METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FABRICATING THERMOPLASTIC CONTAINERS

A method and apparatus for fabricating a nestable container of thermoplastic material in which cylindrical sleeves of the material are formed by positioing a rectangular blank of the material cut from a supply around a sleeve forming mandrel moving along a processing path with the ends of the blanks overlapping and sealing the overlapping ends together, transferring the sleeves onto container forming mandrels having a contour conforming to the interior of the containers and spaced vertically from the sleeve forming mandrels to move along a path vertically spaced from and partially overlapping the processing path of the sleeve forming mandrels such that the ends of the sleeves extend beyond the ends of the mandrels, exposing the sleeves on the container forming mandrels to heat to shrink them into conformance with the container forming mandrels with the ends of the sleeves forming an annular surface extending across the bottom of the container forming mandrels, enclosing the end portions of the shrunk sleeves to form a liquid type seal on the bottom of the containers which are subsequently removed from the mandrels.