Oven with parison rotating means

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Thus, it is a purpose of the present invention to provide a new and improved oven for uniformly heating parisons in a manner which will overcome the disadvantages of previously known arrangements.
This purpose of the present invention is achieved by providing, in a parison heating oven of the type having a conveyor carrying therethrough a plurality of rotatable parison holders, a new and improved means positioned alongside at least certain portions of the conveyor for engaging the toothed wheels of the parison holders for turning these wheels about their axes as the parison holders move through the oven.
In accordance with a main feature of the present invention, this tooth engaging means combines the characteristic of sufficient stiffness to accomplish turning of the parison holders with the capability of yielding to forces exerted thereon by misalignment between the teeth of the toothed wheel and the tooth engaging means so that misalignment can rapidly and easily work itself out without damage to either the tooth engaging means or the teeth of the toothed wheel.
This is accomplished by constructing the tooth engaging means in the form of groups of stiff bristles.
In a preferred arrangment the bristles are in the form of individual tufts which preferably extend vertically and are spaced apart by a distance related to the pitch of the teeth on the toothed wheel so that the individual teeth would essentially move between the individual tufts.
If a misaligned tooth then directly abuts one of these tufts so as to push directly thereinto, the individual bristles, being flexible, would yield or separate, thus allowing the tooth to penetrate into that tuft.
Even in this case there is a reaction against the tooth in the direction of travel of the conveyor so that the parison holder will still continue to rotate without interruption.
Usually within less than one full turn the toothed wheel will position itself in proper relation with its teeth entering directly between the tufts