Abstract: The making of a tubular sleeve of thermoplastic material wherein a strip of sheet stock is fed to a rotatable turret having a plurality of rotatable mandrels thereon, the strip is severed into individual rectangular blanks, each having a leading edge and a trailing edge, each blank is formed into a cylindrical shaped sleeve wrapped around a mandrel with the trailing edge overlapping the exterior of the leading edge of the blank, the mandrels are moved past a sealing station and a plurality of bars are rotated so they move successively in an arcuate path generally tangentially to the path of the blank to bring the sealing surface of each bar into engagement with the overlapped edges and apply radial pressure thereto to fuse the edges together and form a seam.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for automatically supplying cups to a filling station is disclosed herein. The apparatus consists of means for moving nested cups along a generally horizontal path that has guide means at the end thereof with pusher means engageable with the rim of a leading cup which drives the leading cup from the nested group to the filling station. Gripper means engage the rim of the next succeeding cup for holding the remaining cups while the leading cup is moved from the group of nested cups. The apparatus also incorporates mechanism for automatically releasing the leading cups at a specific location with respect to the filling station so that they drop by gravity to the filling station and also mechanism that automatically moves the gripper means to grip the next succeeding cup for holding the group while another cup is moved from the group path.