Method and apparatus for producing plastic-covered containers

In apparatus for assembling a preformed, highly circumferentially oriented thermoplastic sleeve that is heat shrinkable on a container article;

• wherein the sleeves of said thermoplastic are carried on a plurality of spaced mandrels of a turret device, and including a final heating device spaced from the turret device for totally heat shrinking the sleeves on the articles, an article carriage having plural spaced apart chucks thereon carrying said articles in a path in registry with the mandrels at an assembly station and thereafter, upon receiving a thermoplastic sleeve on the article, carrying same into and through said final heating device, and a reciprocating sleeve stripper means operable in response to movement of each of the mandrels by said turret through the assembly station by a cam and follower for shifting the stripper means axially along the mandrels from a retracted first position to an extended second position thereby transferring each sleeve telescopically from the mandrels to the articles in an assembled position with the stripper means at said second position, the improvement therein comprising:
• an elongated, narrow heat applying means, and
• means supporting the heat applying means along the path of the movement of the articles at the assembly station whereat the stripper means is in its extended second position,
• said supporting means maintaining the elevation of the narrow, elongated heat applying means opposite an intermediate region of the assembled sleeve while carried in said path toward said final heating device for heating a band-like region of the thermoplastic sleeve intermediate its axial ends while carried on the container in its path along said heat applying means sufficiently to shrink an annular band-like region of the sleeve into firm engagement with the article, thereby assuring the assembled position of the sleeve on the article at the final heating device.