MOLDING APPARATUS WITH RECIPROCATING MOLD TUNNEL CAPABLE OF FORMING DIFFERENT PRODUCTS SHAPES

摘要

A molding apparatus comprises a moving mold tunnel formed by an upstream (23 ) and at least one downstream (37, 41) mold block, both of which move back and forth along a mold path. The apparatus further includes an extruder die (22) with at least one plastic flow channel (51, 53) having a channel mouth (52, 54) which feeds plastic to the mold tunnel. The upstream mold block (23) has first (25) and second (31) product shaping regions with the first product shaping region (25) being positioned to receive the plastic from the mouth (52) of the plastic flow channel (51) with the second plastic region (31) remaining upstream away from the mouth (52) of the plastic flow channel (51) in a first molding stage of the apparatus. In a second molding stage of the apparatus, both the first (25) and the second (31) product shaping regions o f the upstream mold block (23) are positioned to receive the plastic from the mouth (52) of the plastic flow channel (51). The downstream mold block (37) has product shaping regions to accept the product shaped in both the first (25) and the second (31) product shaping regions of the upstream mold block (23).