Abstract: An apparatus for pressing a mass into a coherent workpiece has a mold body defining a chamber and a mold liner in the chamber having a generally cylindrical pressing surface centered on an axis, directed in one radial direction, and defining a mold cavity and an opposite surface directed in an opposite radial direction. A plunger is engageable axially in the cavity. The cavity holds the mass in engagement with the pressing surface and with the plunger. The plunger can be pressed axially against the mass and thereby compress the mass in the cavity. A force, typically effected hydraulically, is exerted against the liner in the one radial direction between the mold body and the opposite surface of the liner to thereby elastically deform the liner in the one radial direction toward the mass and radially compress the liner and mass in the cavity.

Abstract: A foil applicator for particle board and the like has a stack of foils positioned above the transport path for the boards and provided with a suction feeder which delivers the foils to a platform from which the foils are fed by belt feeders to the upper surface of the board. At the upstream of the stack, a further platform is provided and receives foil sheets from the stack and feeds those foil sheets to a suction belt inverter which delivers the sheets in an inverted form to the conveyor for application to the top or bottom of the board.

Abstract: Foil sheets are removed from two stacks located one above the other on a stack rack by a swingable transfer assembly having a transfer platform along the sides of which guide rails carry a suction beam which, as the transfer assembly is swung up and down, can engage the uppermost foil sheet on one or the other stack. The suction beam draws the foil sheets onto the transfer platform where the foil sheet is oriented or aligned and from which the foil sheet is drawn onto a deposition station which can have belts carrying the laminate or in a direction orthogonal to the destacking transfer direction.