Abstract: Method and apparatus for adjusting the lay of a wire rope, in which a torque remaining in the wire rope is detected while the wire rope is drawn out from a reel, and the lay of the wire rope is increased or decreased in accordance with the result of the detection to remove the residual torque; further, the pitch of lay of the wire rope after increasing or decreasing of the lay is measured, then the lay is increased so that the pitch of lay becomes smaller by a predetermined amount than the measured pitch of lay, and the pitch of lay before increasing of the lay is measured continuously in this state. When the residual torque becomes zero in the above torque control, the operation shifts to the above pitch control, and when the measured pitch of lay before increasing of the lay exceeds a predetermined range in the pitch control, the operation shifts to the torque control.

Abstract: A plunger for forming hollow glass articles and having a nose piece projecting outwardly of its pressing surface, incorporates a main cooling system for cooling the main pressing surface extending around the nose piece, and a sub-cooling system located interiorly of the nose piece and independently of the main cooling system for cooling the nose piece, thereby making it possible to control the temperature of the nose piece by means of the sub-cooling system which employs a refrigerant having a different cooling efficiency from the refrigerant of the main cooling system.