Abstract: A labeling machine has a rotationally driven wheel on which there are can supporting disks supported for rotation on respective shafts. Each shaft has a gear composed of a circular member having angularly spaced apart rollers that engage in the teeth of stationary cam rings. Consecutive sections of the teeth have increasingly large pitches in the direction of wheel rotation so that by engagement of the rollers in the teeth the rotational velocity of the cans supported on the shafts increases. The label holder is mounted on an arm and is concentric with the axis of the wheel. By unclamping the arm and rotating it to proximity with one of the toothed cam sections, the can will be rotating with a particular peripheral velocity that results in a can of the proper diameter to roll onto a label without any skidding or slipping action such that the label will always be picked up at its leading edge by means of a glue strip which has been previously applied to the can.

Abstract: A labeling machine has a rotor on which several oscillatingly driven pallet shafts are supported. Each shaft has a carriage shiftable transversely to the shaft axis. Glue pallets having partly cylindrical surfaces for being coated with glue are mounted to the carriage and are thereby movable from a radially outward position to a radially inward or neutral position for, respectively, contacting a glue roller and a label in a stack successively and for being retracted to neutral position out of the path of the roller and stack. The shafts have an enlarged central section which is rectangular in cross section and a complementarily shaped channel on a sleeve that carries the curved pallets is supported for sliding transversely to the pallet shaft axis.

Abstract: A rotating radial unit has bottle receiving recesses on its periphery for accepting bottles from a linear conveyor. A pair of elements are mounted on the unit adjacent each receiver for moving towards and away from the receiver. A belt runs around rolls that are on both elements so portions of the belt grip a bottle on each side when the elements are moved toward each other automatically. A motor can drive the belt to rotate the gripped bottle as it is transported on the unit. A sensing device controls the motor to start and rotate the bottle and to stop when a marker on the bottle is rotated to a preferred orientation or alignment so a series of bottles will be aligned identically as they are released. The elements are automatically spread apart to release the grip of the belt on the bottle.