Patent GB-666988-A (GB)
Title: Improvements relating to the wrapping of fruit
IPC: B65B25/04
Filed: 1948-10-15
Abstract: 666,988. Wrapping-machines. MECHANICAL DESIGNERS, Ltd., and CORDEY, R. F. Oct. 15, 1949. [Oct. 15, 1948] No. 26841/48. Class 94(i). [Also in Group XVIII] A fruit-wrapping machine is characterized by a wrapper support having an orifice capable of passing the largest size of fruit under treatment, means for feeding wrapping material to said support so that suitably dimensioned sheets thereof are disposed above the orifice at predetermined intervals, means for dropping individual fruit from a position spaced vertically above the orfice whenever the latter is covered by a wrapper, means for receiving each fruit after its passage through the orifice following the deformation of the associated wrapper into a cup shape solely under the weight of the fruit, means for bunching together the marginal portions of the cupped wrapper whilst the fruit therein is supported by said receiving means, and means for effecting relative angular movement of the fruit-enclosing portion and bunched portions of the wrapper to form a twisted closure for the latter. A web of wrapping material is drawn from a roll 52 by a pair of rollers 55 secured on a rotating main shaft 22 and co-operating with a pair of idler rollers 56 journalled in the ends of forked arms 57 secured on a shaft 58. The shaft 58 is linked to a shaft 32 oscillated by a cam on the shaft 22 so that the rollers 56 are disengaged from the rollers 55 after a predetermined length of wrapping material has been fed over an orifice 73 in a horizontal table 72, such length being then severed from the web by a knife 76 actuated through lever means by a further cam on the main shaft 22. An apple, or other fruit, fed from a conveyer 44 down a shoot 42, is supported for a moment by rubber-covered sector-shaped jaws 40 and then dropped, as these jaws are moved apart by link mechanism operated by the first mentioned cam on the main shaft 22, on to the wrapper covering the orifice 73 to carry the wrapper through the orifice. The apple in the soformed cupped wrapper drops through a hollow boss 84a below the orifice 73 on to co-operating supporting faces of three rotating discs 101, Figs. 1, 6, these support and rotate the fruit while the marginal edges of the wrapper are bunched and held Q and O, Fig. 4, in superposed relation 1, 5, so that a twisted closure is applied to the wrapper. These shutters 90 are moved together by cams 93 driven by sprockets 97 secured thereto and engaged by an endless chain 98, Fig. 6, one of the sprockets being driven from the main drive shaft 22. The chain 98 also engages sprockets 100 to rotate the discs 101. The shutters are disengaged from the wrapper at the same time as gaps 101a in the peripheries of the discs 101 come together and allow the wrapped fruit to drop out through an opening 113 to weighing and grading apparatus operated in synchronism with the wrapping means (see Group XVIII). If, for some reason, a wrapper is not carried through the orifice 73 a pair of continuously rotating wheels 83 having suitably gapped peripheries pull it clear. According to the Provisional Specification a pocketed drum may feed the fruit to the jaws 40.