GB1378402A - Method of packaging goods - Google Patents

Abstract

1378402 Wrapping goods; load handling pallet M L H BERGHGRACHT 15 June 1972 [15 June 1971] 28187/72 Headings B8C and B8H A method of packaging articles comprises forming a base of a sheet of plastics or plastics coated material and a plurality of support members, the sheet and/or the support members being arranged to define a plurality of openings for receiving the tines of a fork lift, stacking the articles on the base, enveloping the stack with heat-shrinkable sheet plastics material and heat shrinking the package. In one embodiment, Fig. 2, the base sheet 13 is glued to the top surfaces of two profile members 5 supplied from a stack into a pair of parallel channels 4 in an intermittently driven carrier. In another embodiment, Fig. 5, the sheet 13 is moulded to include two parallel grooves 42, 43 for accommodating the fork lift tines and support members 47 are placed on the sheet either side of the grooves. A sheet of cardboard (not shown) is placed over the moulded base sheet and the support members before the articles are stacked. The carrier of the plant used to form this second embodiment, includes upstanding plates 45, 46. The sides and top of the sack may be covered by conveying the stack into a transverse screen 20 of the plastics material, vertically sealing and severing the plastics material behind the stack, and folding and welding the plastics material over the top of the stack by means of folding fingers (29, Fig. 1) and horizontal welding bars 31, 32. Alternatively in an embodiment wherein the base comprises overlapping portions of two sheets arranged in a cruciform fashion, portions of these sheets extending from base forming portions are folded up and over the top of the stack. In a further embodiment a casing of plastics material may be placed around the stack. In embodiments wherein the base sheet is initially separate from the remainder of the sheet material enveloping the stack, the peripheral marginal portions 14 of the base sheet are folded upwardly into overlapping engagement with the plastics material covering the stack sides by ploughs or air jets, and are sealed thereto during passage through a heat shrink furnace.