Tooling for the injection station of an injection blow molding machine includes a set of individual mounting bracket assemblies that attach an elongated manifold block to the lower die set of the machine. The relatively slender brackets are designed to have minimal thermal contact with the manifold block without sacrificing stability and structural integrity. Standard sizes of the brackets maybe manufactured in advance to accommodate manifold blocks of different lengths but standard widths.

The conditioning station of an injection stretch blow mold machine is provided with a heater ring for each hot, soft preform presented to the station. The heater ring emits infrared light waves that are confined to the transition region of the preform between the neck and main body portions to pin-point the addition of heat to the transition region.

Quick change blow mold tooling includes a pair of mold cavity blocks that cooperate to define a series of blow cavities. The tooling further includes a pushup plate having a series of bottom contours that plug the otherwise open bottoms of the cavities when the pushup plate is against the bottom of the mold blocks. Each mold block is quickly attached to and detached from its supporting back plate using studs that fit into receiving holes on the back plate and cam locking shafts that are accessible from opposite side edges of the back plates. The back plates thus remain secured to platens of the bottle forming machine during change out of the tooling. Similarly, the push up plate has a pair of locking studs projecting from the underside thereof that are received within socket members attached to the machine. The socket members are provided with quick release threaded couplers that can be locked and unlocked by hand.

Clam shell-type blow mold apparatus has a pair of opposed upper mold halves that cooperate to define a partial blow cavity. A one-piece bottom mold portion that completes the blow cavity is locked up against the top mold portion by a locking assembly to prevent separation of the bottom mold portion from the top mold portion during the high pressure blow cycle. The locking assembly includes a support ring for the bottom mold portion that has a number of radially outwardly projecting male lugs adapted to fit into female receiving notches on opposed halves of a lock ring on the upper mold portion. Individual ledges at the bottoms of the notches underlie the lugs of the support ring when the mold halves are fully closed so as to preclude separation of the support ring, and thus the bottom mold portion, from the lock ring and the upper mold portion. The notches in the support ring are interposed between pairs of bolt holes in the lock ring.