Apparatus for making, filling, closing and boxing bags

Claim 1

In an apparatus for making, filling, closing and boxing bags including a vertically oriented hollow mandrel about which a hose of sealable sheet is continuously formed, means for cyclically providing a transverse seam on the hose; and cutting means for cyclically severing the hose at the transverse seam for providing precedingly filled, sealed bags; the improvement comprising (a) a base plate situated underneath said mandrel for supporting serially positioned and advanced, upright-oriented bag-receiving boxes open at their top and bottom; (b) means defining an opening provided in said base plate and aligned with said mandrel; (c) vertically displaceably supported bag grasping means for penetrating through said opening into a box positioned underneath said mandrel and for downwardly pulling a filled and closed bag into the box; (d) two face-to-face oriented support plates situated underneath the transverse seam-providing means and the cutting means for supporting opposite sides of the filled bags; and (e) means for vertically displacing in unison said support plates, said transverse seam-providing means and said cutting means and for horizontally displacing said support plates towards and away from one another; the means for vertically and horizontally displacing each support plate including (1) a vertically displaceable carriage; (2) a parallelogram linkage connecting each said support plate to the respective carriage to provide for the vertical displacement of each said support plate; and (3) actuating means connected to the linkage to provide for the horizontal displacement of each said support plate.