Honoring top blow molded products

Atlanta — A hot-fill PET container for pasta sauce and a base and frame for outdoor signs each won three categories in the parts competition — including the People's Choice honor — at the Annual Blow Molding Conference.

Blow molding consultant Lew Ferguson, who chaired the parts competition, announced the winners at a dinner Oct. 4.

Jamie Pace, who chaired the Atlanta conference — the 32nd ABC conference — held by the Blow Molding division of the Society of Plastics Engineers, said the event drew 330 people, a record number.

Here are the first-place winners:

Graham Packaging Co. won first place the categories of food, general packaging and People's Choice in packaging for its ThermaSet PET pasta sauce jars, which are nearly 90 percent lighter than glass jars, and are shatter resistant.

Graham officials said the jars are compatible with existing hot-fill manufacturing lines — a key benefit for food makers. Also, on the shelf, the reduced footprint of ThermaSet gives additional product facing every five feet.

Earlier this year, the ThermaSet container won the top honor, the Diamond Award, at DuPont's annual Awards for Packaging Innovation.

Agri-Industrial Plastics Co. picked up two first place awards in industrial categories, plus the industrial People's Choice, blow molded components for portable Windigo Signs.

The outdoor sign frames hold Windigo's soft fabric signs, a major design challenge to withstand wind forces, and create large signs that can be shipped without incurring extra costs for oversized shipping.

The blow molder in Fairfield, Iowa, molds all the components, including the live hinge. They easily fit together to allow many widths and heights. The hinge is a key to the sign, allowing the frames to be mounted to any size light pole, square or round.

Windigo Signs has developed signs beyond the light pole sign, including a portable sidewalk sign with four wheels, wall signs, ceiling signs, ground signs and roadside signs.

Agri-Industrial blow molds the parts from high density polyethylene, using a mold from H&H Mold and Tooling.

Plastic Technologies Inc. and Zenith Beverages LLC won the beverage category for the Clasper bottle — two PET containers in one package that allow the consumer to make a mixed drink.

The small-bottom container holds premium alcohol and features a heat-applied, aluminum foil seal. The main bottle holds 6.5 ounces of hot-filled juice and is topped by a polypropylene closure.

To use, the consumer separates the perforated shrink sleeve at the seam between the two containers, unsnaps the bottom container from the base of the primary bottle, removes the heat seal and closures from both bottles, and pours the alcohol into the juice.

Holland, Ohio-based PTI had to develop a tiny preform for the bottom, alcohol container because it so short and wide relative to the size of the 20-millimeter finish.

FGH Systems Inc., which makes blow molding tooling in Denville, N.J., picked up the pharmaceutical award for the PleurX drainage bottle, used in a system made by CareFusion/Becton Dickinson that allows patients, at home, to drain fluid building around the lungs, and malignant ascites.

The clear, heavy-wall bottle is from extrusion blow molded PET, on a four-cavity FGH mold, running on a Uniloy shuttle blow molding machine with a W. Müller accumulator head.

The bottles emerge deflashed and finished from the machine.

Because the bottle is hooked up to a vacuum system to remove the liquids, an even wall thickness was essential, according to FGH.

Heise Industries Inc., a mold maker in East Berlin, Conn., and blow molder Comar LLC won first in the “other” category for a refillable trigger spray bottle for WD-40.

Heise and Comar designed, prototyped and developed an integrated mask and trimming unit to trim and angled shoulder next insert, directly in the machine. According to Heise, that was necessary because there no commercially available in-machine angled neck trimmer is available.

You can refill the bottle without removing the trigger sprayer. The fill opening is a larger diameter, to prevent spillage.

John Deere won the award for automotive/transportation for an underfloor, insulated duct for heating, ventilation and air conditioning, that goes into a backhoe.

The part is molded from Marlex polyethylene on tooling from H&H Mold. It is manufactured in two pieces, then the sections are infrared welded to complete a one-piece air distribution system below the cab of a John Deere backhoe. A foam additive is used to create a large bubble structure, creating an insulation barrier.

Deere said the part lowered the cost of the previous part, which was rotationally molded. Part count was reduced to one piece from five molded parts and 20 components.

The blow molded, insulated duct reduced the cooling time for the cab.