Apparatus and method for manufacturing a container from a thermoplastic resin foam sheet

Abstract

An apparatus and a method for manufacturing a container from a thermoplastic resin foam sheet comprising: (A) A free, perpendicularly movable heating device composed of at least three pressing blades arranged so as to form a polygonal shape by connecting their ends to one another respectively, each of said pressing blades having a V-shaped cross section at its edge, the cross-sectional angle of said edge being smaller by 10-25.degree. than the angle of bend of a flat thermoplastic resin foam sheet, a plurality of cutting blades, each of which has the edge level higher by 0.5-1.5 mm than the edge level of the linear pressing blade, being disposed at a position deviated by 1-2 mm diagonally outward from the corner of the polygon defined by the arrangement of the pressing blades, with the opening angle of said cutting blades not exceeding 90.degree.. (B) A hollow mold which has a surface to accommodate the unfolded thermoplastic resin foam sheet formed by means of the linear pressing blade and the cutting blade provided on the heating device and which has a surface to join the bending lines and the joining sides of the unfolded sheet in fabrication, and (C) A cutout piece ejecting device having a scraper which moves forward and backward in differentiated routes for ejecting the cutout pieces which have been cut out by said cutting blades on the surface of the above hollow mold, characterized by lowering the heating device to form the thermoplastic resin foam sheet, guided to the surface of the hollow mold into an unfolded sheet, ejecting the resulting cutout pieces by means of the cutout piece ejecting device, pressing the unfolded sheet in the hollow mold so as to weld the bend lines and the joining portions thereof to obtain a container.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.