U.S. patent application number 12/596191 was filed with the patent office on 2010-05-13 for multi-color printed and embossed lid for cream jars and method for producing such lids.
This patent application is currently assigned to BEIERSDORF AG. Invention is credited to Holger Dede, Torsten Lafrenz, Matthias Trucks.
Application Number | 20100116775 12/596191 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 39545038 |
Filed Date | 2010-05-13 |
United States Patent
Application |
20100116775 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Dede; Holger ; et
al. |
May 13, 2010 |
MULTI-COLOR PRINTED AND EMBOSSED LID FOR CREAM JARS AND METHOD FOR
PRODUCING SUCH LIDS
Abstract
A method for producing a printed and embossed deep-drawn lid of
aluminum that is circular in plan view. The method comprises: (a)
printing an aluminum plate with at least one of a varnish and a
paint; (b) cutting the aluminum plate; (c) deep drawing; (d)
embossing; and (e) optionally, edge rolling. Steps (b), (c), (d)
and optionally (e) are carried out with a single tool. A lid
obtainable by this method is also disclosed.
Inventors: |
Dede; Holger; (Hamburg,
DE) ; Lafrenz; Torsten; (Hamburg, DE) ;
Trucks; Matthias; (Norderstedt, DE) |
Correspondence
Address: |
GREENBLUM & BERNSTEIN, P.L.C.
1950 ROLAND CLARKE PLACE
RESTON
VA
20191
US
|
Assignee: |
BEIERSDORF AG
Hamburg
DE
|
Family ID: |
39545038 |
Appl. No.: |
12/596191 |
Filed: |
April 4, 2008 |
PCT Filed: |
April 4, 2008 |
PCT NO: |
PCT/EP08/02696 |
371 Date: |
December 4, 2009 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
215/317 ;
29/17.2; 29/469.5; 413/18; 413/56; 413/8; 72/335; 72/336;
72/348 |
Current CPC
Class: |
Y10T 29/301 20150115;
B21D 51/44 20130101; A45D 40/0068 20130101; B21D 35/00 20130101;
Y10T 29/49906 20150115 |
Class at
Publication: |
215/317 ; 413/8;
72/348; 72/335; 72/336; 413/18; 413/56; 29/17.2; 29/469.5 |
International
Class: |
B21D 51/44 20060101
B21D051/44; B21D 51/38 20060101 B21D051/38; B21D 22/20 20060101
B21D022/20; B21D 28/00 20060101 B21D028/00; B21D 35/00 20060101
B21D035/00; B65D 41/12 20060101 B65D041/12; B65D 41/16 20060101
B65D041/16 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Apr 17, 2007 |
DE |
10 2007 018 778.7 |
Claims
1.-11. (canceled)
12. A method for producing a printed and embossed deep-drawn lid of
aluminum that is circular in plan view, wherein the method
comprises: (a) printing an aluminum plate with at least one of a
varnish and a paint; (b) cutting the aluminum plate; (c) deep
drawing; (d) embossing; and (e) optionally, edge rolling, (b), (c),
(d) and optionally (e) being carried out with a single tool.
13. The method of claim 12, wherein the method comprises, based on
a position of a driving crankshaft: (b) cutting the aluminum plate
135.degree. to 145.degree. after an upper dead-center position; (c)
deep drawing 140.degree. to 170.degree. after the upper dead-center
position; (d) embossing 170.degree. to 180.degree. after the upper
dead-center position; (e) optionally, edge rolling 180.degree. to
200.degree. after the upper dead-center position; and (f)
optionally, blowing out 330.degree. to 360.degree. after the upper
dead-center position.
14. The method of claim 12, wherein a dimensional variation between
a contour of an imprint and a contour of an embossing is no more
than 0.3 mm.
15. The method of claim 12, wherein the tool has an ejector which
is arranged with respect to a prospective lid shape towards an open
side of the lid at least with 50% of its area by from 0.4 mm to 0.9
mm.
16. The method of claim 12, wherein (i) the tool comprises an upper
die and a bottom die driven by a crankshaft, (ii) the bottom die
comprises at least a core, a blank holder comprising an integrated
rolling ring, and a die ring, (iii) the upper die comprises a male
die and an ejector, (iv) the ejector has an embossing die in its
central area, ventilation and mounting bores outside the embossing
die and an annular clamping area near an edge thereof, edges of
which have a spacing of at least 8 mm and which is free from bore
holes and mounting holes, (iv) the upper die is not freely
rotatable, (v) the bottom die also comprises an embossing die, and
(vi) the embossing dies of the upper and lower dies are aligned and
are recessed in the ejector and the core.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein the embossing die comprises on
the core two mounting bores and two ventilation/ejector bores.
18. The method of claim 16, wherein the tool has gap widths between
the bottom die and the upper die and between the male die and the
blank holder and core of from 20 .mu.m to 40 .mu.m.
19. The method of claim 12, wherein the tool has a throughput of at
least 150 pieces/min.
20. The method of claim 12, wherein the tool has a throughput of at
least 190 pieces/min.
21. The method of claim 12, wherein the aluminum plate comprises an
AlMg alloy comprising 2.5% of Mg.
22. A lid for a jar, wherein the lid comprises aluminum and is
painted, printed, deep-drawn and embossed, circular in plan view,
and substantially has a shape of a cylinder which is open on one
side, and wherein an imprint on a substantially flat surface has at
least one contour that substantially coincides with a contour of an
embossing.
23. The lid of claim 22, wherein a dimensional variation between
the contour of the imprint and the contour of the embossing is no
more than 0.3 mm.
24. The lid of claim 22, wherein the lid is obtainable by a method
which comprises: (a) coating an aluminum plate with at least one of
a varnish and a paint; (b) cutting the aluminum plate; (c) deep
drawing; (d) embossing; (e) optionally, edge rolling, (b), (c), (d)
and optionally (e) being carried out with a single tool.
25. The lid of claim 24, wherein the method comprises, based on a
position of a driving crankshaft: (b) cutting the aluminum plate
135.degree. to 145.degree. after an upper dead-center position; (c)
deep drawing 140.degree. to 170.degree. after the upper dead-center
position; (d) embossing 170.degree. to 180.degree. after the upper
dead-center position; (e) optionally, edge rolling 180.degree. to
200.degree. after the upper dead-center position; and (f)
optionally, blowing out 330.degree. to 360.degree. after the upper
dead-center position.
26. A jar containing a cosmetic preparation, wherein the jar
comprises the lid of claim 22.
27. A tool for making a lid for a jar which comprises aluminum and
is painted, printed, deep-drawn and embossed, circular in plan
view, and substantially has a shape of a cylinder which is open on
one side, wherein the tool comprises an upper die and a bottom die
driven by a crankshaft, the bottom die comprises at least a core, a
blank holder comprising an integrated rolling ring, and a die ring,
the upper die comprises a male die and an ejector, the ejector has
an embossing die in its central area, ventilation and mounting
bores outside the embossing die and an annular clamping area near
an edge thereof, edges of which have a spacing of at least 8 mm and
which is free from bore holes and mounting holes, the upper die is
not freely rotatable, the bottom die also comprises an embossing
die, and the embossing dies of the upper and lower dies are aligned
and are recessed in the ejector and the core.
28. The tool of claim 27, wherein the ejector is arranged with
respect to a prospective lid shape towards an open side of the lid
at least with 50% of its area by from 0.4 mm to 0.9 mm.
29. The tool of claim 27, wherein the embossing die comprises on
the core two mounting bores and two ventilation/ejector bores.
30. The tool of claim 27, wherein the tool has gap widths between
the bottom die and the upper die and between the male die and the
blank holder and core of from 20 .mu.m to 40 .mu.m.
31. The tool of claim 27, wherein the tool has a throughput of at
least 150 pieces/min.
Description
[0001] Jars as packaging are sufficiently well known. They can be
made from different materials, such as sheet metal, wood, plastic.
Sheet-metal jars can be produced from different metals, for
example, from aluminum, steel, brass. The jar can be produced from
the metal by means of trimming to size, folding, flanging or
soldering or welding. Another method is cold working, in particular
deep drawing. The joining of sheet metal edges is dispensed with
thereby.
[0002] A jar can be closed by a lid. Lids are conceivable in many
different designs: there are hinged lids (box of cigars), screw
lids (oil jar), push-on lids (tea jar, cookie jar or Nivea jar).
The lid can also be firmly attached to the jar, as in the case of a
canning jar.
[0003] The jar and/or lid are often designed for advertising
purposes. To this end the wall material can be coated with varnish
and paint, polished, labeled and/or embossed, depending on the
manufacturer's requirements. An interior coating with varnish and
paint, metal or plastic can also be provided.
[0004] Jars can have many conceivable shapes: in plan view they can
be rectangular, oval, round, octagonal, star-shaped or irregularly
shaped (e.g., "Garfield" the cat, "Mickey Mouse").
[0005] Most jars for practical use have a right angle between the
jar base and wall, which keeps the space requirement low for
shipping a plurality of jars in a case. However, the lid is often
not flat on the top, but more or less curved.
[0006] The subject matter of this invention are jars, the lids of
which are designed in a multi-colored manner and embossed, in
particular varnished and printed lids with lettering, which is
designed in a multi-colored manner as well as emphasized by
embossing. In particular the invention relates to lids that are
deep-drawn from aluminum, round, curved and can be produced in mass
production.
[0007] The production of painted and deep-drawn aluminum lids is
known per se. Production methods with high throughputs use a
combined cutting, drawing, rolling tool.
[0008] A tool of this type is driven via a crankshaft and permits
the production of 200 lids per minute on average. For each stroke,
one lid is punched out of a sheet-metal plate and subsequently
deep-drawn. The remaining edges on the lid edge are rolled so that
the finished lid can be blown out.
[0009] A suitable tool is shown in FIG. 1. The movements of the
tool during a cycle are likewise shown. The figure thereby shows
the principle of a conventional cycle as well as of a cycle
according to the invention.
[0010] The tool comprises a bottom die (1), (2), (3) and an upper
die (4) and (5). The bottom die has a core (1), a die ring (3) and
a so-called blank holder (2). The blank holder (2) has a rolling
ring (2a) on the top facing towards the core (1).
[0011] The upper die comprises a male die (4) and an ejector (5),
around which the male die (4) is oriented. A combination of this
type of upper die and bottom die is shown in FIG. 1. The upper die
is driven by a crankshaft. At the upper dead-center position)
(0.degree.) the tool is at its highest position during a cycle.
[0012] After the sheet-metal plate has been guided over the bottom
die, the cycle begins (FIG. 1A): The upper die is lowered onto the
bottom die and grips the sheet-metal plate with the male die (4)
and presses it onto the blank holder (2). This occurs with a
crankshaft position of approximately 135.degree. ( 6/8 stroke).
[0013] When the movement of the crankshaft continues further (FIG.
1B), the blank holder (2) is slowly lowered, whereby the die ring
(3) cuts a circular blank out of the sheet-metal plate (likewise
135.degree.).
[0014] In the further course of the cycle up to the lower
dead-center position (FIG. 1C), the male die (4) and blank holder
(2) gradually advance downwards, whereby the lid is slowly formed
from the circular blank over the core (1). Material thereby slides
through slowly between the blank holder (2) and the male die (4),
whereby the side wall of the lid is formed. After approximately 7/8
of the stroke, the ejector (5) is placed on the core (1) in a
spring-loaded manner. Now the top of the lid is formed between the
core (1) and the ejector.
[0015] During the last 1/8 of the stroke (FIG. 1D), the ejector (5)
is stationary, the male die (4) continues moving. At the lower
dead-center position (180.degree.), a hat-shaped structure is
formed. The hat brim thereby remains between the core (1) and male
die.
[0016] In the upward movement again after passing through the lower
dead-center position of the crankshaft (FIG. 1E), first the blank
holder (2) is conveyed upwards, whereupon the male die (4) slowly
yields backwards, but the ejector (5) remains stationary for 1/8 of
the stroke. The remaining hat brim is thus pressed into the rolling
ring of the blank holder and shaped to form a roller-shaped edge of
the lid. This all happens between a crankshaft position from 180
through about 200.degree..
[0017] Subsequently, the upper die is removed from the bottom die
again (FIG. 1F) and takes the lid with finished shape with it (FIG.
1G). This lid is blown out from the tool through an ejector stroke
and an air flow (FIG. 1H) at a crankshaft position between 330 and
360.degree..
[0018] A modern machine permits about 200 strokes per minute, thus
about 12,000 lids per hour can be shaped with one tool. Generally,
3 to 5 tools are used simultaneously, whereby 36,000-60,000 lids
can be produced per hour.
[0019] With such high throughputs, the sheet-metal plate must be
guided very exactly under the tools located at the upper
dead-center position. Furthermore, it must be ensured that the
spacing between the male die (4) in the upper ring and die ring (3)
in the bottom die peripherally is about 3 1/100 mm=30 .mu.m. It
must likewise be ensured that the drawing gap, that is, the space
between the core (1) and the blank holder (2), is exactly the sheet
metal thickness. This is not a trivial function in the case of the
very heavy tools exposed to high dynamic stresses. Conventional
upper dies are therefore generally arranged in a rotatable manner,
because this considerably facilitates the alignment of the upper
die to the bottom die for adjusting a correct drawing gap.
[0020] In addition to the male die (4), the ejector (5) is a highly
loaded tool part. This tool part has different bores that render
possible the attachment, dismantling and ventilation of the tool.
In a conventional manner, the bores and ventilation holes are
distributed in the ejector (5) over virtually the entire area of
the ejector (5). As a rule, 8-12 bores are provided.
[0021] However, no bores can be provided on the outer annular area
of the ejector oriented towards the male die (4). This area
represents a further clamping area of the tool, which is necessary
for absorbing the compressive forces during the rolling process
between the core (1) and the ejector (5).
[0022] If an additional embossing of the lid is also provided, the
lid must be separately embossed once again in a subsequent process
step after ejection from the cutting/drawing/rolling tool. It is
relatively easy, if the embossing does not have to be carried out
in an aligned manner, e.g., if an embossing of any orientation is
simply to be carried out on a single-color lid.
[0023] However, it becomes very complex when the embossing may have
only a single position of the lid on the embossing tool, if, e.g.,
a lettering is to be emphasized by the embossing as well as by the
imprinting, such as, e.g., in the case of a blue jar lid with
"Nivea" in white lettering, where the lettering in addition is to
be embossed over the entire area.
[0024] The alignment is hardly possible mechanically and would have
to be done by hand. This may be the reason why lids of this type
that are embossed and imprinted hitherto have not been available on
the market at all.
[0025] An integration of the embossing step into the described
automated cutting, drawing rolling process is not easily
accomplished either:
[0026] On the one hand, the free rotatability of the upper die,
which is necessary for the alignment of the upper die to the bottom
die, does not allow a lettering to project, since the rotation can
result in positions in which the positive embossed shape does not
coincide with the negative embossed shape on the upper die or
bottom die. This leads to damage to the embossing dies during a
throughput cycle.
[0027] On the other hand, there is no room at all for lettering on
the ejector (5) of the upper die due to the numerous bores, which
are used for ventilation and attachment purposes.
[0028] Furthermore, the embossing pressure and embossing time must
be sufficient to be able to emboss the very elastic aluminum at
all. The aluminum--Mg-containing Al alloys are used, which are
considerably more elastic than pure Al--tends to spring back to the
initial shape in the case of an embossing force action of only
short duration, whereby the freshly embossed edges easily become
round or flat. This is no problem at all with sheet steels, because
steel is much more easily malleable.
[0029] Furthermore, with the in-process embossing of an aluminum
lid, the so-called frog effect occurs: through material tension,
during movement the lid tends to make a noise that is reminiscent
of a snap-action toy and makes a very audible "plop" sound.
However, this is extremely undesirable.
[0030] Furthermore, the tool must be designed such that unembossed
lids can also be produced easily. A tool that can be used
exclusively for embossed lids represents an excessively high
expense for a process of this type.
[0031] The tool must therefore be provided such that it can be
converted to a standard tool without an embossing punch by just a
few actions.
[0032] This bundle of objectives is attained through a method for
producing printed and embossed deep-drawn aluminum lids that are
circular in plan view, characterized by a sequence of the following
process steps: [0033] a) coating, in particular printing, an
aluminum plate with varnish and/or paint, [0034] b) cutting the
aluminum plate, [0035] c) deep drawing, [0036] d) embossing, [0037]
e) optionally edge rolling, wherein the steps (b), (c), (d) and
optionally (e) are carried out with a single tool. The invention
also comprises a varnished, printed and embossed deep-drawn
aluminum lid that is circular in plan view, substantially in the
shape of a cylinder open on one side, in which the printing on the
substantially flat surface has at least one contour that also
represents the contour of the embossing, obtainable through a
sequence of the steps referenced in the previous sentence.
[0038] Through the method according to the invention it is possible
to integrate the embossing operation into the
cutting/drawing/rolling operation in a single-step process. The
embossing force is sufficient to emboss clean edges. It is easily
possible to align the embossing with the pre-painted lettering,
because the sheet-metal plate is guided through under the embossing
die only once by a two-axle servo system. Through the special
design of the ejector, it is possible to produce these jar lids
free from the frog effect. Furthermore, the embossing dies recessed
in the tools can be easily replaced by non-contoured dies. It is
thus possible to produce unembossed lids on the same tool.
[0039] It is preferred if in all this the dimensional variation
between the contour of the painting and the contour of the
embossing is no more than 0.3 mm. It is preferred if the tool
comprises an upper die and a bottom die, which are driven by a
crankshaft and the bottom die has at least one core (1), a blank
holder (2) with integrated rolling ring (2a) and a die ring (3),
the upper die has a male die (4) and an ejector (5) and the ejector
has an embossing tool in the area of its center, ventilation and
mounting bores outside the embossing die and an annular clamping
area (6) near to the edge, the edges of which have a spacing of at
least 8 mm and which is free from bore holes and mounting holes,
wherein the upper die is not freely rotatable and on the bottom die
likewise has an embossing die, wherein the embossing dies are
aligned to one another and are recessed in the ejector and core
(1).
[0040] It is further preferred thereby if the process steps take
place as follows: (b) cutting the aluminum plate 135 to 145.degree.
after upper dead-center position, (c) deep drawing 140 to
170.degree. after upper dead-center position, (d) embossing 170 to
180.degree. after upper dead-center position, (e) optionally edge
rolling 180 to 200.degree. after upper dead-center position and (f)
optionally blowing out 330 to 360.degree. after upper dead-center
position, in each case based on the position of the driving
crankshaft. Furthermore, it is preferred if the embossing die is
provided on the core (1) with two mounting bores and two
ventilation/ejector bores. It is very particularly preferred if the
tool has gap widths between the bottom die and the upper die and
between the male die (4) and the blank holder (2) and core (1) of
20 to 40 .mu.m. Furthermore, it is particularly preferred if the
tool has an ejector which is arranged with respect to the later lid
shape towards the open side of the lid at least with 50% of its
area by 0.4 to 0.9 mm. It is particularly advantageous if the
production is carried out on a tool with throughputs of at least
150, particularly preferably at least 190 pieces/min. It is thereby
very advantageous if the lid is made of an AlMg alloy with 2.5% Mg.
The invention also comprises a jar containing a cosmetic
preparation, in which the lid was produced as described above.
* * * * *