Patent ID: 7556488

Claim:
Apparatus for compression molding sealing liners in closure shells, which includes: a shell loader for presenting premade closure shells in sequence, a mold charge placement device for placing mold charges of liner material into the premade shells, and a molding machine for receiving closure shells in sequence from said loader and compression molding the mold charges to form sealing liners within the closure shells, wherein said molding machine is a vertical wheel molding machine that includes a wheel mounted for rotation around a horizontal axis and a plurality of angularly spaced molds disposed around said wheel, each of said molds including a first mold segment and a second mold segment disposed radially outwardly of said first mold segment, and one of said first and second mold segments includes a nest for receiving a premade closure shell, and the other of said first and second mold segments includes a core for engaging and compression molding a mold charge within the shell, and wherein said mold charge placement device places mold charges into the premade closure shells in sequence prior to placement of the shells into said nests.