Abstract: Tight packaging of a load including a stack of goods mounted on a pallet is achieved by lifting the loaded pallet above a conveyor or other supporting surface, pulling a hood of heat-shrinkable plastic foil from above over the load with the rim of the hood projecting below the underside of the pallet, heating that rim to substantially shrinkage temperature for causing it to contract around the pallet periphery, and lowering the load onto the supporting surface to press the hot, contracted hood rim against the bottom of the pallet. The contraction is aided by a blower below the pallet aspirating air toward the center thereof. The remainder of the hood is then thermally shrunk around the load.

Abstract: In order to package a stack of goods in an envelope of heat-shrinkable plastic material such as polyethylene, with prevention of adhesion between the envelope and the goods which may themselves be wrapped in similar sheet material, the stack is placed on a pallet and is covered by the envelope whose lower rim is clamped between the legs of the pallet and an apertured supporting surface such as an upper run of a chain conveyor. The envelope is then inflated from below, by way of the supporting surface, with a low-temperature gas such as ambient air, to establish significant clearances between the stack and the inner surface of the envelope which is then thermally shrunk around the stack by training jets of hot gas onto its outer surface. In zones where the envelope is in contact with the stack, as along edges of the latter, the heating intensity may be reduced to avoid fusion with individual wrappings.

Abstract: A burner for generating hot gases to be used for packaging purposes with thermal shrinkage of plastic foils has an elongate rectangular zone of transition between its pressure-distribution and combustion chambers, spanned by a flame-retaining tube forming narrow passages for the gas flow with the adjacent walls. A number of codirectionally curved sheet-metal baffles equispaced, and of equal radius of curvature, mounted on the downstream side of the tube and extending toward the opposite walls of the chamber, improve the combustion conditions of the gas mixture and lead to a higher velocity of the stream of hot gases leaving the burner, thus increasing the amount of ambient air entrained into the stream and thereby reducing the temperature of the combustion gases.

Abstract: Apparatus for pulling hoods made of shrinkable foil over stacks of wares comprising a supply spool, a continuous, flattened foil sleeve having a free openable end wound upon the supply spool, mobile gripping means for seizing the free end of the sleeve and for drawing the sleeve from the supply spool, support means for contacting and guiding the external surface of the drawn sleeve, spreading means supported by the support means and receivable within the free end of the sleeve for engaging and spreading apart the opposed walls of the drawn sleeve, a welding and cutting device for subsequently welding a cross-seam in the spread apart sleeve at a location on the sleeve remote from the free end and for subsequently severing the sleeve at a location adjacent to the cross-seam, thereby forming a newly formed separated hood having a spread apart open end and a sealed end while also providing the undetached portion of the sleeve with a newly formed, spread apart free end, the open end of the hood being seized by the