Banding machine

Abstract

A machine for placing a band of shrinkable plastic film over one or more objects to be banded, comprising: 1. means for dispensing shrinkable flattened plastic tubing, 2. means for opening a section of said flattened tubing and for reflattening the opened tubing in a plane perpendicular to its initial plane, 3. means for feeding a preselected length of said reflattened tubing into position for being cut, and 4. means for cutting said preselected length of reflattened tubing into a band, and the improvement comprising: 5. means for grasping said band and placing it over said object, comprising a plurality of elongated parallel fingers capable of coordinated linear motion in the direction of the longitudinal axis of the fingers and lateral or transverse motion, thereby enabling said fingers (a) to contract sufficiently to enter inside the band before it is cut from the tube, (b) to expand against the inside surface of the band to open it fully and to grasp it before or as the band is cut, (c) to place the expanded band around said object, and thereafter (d) to contract sufficiently to slip out from inside the band, leaving the band positioned around said object.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.