Method of dry abrasive delabeling of plastic and glass bottles
AssigneeLangmack Company International
InventorsClark B. Langmack, Charles E. Langmack, John C. Langmack
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A dry abrasive delabeling apparatus for both plastic and glass bottles, sometimes called a label stripper, in which the bottles are fed by an in-feed starwheel to a circular starwheel which rotates the bottles slowly. Within the starwheel are wire bristle brushes rotating at a high speed against the bottles to flick off paper, foil, or plastic from the label on the bottle while restraining the bottle in close contact to the ends of the wire bristle by means of a rubber bladder to press against the bottles. The bottles are held against the wire bristles while the bottles are rotated as they are held against the bladder. The debris is vacuumed away from the apparatus.
Claims9
A method of dry abrasive delabeling of plastic or glass bottles having either paper labels or plastic labels, comprising the steps of:
- a) feeding bottles to an in-feed starwheel conveyor;
- b) feeding the bottles from the starwheel in-feed to a circular starwheel for delabeling;
- c) abrading the bottles within the circular star wheel with a wire bristle brush having wire bristles rotated at relatively high speed with ends of the bristles applying an impinging force on the sides and neck of the bottles, thereby removing the labels from the bottles;
- d) rotating the bottles on the starwheel to roll the bottles against a bladder which is inflated to a pressure set by a pressure sensor switch to apply pressure on the bottles that acts against the impinging force applied by the wire bristles;
- e) off loading the bottles from the circular star wheel to a star conveyor;
- and
- f) evacuating and collecting dust particle debris created from the abrading step.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.