System for thermoforming articles such as picnic plates in a pair of simultaneously fed, continuous thermoplastic webs which subsequently move into nested relation, and then dually trimming the nested articles from the webs

In an improved synthetic plastic article production system for producing products such as picnic plates;

• a frame;
• a mold station supported thereby and incorporating an intermediate mold having projecting male mold parts on one side and conforming female mold cavities on its opposite side;
• a first movable end mold on the side of the intermediate mold having the male mold parts and having recessed female mold cavities aligned and dismensioned to mate therewith;
• a second movable end mold on the side of the intermediate mold having the recessed female mold cavities and having projecting male mold parts aligned and dimensioned to mate therewith;
• mechanism for disposing portions of a pair of heated, moldable synthetic plastic webs on opposite sides of the intermediate mold, and for later removing them from the mold station;
• drive mechanism for moving each of said first and second end molds toward the intermediate mold and conforming said portions of the webs to the female cavities and male parts of the intermediate mold, and for separating said first and second movable end molds from the intermediate mold;
• mechanism for converging said webs toward one another after they have been removed from the mold station to nest the products formed in the two webs;
• and trim mechanism including a relatively movable punch and trim die assembly operable for severing the nested products from the nested webs simultaneously with a single punching stroke.

A method of producing generally concavo-convex synthetic plastic containers and like articles, such as picnic plates, in apparatus comprising:

• a mold station having a stationary intermediate mold with projecting male mold parts on one side and directly opposite recessed female mold cavities in alignment therewith on the other;
• a first movable mold, on the side of the intermediate mold having the male mold parts, provided with recessed mating female mold cavities of substantially the same dimensions as the said cavities in the intermediate mold;
• a second mold on the other side of the intermediate mold having aligned projecting male mold parts mating with the cavities in the intermediate mold;
• mechanism for supplying a pair of heated, moldable synthetic plastic webs in unison on opposite sides of the intermediate mold and for later removing them in unison from the mold station;
• drive mechanism for moving each of said first and second movable molds toward the intermediate mold and molding the articles, and for separating said first and second movable molds from the intermediate mold;
• and a punch and severing die;
• the steps of:
• moving heated sections of the webs in unison to opposite sides of the intermediate mold when the said first and second movable molds are separated therefrom;
• moving the first and second movable molds to the intermediate mold to thermoform conforming products in both of the webs;
• moving the first and second movable molds away from the intermediate mold and indexing the webs in unison to remove the products formed from the mold station, converging the webs toward one another to nest the aligned articles formed in the respective webs in pairs;
• and punching pairs of the nested articles from the webs in a single relative movement of the punch and severing die.