Abstract: An apparatus for extruding plastic, including a plastic feed, an extruder, a colored liquid additive supply, a positive displacement metering pump, and a controller. The extruder has a housing receiving plastic from the plastic feed, a heat source, and a screw adapted to drive plastic through the housing The pump supplies colored liquid additive from the supply to the plastic in the phase change section of the extruder housing. The controller controls the drive rate of the screw and the pump to supply a selected volume of colored liquid additive per unit of time which is based on the drive rate of the screw. In use, the extruder is converted to adding a different color without cleaning the housing feeding section.

Abstract: A rotary cutter separates a molten plastic pellet from a nozzle and deposits the molten plastic pellet into a mold of a mold cavity. The cutter blade includes a cutter blade and a cutter shaft rotatable about an axis of the shaft. The cutter blade is mounted to extend radially from an end of the shaft, the shaft positionable adjacent the nozzle such that the rotary path of the cutter blade closely conforms to a facing surface of the nozzle. An air conduit extends through the cutter shaft to the cutter blade. An air orifice in communication with the air conduit is oriented to direct a stream of air radially along the cutter blade to displace a molten plastic pellet from the cutter blade with a stream of pressurized air. The delivery of pressurized air is precisely timed to displace the pellet from the cutter blade and into the mold cavity.

Abstract: An apparatus delivers plural molten plastic pellets into cavities for compression molding of the pellets into bottle closures or bottle closure liners. The apparatus is provided for delivering molten plastic pellets from a supply of molten plastic to a plurality of molding blocks, each molding block having a row of cavities. The molding blocks are carried on a rotating carousel. The apparatus includes a rotating multi-cutter with a plurality of cutter blades, and a manifold block which receives the extruded molten-plastic and delivers the molten plastic to a plurality of nozzles, each nozzle aligned with one or more of the cutter blades. The cutter blades remove a row of plastic pellets from the molten plastic at the nozzles and deliver the plastic pellets into one row of cavities of a molding block.