Apparatus for pressure-molding items made of plastics, such as caps for closing containers

Apparatus for the pressure-molding of cap items made of plastics, comprising:

• a rotating pressure-molding carousel composed of a supporting element that rotates about a vertical central axis;
• a plurality of pressure-molding units that are mounted on said rotating supporting element concentrically and at equal angular distances with respect to said central axis, each one of said units comprising an upper punch and a lower mold that has a molding cavity, said punches and molds cooperating with each other and being mutually movable along vertical axes;
• means for actuating said supporting element, so that said molding units advance along a circular path that includes a region for loading the plastics to be molded, a molding region, a cooling region, and a region for unloading the molded item;
• means for moving the punches with respect to the molds along the corresponding axes according to a preset criterion during the rotation of said supporting element;
• a device for extruding said plastics, provided with a nozzle;
• a head for feeding doses of the plastics to be molded, said head being rotatable about an axis that is parallel to said central axis and is external to said circular path;
• a plurality of removal elements that are mounted on said head concentrically with respect to said parallel axis and at the same angular distance, said elements being movable along a circular path that has a point which is tangent to said circular path of said molding units, each one of said removal elements being constituted by a substantially semicylindrical cup that has a concave portion that is orientated in the direction of the rotation of said head;
• said extrusion device being stationary with respect to said head, said nozzle ejecting upward a flow of plastics, and said cups removing, in succession, doses of plastics at the outlet of said nozzle;
• said head and said carousel being mutually synchronized so that the removal elements and the molds are mutually aligned in succession at said point of tangency;
• said head being mounted at the end of a linkage that is pivoted to the top of a vertical post and is movable by way of an actuator so as to move said head away from said carousel.