Case sealer for sealing the bottom flaps of erected and squared cases

Claim 1

In a case sealing machine, the improvement comprising: A. a case erecting station at which prescored case blanks formed of fibrous material are erected into open-top cases, each of said cases being characterized by a substantially squared configuration and having articulated, vertically oriented leading, trailing, and opposite side wall panels including downwardly projected, articulated bottom flaps; B. a case sealing station disposed in spaced relation with said erecting station; C. an intermittently operable conveyor for serially advancing each of said cases from said case erecting station to said case sealing station including an elongated, horizontally oriented support plate, and a pair of intermittently operable conveyor chains extended in spaced parallelism between said case erecting station and said case sealing station along opposite sides of said support plate, and a plurality of flight bars, each of said flight bars being orthogonally related to the longitudinal axis of said support plate and connected at the opposite ends thereof to said pair of conveyor chains for serially engaging the trailing wall panel of each of said cases and imparting thereto advancing motion; D. means disposed between said case erecting station and said case sealing station for applying a film of fluid adhesive to selected surfaces of selected bottom flaps of each of said cases; E. means for positioning said bottom flaps of each of said cases in an overlapping relationship; F. means for causing each of said cases to assume and maintain a substantially rectangular configuration at said case sealing station including a pair of elongated, resiliently supported brake shoes disposed between said conveyor chains and arranged in substantially spaced parallelism with the longitudinal axis of said support plate and adapted to frictionally engage the opposite side wall panels of each of said cases for restraining the case against motion imparted thereto by a flight bar; and G. means located at said case sealing station for forcing the film of adhesive applied to selected flaps into the fibrous material of the overlapping flaps of each case including an axially extensible ram having a pressure plate affixed thereto and supported thereby for displacement along a vertically oriented path into impacting engagement with the overlapping flaps of each case for a period of a predetermined duration.