Patent GB-539599-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to machines for capping bottles or the like
IPC: B67B3/02
Filed: 1940-05-17
Abstract: 539,599. Machines for capping bottles. CREAMERY PACKAGE MFG. CO. May 17, 1940, No. 8815. Convention date, June 23, 1939. [Classes 125 (ii) and 125 (iii)] In a machine for capping bottles, a stack of caps is supported above a circular series of flexible fingers which are operated to expand and hold expanded a portion of the lowermost cap of the stack so that it can pass over the bottle mouth before the fingers are withdrawn. The machine is shown with two capping stations and each stack of caps 128 rests in a magazine 125 while the filled bottles 175 for capping are carried along by the conveyer 13 to the point where they reach a recess in the feed wheel 70. A rail 31 at the side of the conveyer can be adjusted in position to fit the conveyer for carrying bottles of quart, pint or half-pint sizes. The leading bottle enters a recess in the feed wheel 70 and is conducted to a table 91, Fig. 7, carried by a vertical rod 90 which can slide in the rotor 86 and is in direct alignment with one of the capping heads. Each head is carried in a frame 100 and has a ring 103 with resilient metal fingers 120 secured at their lower ends to it by a clamping ring 121. These fingers are tapered and arcuate so that they form a dome shaped structure, and they terminate with short straight ends 122 disposed parallel to the axis of the ring 102. The bottle tables 91 and the capping heads are continuously rotating around the spindle 77 and a cam track 94 on the rotor 86 engages cam rollers 93 to cause the tables to make the appropriate up and down motions, while the cam 117 engages rollers on the bell crank levers 114 to raise and lower the stacks of caps. The caps have circular top and bottom portions secured together at the circumference and the bottom portion has a central circular aperture. The lowermost cap in the stack is warmed by a jet of heated air, from the hot air blower 145, which passes through the valve 153 and the nozzle 160. The rotation of the parts then stops the hot air supply and removes the nozzle from between the bottle 175 and the capping head. The movement of the ring 106 and the relative movement of the fingers 120 and the stack of caps 128 causes the finger ends 122 to enter the warmed cap to stretch the opening. In the meantime the bottle has risen and its mouth enters the stretched cap while it engages the fingers to stretch the cap still further. As the bottle continues to rise it strips the cap 128 from the finger ends 122 which then spring outwards until they rest in the groove 105 in the sleeve 104 as shown in the right hand side of Fig. 7. The capped bottle rises still more and strikes the flange 127 at the lower end of the magazine 125 and elevates the magazine until it is held in its upper position by a spring actuated latch 138, Fig. 2. The bottle then descends quickly and the rotor 86 carries it to a point adjacent the inner end of the guard rail 54 by which it is swept off the the table 91 and deposited upon the stationary table 48. About midway of the descent of the bottle the cam 117 causes the cap magazine to drop and the nozzle 160 to move back into position beneath the capping head for operations to start again.