Apparatus for making laminated labels

Claim 1

Apparatus for making labels of the type comprising a central substrate layer disposed between first and second cover layers, and a backing layer, said apparatus comprising: means for holding a stack of sheets of substrate material; means for feeding individual sheets from said stack one after another at a substantially uniform rate in a forward direction for travel along a path through said apparatus with the leading end of one sheet closely adjacent the trailing end of the sheet in front of it; means for rotatably mounting a first supply roll of web material corresponding to said first cover layer; means for rotatably mounting a second supply roll of web material corresponding to said second cover layer; means for rotatably mounting a third supply roll of web material corresponding to said backing layer; said web material being adapted to be pulled from said first, second and third supply rolls; first glue-applicator means for applying glue to one face, constituting the inside face, of web material pulled from the first supply roll; second glue-applicator means for applying glue to one face, constituting the inside face, of web material pulled from the second supply roll; third glue applicator means for applying glue to one face, constituting the inside face, of web material pulled from the third supply roll; means downstream from said first, second and third glue-applicator means for combining said sheets and web materials as the sheets are fed forwardly and as the web materials are pulled from respective first, second and third supply rolls to form a laminated strip of label material, said combining means being adapted to bring the inside glue-bearing faces, of web material pulled from said first and said second supply rolls into face-to-face contact with opposite faces of each sheet of substrate material to form said cover layers, and to bring the inside glue-bearing face of web material pulled from said third supply roll into face-to-face contact with the outside face of one of the cover layers to form said backing layer; and die cutting means downstream from said combining means for cutting through said cover layers of said laminated strip thereby to form individual labels on the backing layer.