Owens-illinois Glass Container Inc.

Owens-illinois, Inc.

Robert F Olsen

Russell W Heckman

A solvent applicating roll, mounted for rotation about its vertical axis for transferring a solvent from etched or gravure areas on the roll surface to plastic labels that are moved into rolling contact with the roll, has its temperature controlled. The roll is formed as a hollow cylinder with heated air fed to the interior thereof to heat the roll to keep the solvent at a working temperature and prevent evaporative cooling of the roll due to solvent evaporating from the surface during operation. The heated air is passed through a distributor that assures the heated air will effectively transfer its heat to the metal roll.

Heated solvent applicating gravure roll

Apparatus for guiding bottles along the surface of a rotating vacuum drum which holds plastic shrink labels until an individual label is rolled about the circumference of the bottle to form an overlapped seam. The bottles are of the style that have tapering shoulder and rounded heel joined by a cylindrical side wall. The rotational orientation of the bottle and label is maintained during roll-on of the label from the drum by a primary roll-on pad and the bottle with the label thereon is passed to an generally linear, secondary roll-on pad with the sleeve label bearing bottle moved along the secondary pad by a horizontally driven, vertically oriented belt. The secondary pad at locations along its length is provided with resilient vertically extending, contoured pads which also extend outward beyond the surface of the secondary pads so as to contact the formed overlap seam of the label to press the seam against the underlying bottle. The resilient pads have a contour which is generally the same as the shape of the bottle including the heel and shoulder to assure that the seam will withstand the stress of heat shrinking of the label about the bottle heel and shoulder portions.

Primary-secondary pad system

A labeling system where a cylindrical vacuum drum carries plastic labels at spaced intervals on its surface and a solvent applying gravure roll is held at a specific spacing from the drum and labels so that the labels will receive the solvent when they pass the rotating roll. The gap between the drum and the roll must be carefully controlled in order to be assured that the solvent is properly transferred. The gap is controlled by a fine adjustment of the platform on which the roll is mounted relative to the drum by a threaded rod moving a tapered surface of a reciprocable member in contact with a stop block mounted on the platform. The threaded rod threads through a stationary bracket and turns a shaft that threads into the member. The member is prevented from rotation so that rotation of the rod moves the member in one direction while rotation of the shaft moves the member in the opposite direction. This differential movement gives a micro-adjustment to the platform and the roll relative to the surface of the vacuum drum.

Micro-adjustable gravure roll

Apparatus for wrapping shrinkable plastic labels about bottles as they are moved in a single file. As the bottles exit the wrapping machine, they are resting on a moving belt conveyor which is driven in the direction of a heat shrinking tunnel. In order to have the bottles, with the labels applied, pass through a circulating hot air, infrared tunnel in properly spaced intervals to assure proper shrinkage of the tubular labels, a spacing device in the form of a bottle side-engaging set of brushes is used. The brushes have their bristles extending horizontally across the path of movement of the bottles on the conveyor. The bottles are actually pushed at the speed of the labeling machine through the gap between the brushes and therefore the bottles are released by the brushes at equally spaced time intervals and thus become equally spaced on the moving conveyor belt that carries them to the heat shrink tunnel.

Bottle conveyor with brush spacer

A cylindrical vacuum drum for carrying a label held to its surface by vacuum past an adhesive applying roll to a position where the label will touch a container and the container will be rolled along the drum surface to thereby apply the label about the container. The drum is formed of metal and is mounted for rotation about its vertical axis. The drum has a rubberlike covering thereover with at least two raised areas in the cover, which underlie the leading and trailing edge of a label that is at a greater radius than the rest of the surface. These are the areas which serve to press the label against the adhesive roll or solvent applying gravure roll. These areas have very slightly depressed zones forming slight steps just in advance thereof with a row of vacuum ports extending through the cover at the base of said steps to effectively hold the leading edge of the label down and allow the trailing edge to bend upwardly away from the outer surface of the drum. Additionally, replaceable insert strips are provided for the trailing edge of each raised pad that underlies the trailing edge of the labels so that this area which exhibits the most wear can be replaced rather than require replacing the entire drum.

Growing community of inventors

Toledo, OH, United States of America

Robert F Olsen