Material Handling

Bottle conveyors built to keep your line moving, since 1972

Cable conveyor is CMD's founding product and still one of our core strengths. Our job is a steady supply of empty containers from your blow molders to your fillers: conveying, elevating overhead, annealing, accumulating, and bagging and debagging.

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01 /Cable conveyor under construction in CMD's shop

In summary

Custom Metal Designs designs and builds bottle conveyors for the empty side of the line: cable, table-top, and mat-top conveyor, accumulation tables, elevators, rod chutes, and annealing, everything that gets containers from the blow molder to the filler. Cable conveyor is the product the company was founded on in 1972, and it remains a core capability.

Every conveyor is engineered to your container, your rate, and your floor, then fabricated, assembled, and tested in CMD's own shop in Central Florida. The aim is simple: fresh bottles to your fillers first, and stored bottles only to make up the difference.

Cable, table-top, and mat-top conveyor
Accumulation, elevators, and rod chutes
Designed, built, and tested in-house
The original CMD capability, since 1972

Conveyor types

Conveyor types we build

Different sections of a bottle line ask for different conveyor. We build the type that fits the job rather than forcing one product across the whole line.

Multi-tier overhead cable conveyor, installed
01
Cable conveyor
Overhead cable conveys empty containers through your plant. Depending on the length of the run, one cable drive can carry it; longer runs use drive-idler cable transfers. Overhead, it keeps your floor free for storage and forklift traffic. It is the conveyor CMD was founded on in 1972.
Best for
Conveying and accumulating empty containers across your plant, efficiently and affordably
Bottles single file between guide rails
02
Table-top conveyor
Flat-top chain for stable, upright, single-file handling between side guide rails.
Best for
Accumulation, transfers, and feeding a filler or labeler at rate
Containers several abreast on a mat-top belt
03
Mat-top conveyor
A wider modular belt for mass-flow accumulation, conveying, and single-filing of round containers.
Best for
Round containers in high-speed applications
A CMD mat-top accumulation table
04
Mat-top accumulation table
A buffer for the line. When a downstream machine pauses, the table holds containers in mass so everything upstream keeps running, then feeds them back to single file automatically.
Best for
Keeping your line running when downstream equipment backs up
A CMD rotary accumulation table, installed
05
Rotary accumulation table
A rotating table that buffers containers the same way. It also works as a manual pack table, so one operator can look after several lines or other jobs.
Best for
Buffering the line, or as a manual pack table
06
Combining, dividing, and merging
Single-filers, combiners, and diverters move bottles between mass flow and single file wherever the line needs it.
Best for
Fitting the line to the layout you have
Stainless-steel side-grip lowerator, installed
07
Side-grip elevators and lowerators
Two facing belts grip each container from the sides and carry it overhead, with the most positive control in a small footprint. The same machine runs as a lowerator, and a crank adjusts the width for different container sizes.
Best for
Changing line height where there is no room for a long incline
An air elevator leaving a trimmer, installed
08
Air elevators
Air carries containers overhead straight from a blow-mold impact trimmer.
Best for
Taking containers overhead as they leave the trimmer
09
Twist-link inclines
A cost-effective way to take containers overhead: a twist-link chain climbs at a 33° angle.
Best for
Getting containers overhead where there is room for an incline
A 360-degree twister rod chute, running
10
Rod chutes
4-bar and 7-bar rod chutes guide containers between machines, with twist fittings that turn them up to 360 degrees on the way.
Rotary bottle pusher
11
Rotary bottle pusher
Takes containers lying down in a rod chute and stands them upright on the conveyor, evenly spaced. A variable-speed motor matches it to the line, and the enclosure's access door is interlocked: opening it cuts power, so operators can clear a jam or do maintenance.
Best for
A steady, evenly spaced flow of upright containers into the line

Annealing ductwork above the take-away

Annealing

Annealing off the blow molder

The CMD annealing unit accelerates the natural shrink of freshly blow-molded dairy bottles to achieve consistent bottle volume before filling.

This process is critical in dairy applications, where federal regulations require strict volume consistency. Proper annealing brings a freshly molded bottle to within ½ oz of the volume of a bottle that has been stored for days, allowing both bottles to run together on the filling line with greater consistency and reliability.

Bottle flow

Keeping your fillers supplied without interruption

The primary objective of a cable conveyor system is to maintain a continuous, uninterrupted supply of bottles to the fillers. CMD designs each system around your plant's production requirements, integrating conveying, annealing, accumulation, bagging, and debagging into a coordinated supply-and-demand operation.

Our system design is built around four key priorities:

Prioritize fresh bottles: deliver freshly blow-molded bottles directly to the fillers whenever production capacity allows.
Maintain filler supply: incorporate surge banks to accumulate freshly blow-molded bottles, ensuring a readily available supply to keep fillers running during fluctuations in production.
Supplement with debagged bottles: automatically draw from debagged bottle inventory when blow-molding production cannot meet filler demand and the fresh-bottle surge banks are depleted.
Minimize bottle handling: every bottle conveyed directly from the blow-molding operation to a filler eliminates unnecessary bagging and debagging, reducing handling, labor, and overall system complexity.

The result: a fully integrated empty-side conveying system that prioritizes fresh bottle delivery, balances production with filler demand, minimizes unnecessary handling, and helps keep your filling operation running without interruption.

How bagging and debagging balance the two