PREPARATION OF COATED PIPE

PURPOSE:To obtain a coated pipe reduced in the gap between an outer cover material and a metal pipe and excellent in heat insulating capacity, by coating a flexible metal pipe with the sheet like outer cover material made of a thermoplastic synthetic resin while molding said cover material. CONSTITUTION:A metal pipe 1 is delivered by a feed apparatus 3 and advances while receiving the coating of a slip agent by a slip agent coating part 4. An outer cover material 2 is sent to a molding guide part 6 by a drive apparatus so as to longitudinally follow the metal pipe 1. Both end surface parts opposed to each other of the outer cover material 2 covering the metal pipe 1 and passed through the molding guide part 6 are heated and melted by a heater 7 and subsequently sent to a molding die 8 along with the metal pipe 1 and both end surface parts thereof are fused. Next, the whole is cooled by a cooling pipe part to continuously prepare a coated pipe 9.