Importance

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Abstract

In order to envelop the necks of a series of continuously moving bottles with decorative or informative tubular attachments, an elongate tube of heat-shrinkable plastic material is flattened first in one longitudinal plane and then in another longitudinal plane, perpendicular to the former, to produce a sheath with two substantially flat sides bearing the traces of a first pair of creases while being bounded by a second pair of creases. The longitudinally advancing sheath is cut into clippings of predetermined length that are advanced codirectionally therewith but at higher speed along a sloping guidepath in which the existing creases are caused to converge while the original creases reappear as the two sides are progressively spread apart. At a point where the creases of the two pairs are separated by substantially the same distance at a leading end of a clipping, the latter meets the neck of an oncoming bottle at an obtuse angle to its direction of motion whereby a remote edge of that leading end is engaged and tilts the clipping into a vertical position in which it slides down the neck. A subsequent heat treatment shrinks the clipping around that neck as a tightly fitting collar or jacket.

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First Claim