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29-494: Gemini Group was established in 1972 by Bill Roberts and Frank Peplinski. Initial business offerings included sewing seatbelts and blow molding seatbelt covers for automotive Tier 1 companies in the United States and Mexico. When customers began moving operations to Mexico, the company diversified operations and a plastic extrusion division was born. In 1979, the company partnered with two precision machining companies and

58-661: A Bronze 2009 Supplier Performance Award. In 2007, Johnson Controls gave Gemini Group a Gold Supplier Performance Award and in 2006, a Silver award. This article related to a manufacturing company is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Blow molding Blow molding (or moulding ) is a manufacturing process for forming hollow plastic parts. It is also used for forming glass bottles or other hollow shapes. In general, there are three main types of blow molding: extrusion blow molding, injection blow molding, and injection stretch blow molding. The blow molding process begins with softening plastic by heating

87-414: A bottle designed specifically for carbonated drinks. The Codd-neck bottle was designed and manufactured to enclose a marble and a rubber washer/gasket in the neck. The bottles were filled upside down, and pressure of the gas in the bottle forced the marble against the washer, sealing in the carbonation. The bottle was pinched into a special shape, as can be seen in the photo to the left, to provide

116-552: A chamber into which the marble was pushed to open the bottle. This prevented the marble from blocking the neck as the drink was poured. Soon after its introduction, the bottle became extremely popular with the soft drink and brewing industries, mainly in Europe , Asia and Australasia , though some alcohol drinkers disdained the use of the bottle. One etymology of the term codswallop originates from beer sold in Codd bottles, though this

145-569: A cooling period the blow mold opens and the core rod is rotated to the ejection position. The finished article is stripped off the core rod and as an option can be leak-tested prior to packing. The preform and blow mold can have many cavities, typically three to sixteen depending on the article size and the required output. There are three sets of core rods, which allow concurrent preform injection, blow molding and ejection. Injection Stretch Blow Molding has two main different methods, namely Single-stage and Double-stage process. The Single-stage process

174-498: A factor of 30 times. The process of injection blow molding ( IBM ) is used for the production of hollow glass and plastic objects in large quantities. In the IBM process, the polymer is injection molded onto a core pin; then the core pin is rotated to a blow molding station to be inflated and cooled. This is the least-used of the three blow molding processes, and is typically used to make small medical and single serve bottles. The process

203-409: A heated tube. Once the plastic is melted the screw stops rotating and linearly moves to push the melt out. With the accumulator method, an accumulator gathers melted plastic and after the previous mold has cooled and enough plastic has accumulated, a rod pushes the melted plastic and forms the parison. In this case the screw may turn continuously or intermittently. With continuous extrusion the weight of

232-531: A hollow tube forming a tube like piece of plastic with a hole in one end for compressed gas - known as a parison. The parison is captured by closing it into a cooled metal mold. Air is blown into the parison, inflating it into the shape of the hollow bottle , container, or part. After the plastic has cooled, the mold is opened and the part is ejected. "Straight extrusion blow molding is a way of propelling material forward similar to injection molding whereby an Archimedean screw turns, feeding plastic material down

261-441: A preform or parison . The parison is a tube-like piece of plastic with a hole in one end through which compressed air can enter. The plastic workpiece is then clamped into a mold and air is blown into it. The air pressure inflates the plastic which conforms to the mold. Once the plastic has cooled and hardened the mold opens and the part is ejected. Water channels within the mold assist cooling. The process principle comes from

290-532: A production machining company to form a manufacturing alliance. During the next two decades, the alliance continued to grow through the acquisition of a two-shot injection moulding company, the creation of a blow molding company, the development of an automotive interior trim manufacturing operation, and the addition of an aluminum extrusion tooling company. Each of the plastics and metals operations operated individually until 1996, at which time they united under one parent company, Gemini Group, Inc. The company

319-455: Is a bottle made of aluminium (or aluminum, outside of British English ). In some countries, it is also called a "bottlecan". It usually holds beer, soft drinks or wine. A hot water bottle is a bottle filled with hot water used to provide warmth. It can be made from various materials, most commonly rubber, but has historically been made from harder materials such as metal, glass, earthenware, or wood. Bottles are often recycled according to

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348-408: Is divided into three steps: injection, blowing and ejection. The injection blow molding machine is based on an extruder barrel and screw assembly which melts the polymer . The molten polymer is fed into a hot runner manifold where it is injected through nozzles into a heated cavity and core pin. The cavity mold forms the external shape and is clamped around a core rod which forms the internal shape of

377-450: Is generally dismissed as a folk etymology . The bottles were regularly produced for many decades, but gradually declined in usage. Since children smashed the bottles to retrieve the marbles, they are relatively scarce and have become collector items ; particularly in the UK. A cobalt-coloured Codd bottle today fetches hundreds of British pounds at auction. The Codd-neck design is still used for

406-535: Is one of the largest employers in Huron County, Michigan , where it operates four plastics plants and three metals plants. Outside of Michigan, Gemini Group operates facilities in Muscle Shoals, Alabama , El Paso, Texas , and Saltillo , Mexico. One of the former owners of Gemini Group, Bill Roberts, died on May 3, 2007. The Company is structured as follows: In 2009, Johnson Controls presented Gemini Group with

435-460: Is then again broken down into 3-station and 4-station machines. In the single-stage process, both preform manufacture and bottle blowing is performed in the same machine. The older 4-station method of injection, reheat, stretch blow and ejection is more costly than the 3-station machine which eliminates the reheat stage and uses latent heat in the preform, thus saving costs of energy to reheat and 25% reduction in tooling. The process explained: Imagine

464-754: The Japanese soft drink Ramune and in the Indian drink called Banta . The plastic is strain oriented in the stretch blow molding manufacturing process. Plastic bottles are typically used to store liquids such as water , soft drinks , motor oil , cooking oil , medicine , shampoo , milk , and ink . The size ranges from very small sample bottles to very large carboys . The main advantages of plastic bottles over glass are their superior resistance to breakage, in both production and transportation, as well as their light weight and low cost of production. Disadvantages include widespread plastic pollution . An aluminium bottle

493-465: The amphora ) and put into bottles only at the merchant's shop, if at all. This left large and often abused opportunities for fraud and adulteration, as consumers had to trust the merchant as to the contents. It is thought that most wine consumed outside of wine-producing regions had been tampered with in some way. Also, not all merchants were careful to avoid oxidation or contamination while bottling, leading to large bottle variation . Particularly in

522-531: The bottling line , can be sealed with an internal stopper , an external bottle cap , a closure , or induction sealing . First attested in 14th century. From the English word bottle derives from an Old French word boteille , from vulgar Latin butticula , from late Latin buttis ("cask"), a latinisation of the Greek βοῦττις ( bouttis ) ("vessel"). The glass bottle represented an important development in

551-530: The ISBM process, the preforms are heated (typically using infrared heaters) above their glass transition temperature, then blown using high-pressure air into bottles using metal blow molds. The preform is always stretched with a core rod as part of the process. Bottle A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (such as glass , plastic or aluminium ) in various shapes and sizes that stores and transports liquids . Its mouth, at

580-475: The blowing technique were established very early on. Because glass is very breakable, after the introduction of plastic, plastic was used to replace glass in some cases. The first mass production of plastic bottles was done in America in 1939. Germany started using this technology a little bit later but is currently one of the leading manufacturers of blow molding machines. In the United States soft drink industry ,

609-403: The case of port , certain conscientious merchants' bottling of old ports fetch higher prices even today. To avoid these problems, most fine wine is bottled at the place of production (including all port, since 1974). There are many sizes and shapes of bottles used for wine. Some of the known shapes: In 1872, British soft drink makers Hiram Codd of Camberwell , London, designed and patented

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638-403: The history of wine, because, when combined with a high-quality stopper such as a cork , it allowed long-term aging of wine . Glass has all the qualities required for long-term storage. It eventually gave rise to "château bottling", the practice where an estate's wine is put in a bottle at the source, rather than by a merchant. Prior to this, wine used to be sold by the barrel (and before that,

667-506: The idea of glassblowing . Enoch Ferngren and William Kopitke produced a blow molding machine and sold it to Hartford Empire Company in 1938. This was the beginning of the commercial blow molding process. During the 1940s the variety and number of products were still very limited and therefore blow molding did not take off until later. Once the variety and production rates went up the number of products created soon followed. The technical mechanisms needed to produce hollow-bodied workpieces using

696-614: The molding process. This is trimmed off by spinning a cutting blade around the container which separates the material. The excess plastic is then recycled to create new moldings. Spin Trimmers are used on a number of materials, such as PVC, HDPE and PE+LDPE. Different types of the materials have their own physical characteristics affecting trimming. For example, moldings produced from amorphous materials are much more difficult to trim than crystalline materials. Titanium nitride -coated blades are often used rather than standard steel to increase life by

725-443: The molecules are small round balls, when together they have large air gaps and small surface contact, by first stretching the molecules vertically then blowing to stretch horizontally the biaxial stretching makes the molecules a cross shape. These "crosses" fit together leaving little space as more surface area is contacted thus making the material less porous and increasing barrier strength against permeation. This process also increases

754-421: The number of plastic containers went from zero in 1977 to ten billion pieces in 1999. Today, an even greater number of products are blown and it is expected to keep increasing. For amorphous metals , also known as bulk metallic glasses, blow molding has been recently demonstrated under pressures and temperatures comparable to plastic blow molding. In extrusion blow molding, plastic is melted and extruded into

783-617: The parison drags the parison and makes calibrating the wall thickness difficult. The accumulator head or reciprocating screw methods use hydraulic systems to push the parison out quickly reducing the effect of the weight and allowing precise control over the wall thickness by adjusting the die gap with a parison programming device. Continuous extrusion equipment includes rotary wheel blow molding systems and shuttle machinery , while intermittent extrusion machinery includes reciprocating screw machinery and accumulator head machinery . Containers such as jars often have an excess of material due to

812-423: The preform. The preform consists of a fully formed bottle/jar neck with a thick tube of polymer attached, which will form the body. similar in appearance to a test tube with a threaded neck. The preform mold opens and the core rod is rotated and clamped into the hollow, chilled blow mold. The end of the core rod opens and allows compressed air into the preform, which inflates it to the finished article shape. After

841-411: The strength to be ideal for filling with carbonated drinks. In the two-stage injection stretch blow molding process, the plastic is first molded into a "preform" using the injection molding process. These preforms are produced with the necks of the bottles, including threads (the "finish") on one end. These preforms are packaged, and fed later (after cooling) into a reheat stretch blow molding machine. In

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