Patent GB-664334-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to an apparatus for applying crowns or caps to containers
IPC: B67B3/24
Filed: 1949-11-11
Abstract: 664,334. Sealing containers in vacuo. ROLLINSON, E. W. (Liquid Carbonic Corporation). Nov. 11, 1949. No. 28949/49. Class 125(ii). Means for applying crowns, or caps, to containers e.g., bottles in vacuo comprises a crowning head having a crowning throat for receiving the neck of the bottle to be sealed, the throat being provided with a crown receiving aperture which is sealed by a gate after a crown cap has been delivered into the throat so that air can be evacuated from the throat while the bottle, which is sealed in a crown rest beneath the throat, is capped. Cylindrical guides 8 are spaced round a hub 7 rotatably mounted on a stationary centre part 1 which carries an outer casing 2. A crowning head 9 is keyed within each cylinder and is moved vertically by a cam wheel 14 and surface 15. The detents on pawls 23, Fig. 2, which are pivoted within a sliding sleeve 16, extend outwardly from the latter to engage a groove 22 and lock the sleeve 16 to the head 9 when it is pressed by a spring 17 to its lowest position. The sleeve 16 carries a collar 18 providing a crowning chamber 31 to accommodate a segmented crimping ring 32 and a contracting ring 33. The end 35 of a capping plunger 24, urged downward by a spring 25, and slidable within the sleeve 16, extends into the chamber 31 through an aperture surrounded by packing 36 housed in a cup-like member 34 which is clamped by the collar 18 to the end of the sleeve 16. A bevelled surface 27 on the plunger 24 disengages the pawls 23 from the groove 22 to release the sleeve 16 when the plunger 24 has risen sufficiently in the sleeve 16 after a predetermined portion of the capping stroke of the head 9 has taken place. In this manner damage to bottles of abnormal height due to transfer of an abnormal pressure to the crimping ring 32 round the neck of the bottle is prevented. To maintain, during the capping operation, an airtight sealing relationship between the chamber 31 and a crown rest fixed to it, a ring 48, placed round an opening 47 in the rest to receive the neck of a bottle, is expanded against the neck of the bottle, a gasket 56 being interposed between the crown rest and the chamber 31. At the capping position, adjacent a cap shoot 38, a pivoted closure member 39 is released from cam mechanism to feed a cap from the shoot 38 through a slot formed in the side of the chamber 31 on to the crown rest. The member 39 then seals the slot to make the chamber 31 airtight. Pipes 65, 67 Fig. 1, connect outer and inner concentric grooves formed in a stationary ring 60 of a valve ring assembly, to pressure and vacuum pumps respectively. Arc-shaped slots of the required length in a second ring 68 fixed to the ring 60 correspond with segments of the concentric grooves in the ring 60 so that pressure is fed through a port in a ring 78 rotating with the hub 7 above the pipe 68 to a pipe 81 to expand the ring 48, the chamber 31 being evacuated by means of a pipe 82 which is connected to a vacuum port in the ring 78, When the bottle has been capped the ring 48 is connected to an exhaust port in the ring 68 and the chamber 31 is connected to the source of pressure for a short period to clean it.