Improvements in Apparatus for Sealing and Capping Bottles, Jars or the like.

摘要

19,394. Bond, S. C. Oct. 11, 1907, [date applied for under Section 91 of Patents &c. Act, 1907]. Capsuling.-In a machine for applying sealing- caps to bottles, the bottle and the capping-head are moved relatively and the cap is applied by force exerted peripherally on its flange without any pressure being applied to the top of the cap, and no compensating devices are used. The capapplying means consists of V-shaped fingers 14 pivotally supported, in one form, by rings 15, Fig. 2, in a grooved block 12, which is held in place in the capping-head by an annular plug 13. The fingers are all retained in normal position and all caused to act simultaneously and to the same extent, by a sleeve 16 which normally rests on a shoulder 18 of the block 12 and is adapted to move freely in the sheel 11 of the capping-head. In operation, the caps are first engaged by the corners x of the fingers 14, and when the cap is arrested by the bottle, the fingers are shifted upwardly, the points x moving inwards, until the portions y of the fingers, bear against the side wall of the cap above the flange. The fingers are then locked, and during the continued downward movement of the capping-head the flange of the cap is wiped towards, but not close against, the neck of the bottle, for no part of the fingers passes under the head and so room is always left for an uncapping- tool. The downward pull on the cap is continued until the flange breaks down, when the fingers drop back to normal position and entirely out of contact with the cap. In the above form of the invention, the caps are fed to the capping-head through a slot 19, Fig. 2, when they will rest on the edges 20 of the plug 13 until engaged by the bottle, or, the plug may be provided with spring catches to retain the caps. In a modification, Fig. 5, the fingers 14 have a pivotal bearing on a shoulder 22 of the plug 13 and are retained in normal position by an annular weight 24 with a depending flange 25. In this form, the corners x of the fingers form a yielding ring adopted to hold a cap until engaged by the bottle.