Patent ID: 8632334

Claim:
An apparatus for blow molding a finished article from a preformed heated parison, said apparatus comprising: first and second opposed mold closures, said first and second opposed mold closures each having a mold cavity surface and moving between an open position and a closed position along a first axis; a first pair of mold segments each translatably mounted to said first opposed mold closure and moving along a second axis substantially perpendicular to the first axis, said first pair of mold segments each having an abutment surface lying generally transverse to the first axis and having a separate mold cavity surface; and a second pair of mold segments each translatably mounted to said second opposed mold closure and moving along a third axis generally parallel to the second axis, said second pair of mold segments opposing said first pair of mold segments, and said second pair of mold segments each having an abutment surface lying generally transverse to the first axis and having a separate mold cavity surface, wherein a closed mold cavity is formed by moving the first and second opposed mold closures together along the first axis so as to close the first and second opposed mold closures and so that abutment surfaces of the first pair of mold segments abut with abutment surfaces of the second pair of mold segments and also by moving each segment of the first pair of mold segments toward one another along the second axis and each segment of the second pair of mold segments toward one another along the third axis, wherein said closing is conducted without pinching the parison between any of the entirety of the abutment surfaces so that the parison is subsequently blow molded against the entirety of the mold cavity surfaces within the closed mold cavity without forming excessive flash, and wherein the first, second, and third axes are separate from one another.