Continuous process for producing, reheating, and blow molding parisons

A continuous process for producing a parison and blow molding said parison into conformity with a molding zone cavity to produce a molded article having substantially uniform wall thickness, said process comprising:

• a. producing tubular extrudate and cooling said extrudate below its orientation temperature;
• b. separating said tubular extrudate into parison preforms;
• c. passing said preforms through a heating zone containing a primary heating source while maintaining said heating zone at an elevated temperature and maintaining the parison preforms essentially free of any angular rotation, thereby heating said preforms to an average temperature within the orientation range;
• d. passing said heated preforms through a secondary radiant heating zone while maintaining the parison preforms essentially free of any angular rotation;
• e. directing radiant energy in said secondary radiant heating zone on at least three peripheral radial portions disposed about the circumference of each parison so that each of said peripheral radial portions is selectively heated to a different orientation temperature;
• f. passing the thus irradiated parison into a molding zone;
• g. creating a pressure differential sufficient to expand the parison into conformity with a molding zone cavity;
• h. measuring the thickness of the wall of the expanded parison at least at a point within each of said selectively irradiated peripheral radial portions;
• and
• i. controlling the orientation temperature of the equivalent peripheral radial portion of preforms passing through said radiant heating zone in response to said measured thickness to obtain molded articles having walls of substantially uniform thickness.