Apparatus for shaping a spherical body

An apparatus for forming a shaped body composed of an outer covering layer and an inner filling, comprising:

• supply means for continuously supplying a cylindrical body composed of an outer layer of a plastic material and a central filling longitudinally in a downstream direction;
• a cutter assembly disposed downstream of said supply means having at least three ciircumferentially disposed cutter members arranged in sliding contact with each other so as to form a central opening which is openable for receiving a leading part of said cylindrical body and closable for shaping the received part into a shaped body and severing it from the remainder of said cylindrical body;
• and
• means for slidably moving said cutter members inwardly and outwardly of said central opening relative to each other in a direction transverse to the downstream direction of said cylindrical body so as to open and close said central opening of said cutter assembly to form each such shaped body,
• wherein said cutter members each are formed with at least two sliding surfaces, which are planar and oriented parallel to the downstream direction, and along which the adjacent sliding surfaces of the adjacent cutter members are slidable, said two sliding surfaces of each cutter member having a predetermined width and being arranged to converge inwardly toward said central opening to a tapered portion having a progressively decreasing width which is less than the width of said sliding surfaces, whereby as said cutter members are moved inwardly, said central opening is closed by the inwardly moving tapered portions of said cutter members forming a progressively decreasing contact area with the plastic outer layer of said cylindrical body so as to smoothly close the plastic outer layer over the inner filling of the resulting shaped body.