Apparatus for fitting a resilient ring on a bottle

Abstract

A resilient ring is fitted over a shoulder and onto the bail band indent of a bottle by an apparatus having means for supporting and locating the resilient ring, means to locate and align the bottle with the ring, and ram means for relatively displacing the ring and bottle to force the ring over the shoulder of the bottle, the ring support means engaging the shoulder of the bottle under radially inwardly directed biassing forces while supporting the ring as it is deformed to pass over the shoulder means. Preferably, the support means has a multiplicity of circumferentially spaced jaw elements displaceable under spring biassing in respective guides. In another aspect, an important application of the invention is to a ring member for supporting an intravenous injection solution bottle in an inverted suspended mode, the ring member having an annular cylindrically shaped band integrally formed of plastics material with a flexible hoop connected at respective ends to the exterior side of the band at locations on generally opposite sides of the band and being flexibly displaceable to a working position in which the hoop member extends over the bottom of the inverted bottle.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.