Dry offset rotary printer for labeling wine corks

A rotary printing machine for the printing of synthetic cork stoppers of the type having a surface which is normally non-ink receptive, comprising:

• (a) a Ferris wheel mechanism having a plurality of evenly spaced carriers mounted a predetermined radial distance from and parallel to the axis of rotation for the Ferris wheel mechanism, each carrier for rotatably holding a synthetic cork stopper;
• (b) an indexing drive system for controlled incremental rotation of the Ferris wheel mechanism through a predetermined sequence of steps;
• (c) a cork feeder for introducing a single synthetic cork stopper into each of the carriers as empty ones of said carriers are presented one-by-one at the cork feeder;
• (d) a corona discharger for treating the surface of each synthetic cork-stopper prior to being printed with sufficient energy to alter the surface energy of the cork sufficiently to permit receptivity of printing ink onto the surface of the cork;
• and
• (e) a rotary printing system for rotatably imprinting with ink the surface of each held synthetic cork stopper with an image.