Label shrink oven
First Claim
1. Apparatus for heat shrinking a wrap-around label on a container wherein the label surrounds the side wall of the container and extends from adjacent the heel to near the shoulder, comprising a flat top conveyor for transporting the containers in an upright attitude in a generally linear, spaced-apart line, a heated tunnel extending along the sides of said conveyor, said tunnel comprising heater means extending along the length of the conveyor at an elevation substantially coextensive with the height of a label on a container being transported by said conveyor, said heater means including a plurality of elongated heater elements at vertically spaced intervals and means for blowing air through the spaces between the heaters to thereby impinge hot air on the sides of the bottle labels to effect shrinkage thereof, and adjustable means extending along a portion of said heater length for disrupting the movement of heated air across the conveyor at a selected length of travel of containers through said heater means.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An infrared heat tunnel with hot air circulation for heat shrinking wraparound labels on containers which are moved through the tunnel in an upright attitude on an open weave conveyor belt. The infrared heating is by electrical strip heaters along the sides of the tunnel and air is blown by blowers across these heaters to impinge on the sides of the containers. The air is drawn down through the conveyor belt since the inlet to the blowers is from beneath the conveyor. A vertical air curtain along each side of the first half of the tunnel is adjustable in length to effectively delay the skin shrinkage of the film-foam material of the labels in order to get wrinkle-free shrinkage of the film and underlying foam about the container wall and heel areas without bottle rotation.
28 Citations
14 Claims
- 1. Apparatus for heat shrinking a wrap-around label on a container wherein the label surrounds the side wall of the container and extends from adjacent the heel to near the shoulder, comprising a flat top conveyor for transporting the containers in an upright attitude in a generally linear, spaced-apart line, a heated tunnel extending along the sides of said conveyor, said tunnel comprising heater means extending along the length of the conveyor at an elevation substantially coextensive with the height of a label on a container being transported by said conveyor, said heater means including a plurality of elongated heater elements at vertically spaced intervals and means for blowing air through the spaces between the heaters to thereby impinge hot air on the sides of the bottle labels to effect shrinkage thereof, and adjustable means extending along a portion of said heater length for disrupting the movement of heated air across the conveyor at a selected length of travel of containers through said heater means.
- 13. The method of shrinking a wrap-around thermoplastic label on a container where the label is tacked to the container and to itself to form a sleeve about the full circumference of the container with a lower portion extending to near the plane of the bearing surface of the container, comprising the steps of, moving containers in a spaced-apart line into and through a shrink tunnel, applying infrared radiation from an elongated source to opposed sides of the containers over the full height of the labels thereon while in the tunnel, blowing air from both sides of the tunnel through the infrared radiation source to heat the air and impinge the heated air about the sides of the containers, withdrawing air downwardly about the heel of the containers through the containers supporting and moving means, recirculating the withdrawn heated air back to the sides of the containers, introducing cooling air in vertical curtains along the sides of the containers between the containers and the infrared source and controlling the length of the air curtain relative to the tunnel length to effect wrinkle-free shrinkage of the sleeve label about the exterior of the container including the lower portion about the heel.
Specification