Abstract: A flexible container for lifting transportation and storing of bulk material is manufactured from a hose-like blank, where one half-length portion of the hose-like blank is turned inside out and threaded onto or fitted over the other half-length portion form an inner sack and an outer sack having a common base or individual abases. The hose-like blank has at a mid-length thereof two or more longitudinal slots or openings separated by the same distance around the circumference of the hose-like blank. One half-length portion is rotated with regard to the other half-length portion around a central axis of the hose-like blank, such that the material of the areas between the slots after rotation forms two or more integrated lifting loops.

Abstract: A single, fluid pressure-operated cylinder, which has a conventional slitter blade and punch releasably secured to the lower end of its piston rod, is secured to a plastic bag making machine so that the operating ends of the blade and punch project toward a stationary, horizontal support surface across which overlapping plastic webs pass during bag manufacturing. The webs are secured against movement during a slitting and punching operation by a pressure plate, which is also mounted on the piston rod for movement thereby into engagement with the plastic webs to clamp them against the stationary support surface during the initial advance of the rod. As the rod continues to advance it moves the blade and punch through the now-clamped plastic webs, after which the piston rod is retracted and the parts return to their inoperative positions.

Abstract: An envelope machine which makes two envelopes at once. One web is used up to a relatively advanced point in the envelope forming process to simultaneously form two envelopes. At a terminal portion of the envelope processing, the web is cut lengthwise to form two envelopes. The device also includes improved structure for maintaining uniform the tension on the web. This need for uniform tension is made more prevalent by the thickness of the web which must be used to form two envelopes in parallel. The structure of the present invention which maintains uniform the thickness of the web is formed herein by a dancer roll which moves in a longitudinal fashion in cooperation with movement of other associated rolls. Whenever the dancer roll reaches one of its stopping points, it sets off a limit switch which operates a piston to change the type of moving being applied to the dancer roles.

Abstract: Bag segments arriving one after the other in a travel direction at an upstream input station are first lifted one by one as they arrive at the input station, are inverted them, and are deposited in a stack at a downstream stacking station atop one of a pair of similar pin-type stacking carriages held at an upper level. The one stacking carriage and the stack carried thereby are periodically displaced downstream from the stacking station to a downstream station at the upper level and the other stacking carriage is raised in the stacking station from a lower level below the one carriage to the upper level with the one carriage such that the segments are subsequently deposited on the other carriage in the stacking station. The one carriage is then lowered in the downstream station from the upper level to the lower level to strip off the stack it carries and thereafter is displaced at the lower level back upstream to the stacking station.

Abstract: A process of severing and subsequently stacking web section is disclosed, which in their central portions are provided with locating holes and preferably consist of double bags which have been severed from a tubular or semitubular, continuous plastic film web and are closed by hot-wire welding and have opening-defining edges. The web sections are delivered by a delivering means preferably consisting of a so-called wicketer having pairs of inner and outer wicketer arms, which are arranged in a starlike array and rotate about a horizontal axis, the web sections are deposited by said delivering means in a stacking station into a stacking conveyor, which consists of endless tensile elements, which are trained around reversing pulleys or rollers and are intermittently driven and provided with upstanding stacking pins. The stacks formed by the web sections placed on the stacking pins are intermittently carried off by an intermittent advance of the tensile elements.

Abstract: A method of making a beverage packaging bag made of at least one laminar panel which has an inner layer and an outer layer with appropriate portions of the laminar panel bonded and thus sealed together by heating and a plurality of cuts provided in the outer layer to facilitate piercing of a straw through the panel, by directing a laser beam through a mask at the bag.

Abstract: This application discloses a method and apparatus for converting thermoplastic web material, flat or tubular, to produce bags. A conventional bag machine produces web segments provided with a group of centrally located holes and each segment is transferred by a conventional rotary transfer device to one of a plurality of platforms which are sequentially located at a stacking station. The platforms are provided with upwardly projecting pins on which the web sections are stacked. After the accumulation of a desired number of web segments on the platform located at the stacking station, the loaded platform is indexed away from the stacking station to a perforating station and then to a cutting or cutting and blocking station to thereby produce two bag stacks, each of which are retained on the associated platform by the pins.

Abstract: A stack of interlocked detachable bags, preferably formed from a thermoplastic foil strip, and each comprising two walls, a front wall and a back wall, preferably at least one handle-shaped incision positioned on one of said walls adjacent an upper filling opening, wherein the individual bags each have an interlock piece and are attached together with the aid of at least one interlock means engaging their interlock pieces, and by means of a row of perforations forming an edge of the interlock piece the individual bags are detachable from the interlocked stack by tearing off. On one of the walls of each bag adjacent an upper filling opening edge of that bag a reinforcing piece, preferably of plastic foil, with the interlock piece is attached so that the interlock piece protrudes above the filling opening edge. Advantageously the inside of the back wall is provided with the protruding interlock and reinforcing pieces.

Abstract: A method for obtaining wrapper sheet blanks from a continuous web having opposite parallel edges, wherein each blank is composed of first and second portions, the first portion having the shape of a rectangle and the second portion having the shape of a non-rectangular parallelogram joined to the first portion along a common imaginary edge.

Abstract: This application discloses a method and apparatus for converting thermoplastic web material, flat or tubular, to produce bags. A conventional bag machine produces web segments provided with a group of centrally located holes and each segment is transferred by a conventional rotary transfer device to one of a plurality of platforms which are sequentially located at a stacking station. The platforms are provided with upwardly projecting pins on which the web sections are stacked. After the accumulation of a desired number of web segments on the platform located at the stacking station, the loaded platform is indexed away from the stacking station to a perforating station and then to a cutting or cutting and blocking station to thereby produce two bag stacks, each of which are retained on the associated platform by the pins.

Abstract: Disclosed is an apparatus for slitting a continuous strip of thermoplastic web by a knife heated to a temperature below the melting or fusing temperature of the web. By heating the knife the cutting force is substantially reduced.

Abstract: There is disclosed a bag making machine for producing bags from an elongate strip of plastic web material. The disclosure relates to various improvements in the bag making machine such as the apparatus for cutting the bag handle aperture. The apparatus includes at least one circular cutting blade having a plunger movable relative thereto within its cutting periphery. The plunger includes a web piercing member on its leading face which member positively holds the web material relative to the cutting blade and plunger.

Abstract: An apparatus for forming aligned front and rear hand holes in the front and rear panels of a bag according to the invention has a support having a front face and an oppositely directed rear face adapted to respectively support the front and rear panels of the bag and formed with respective aligned front and rear annular recesses of a shape corresponding to that of the hand holes to be cut. Respective annular front and rear outer holddowns are engageable with the respective faces for pressing the respective panels thereagainst around the respective recesses. An annularly continuous front cutter blade is engageable in the front recess and an annular but discontinuous rear cutter blade is engageable in the rear recess. A rear inner holddown is also engageable with the rear face within the recess.

Abstract: An apparatus for making plastic handle bags from an advancing flat tubular web includes a knife supported above the moving web and reciprocated transversely by a cam roller to produce a sinusoidal-wave-like cut longitudinally of the web. A support guide having a slot at least as wide as the wave amplitude is positioned beneath the web so that in the event of an interruption of feed the guide lowers, withdrawing the web from the knife, which continues to reciprocate, thereby avoiding start-up inertial friction or chatter. Downstream of the cutting station a detour assembly phase shifts one of the half-tubes 180.degree. to align the transversely extending bag edges for heat sealing. The cutting support assembly is longitudinally movable of the web.

Abstract: A stack of detachably-connected, individually carryable bags of a plastic material, preferably plastic foil. Each bag has a front wall, a rear wall and an upper bag opening. The bag walls of each bag are provided with centrally positioned punch-out pieces positioned opposite each other adjacent the upper bag opening. The punch-out pieces may be removed by hand to form handle grips. The punch-out pieces of each of the bags in the ones of the bag walls that are on one and the same side of all of the bags in the stack are removed. Uniting the individual bags into a single stack without additional structural members is possible, when the punch-out pieces remaining in the stack and constructed as oblong perforations are interlocked with each other.

Abstract: An apparatus for segmenting a continuous running web into a stream of discrete articles by cutting the web transversely at uniformly longitudinally spaced intervals; and which apparatus may also effect U-folding of each of the discrete articles. The apparatus is of the type which includes a flight of longitudinally spaced, web engaging friction plates which provide cutter access to the web through spaces intermediate adjacent friction plates. The apparatus further includes a constant clearance infeed nip which is formed in part by the spaced friction plates of the flight passing over a circumferential portion of an infeed roll having circumferentially spaced, radially extending lugs, and which lugs are configured and disposed to engage the web by extending through the spaces intermediate the spaced friction plates. Alternatively, the flight of friction plates may be integrated into a unitary apertured conveyor belt; and the cutter may be integrated into such a constant clearance nip.

Abstract: A handle bag of a predetermined width is made from a synthetic-resin tube. This tube is fed at a predetermined feed speed through a cutting station where it is spanned over a cutting drum formed with an endless circumferentially extending and undulating cutting groove. A blade engages radially inwardly through this groove so that as the tube passes over the drum it is subdivided transversely into a pair of tube halves. The blade reciprocates back and forth transversely of the tube in the cutter groove by rotation of the drum at such a rate as to form on the confronting cut edges of the tube halves interfitting and staggered handle flaps. One of these tube halves is then detoured through a distance equal to an odd whole-number multiple of half of the bag width and then is realigned with the other tube half with the flaps in transverse alignment. The two tube halves are then seamed together simultaneously.

Abstract: Disposable receptacles for storing articles in sterile condition and having breather means integral with the walls thereof, as well as apparatus and methods for making such receptacles and the materials therefor, are disclosed. The receptacles are fabricated of a laminate comprising a layer of breathable barrier material such as paper and a layer of thermoplastic, polymeric material such as polyethylene. The breather means may be made by heat sealing the thermoplastic layers of a pair of laminated sheets together at small, selected areas and then separating the sheets causing localized delamination of the layers and the formation of ruptured, blister-like projections in the thermoplastic layers at the heat seal positions.

Abstract: For a method of welding multi-layer paper sacks with weldable inner surfaces, the outer layers are folded back from the weldable inner layer during welding. The welding energy reaches the inner layer directly. The welding process is substantially shortened in comparison with known methods, and both the production time and processing time with such paper sacks is reduced.

Abstract: In an apparatus for forming and separating the side edges of plastic bags of the type which have opposed interlocking closure strips, an intermittent transport device transports a half-tube of thermoplastic sheeting to a welding device. The sheeting is stopped while welding is performed. At a milling station upstream of the welding device, a milling apparatus is actuated while the half-tube is stopped to mill off a short length of each of the opposed closure strips at a position which coincides with the position at which welding will later be performed.