Closing the Deal - Capping Machines for Any Product

From beverages and bottled water to cleaners and chemicals, food products such as peanut butter, jam and salad dressings to cosmetics creams, shampoo and hair spray, almost every product on a shelf has one thing in common.  Each of these items must be closed or sealed with some type of cap or lid.  The different capping machines will be used across and among many different industries, based simply on the type of closure chosen for the package being used on each project.  

 

Even within certain industries, or even the same product, different brands may use different closures.  For example, distilled spirits and wines may be closed in a number of different ways.  One obviously popular way to seal these products is using a T-cork or a regular cork.  Bartop corkers or snap capping machines can be used to secure the corks in the bottles.  As an alternative, many wine bottlers will use an Roll On Pilfer Proof, or ROPP, cap.  These aluminum caps are threaded and sealed by the capping machine, creating a seal that also provides evidence of tampering in that the container cannot be opened without breaking the seal created by the ROPP capper.  Finally, some distilled spirits and wines will use a simple screw on type cap, similar to those found on most bottled waters and carbonated beverages.  In these cases, a spindle or chuck capper would be used for semi-automatic or automatic sealing of bottles.

 

So in an industry such as wine and spirits, each one of the most popular capping machines can be found sealing bottles.  These machines can range from handheld, manual machines to fully automatic, continuous capping equipment.  Obviously the automatic packaging machinery offers speed and efficiency in addition to reliable and consistent sealing.  Manual and semi-automatic cappers may also benefit some packagers as to speed, but in some cases the main gain from the machines will often be the consistency of the seal, removing the loss from loose or inconsistently tightened lids.

 

The main difference between manual, semi-automatic and automatic capping equipment stems from the delivery of the caps to the bottle or other container.  Manual and semi-automatic machines will normally require the operator to place the cap onto the container and then place the combination into the capping area to complete the seal.  Automatic equipment will include a cap delivery system that will not require human intervention past the point of supplying bulk caps on occasion.  These systems may include elevators, sorting bowls, chutes and other devices to complete the delivery.  The choice between using a semi-automatic machine or an automatic capper will usually come down to production demands, though other factors may play a part in the decision.

 

For more detailed information on the different types of machines, view our capping equipment page, where you can learn more about the cappers by simply clicking on each individual feature or benefit listed for the different machines.