Abstract: A system and method for centering a clay plug on a potter's wheel before rotation of the potter's wheel includes a rotatable adapter having a central axis aligned with the central axis of the potter's wheel, a rotatable toroidal disk bat whose central axis is aligned with central axis of the rotatable adapter, and a clay plug having a central axis aligned with the central axis of the rotatable toroidal disk bat.

Abstract: An injection molding apparatus includes an injection piston that is slidable within a nozzle having a movable valve gate pin. The injection piston is movable from a retracted position to an extended position in order to force melt towards a mold cavity. A valve is located at a forward end of the piston to selectively block communication between a recess, which is provided in an outer wall of the piston adjacent the valve, and a melt chamber of the nozzle. Movement of the injection piston from the retracted position to the extended position causes the valve to close so that the predetermined volume of melt located below the valve is forced into the mold cavity, when the valve gate pin opens the mold gate.

Abstract: An injection molding apparatus includes an injection piston that is slidable within a nozzle having a movable valve gate pin. The injection piston is movable from a retracted position to an extended position in order to force melt towards a mold cavity. A valve is located at a forward end of the piston to selectively block communication between a recess, which is provided in an outer wall of the piston adjacent the valve, and a melt chamber of the nozzle. Movement of the injection piston from the retracted position to the extended position causes the valve to close so that the predetermined volume of melt located below the valve is forced into the mold cavity, when the valve gate pin opens the mold gate.

Abstract: A reinforcing tape for a slide fastener and a slide fastener having a pair of fastener tapes whose end portions are reinforced with the reinforcing tapes are disclosed. On the end portion of a fastener tape to which a pin-and-box separator of a slide fastener is fitted, a transparent film layer formed of a thermoplastic elastomer or a thermoplastic resin and a fiber reinforcement layer formed of either a reticular sheet of monofilaments or a thin-layer non-woven fabric of fibers manufactured from a thermoplastic resin of the same type as the transparent film layer are superposed through the medium of an adhesive layer, with the transparent film layer constituting itself a surface layer.

Abstract: A self-propelled slip form, closed at its top, front, and sides, but open at its rear and bottom, provides a pressure chamber having the cross-sectional shape of a wall or similar structure to be cast. Such slip form may be advanced continuously at a slow rate or in stages, but whichever it is, the advance is due solely to pressure exerted against the closed front of the slip form through the intermediacy of the deposited, unset concrete or the like. Such pressure can be utilized to pre-stress reinforcing material on a continuous basis as it is fed into the pressure chamber simultaneously with deposit of the concrete or the like.