Carton blanks handling mechanism

Abstract

A feeding and loading mechanism for use in pulling carton side-seam-sealed blanks from a magazine, opening same into tubes, and loading the latter onto mandrels of an indexing turret on a liquid-carrying container forming, filling, and sealing machine. The feeding and loading mechanism includes a slidably mounted carrier having at least one vacuum cup mounted at each end thereof aligned with oppositely disposed magazines, a forming shoe fixedly secured between each magazine and adjacent mandrel for opening each tubular flat side-seam-sealed blank into a tube as the blank moves therepast, a loading finger for loading each tube onto the respective mandrel, and a drive assembly operatively connected to the carrier for reciprocally moving same to alternately remove blanks from the oppositely disposed magazines to alternately process same.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.