Portable plastic film wrapping system

Portable apparatus adapted to be moved along a circular locus around an article disposed at a wrapping station so as to be capable of wrapping the article in wrapping film, comprising:

• a manually movable portable push-cart;
• a vertical mast member mounted upon said portable push-cart and having a plurality of vertically spaced apertures defined therein;
• a film roll carriage vertically movable upon said vertical mast member;
• a roll of wrapping film mounted upon said film roll carriage;
• a counterweight operatively connected to said film roll carriage for effectively counterbalancing said film roll carriage and said roll of wrapping film mounted thereon such that when said manually movable portable push-cart is moved along the circular locus around the article disposed at the wrapping station so as to unwind said wrapping film from said roll of wrapping film and thereby wrap the article within said wrapping film as said wrapping film is being unwound from said roll of wrapping film, said counterweight will descend causing said film roll carriage and said roll of wrapping film mounted thereon to ascend so as to spirally wrap the article within said wrapping film, whereas when the movement of said push-cart along the circular locus around the article disposed at the wrapping station is terminated so as to no longer unwind said wrapping film from said roll of wrapping film, said counterweight will be maintained elevationally stationary so as to in turn maintain said film roll carriage elevationally stationary;
• and
• a dual-stop pin mechanism operatively mounted upon said film roll carriage and comprising a pair of stop pins which are operatively connected together so as to be alternatively movable between first extended and second retracted positions such that when a first one of said pair of stop pins is moved toward said first extended position so as to be operatively engaged with one of said plurality of vertically spaced apertures defined within said mast member in order to lockingly retain said film roll carriage at a particular elevational position with respect to said vertical mast member, a second one of said pair of stop pins is moved toward said second retracted position so as to be operatively disengaged from said plurality of vertically spaced apertures defined within said mast member, and alternatively, when said first one of said pair of stop pins is moved toward said second retracted position so as to be operatively disengaged from said plurality of vertically spaced apertures defined within said mast member, said second one of said pair of stop pins is moved toward said first extended position so as to be operatively engaged with one of said plurality of vertically spaced apertures defined within said mast member so as to lockingly retain said film roll carriage at a particular elevational position with respect to said vertical mast member, whereby said film roll carriage can be safely moved along said vertical mast member in an incremental manner.