from the web for forming the individual packets and the thread is simultaneously severed between the packets.

Method for the production of tagged articles

Apparatus for the production of tagged articles

Collating apparatus for stacking generally flat articles comprises a chute on opposite sides of which are two pairs of conveyor bands carrying supports for the articles. The conveyor bands are driven as two diagonally opposite pairs so that the stack builds on the supports of one pair of bands while a preceding stack built on the supports of the other pair of bands is discharged from the chute. The supports carried by the bands also comprise members which act on the completed stack to compress it before it is discharged.

Collating apparatus

Twin compartment packets, e.g. tea bags, are formed with the compartments connected at the heads of the packet and optionally at the tails. The packets are produced from a pair of compartmented tubular webs that are brought together with the compartments in register, the webs then being interconnected at the compartment end seals and severed at those seals to form the separate packets. Apparatus for performing the process deposits doses of tea at spaced intervals onto the two separate webs before forming them into the tubular compartmented webs, brings the compartments of the two webs into register, interconnects the registered compartments, and separates the interconnected compartments into individual packets while the web advances continously through the apparatus. The process is capable of high production rates because the webs are able to move through the successive stages at a uniform speed.

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Coventry, United Kingdom

James Goodwin