GB2315988A - Furniture with adjustable size panels - Google Patents

Abstract

Furniture, eg a drawer, made from a kit comprising sides, a base, a front and a back is provided on the end faces of least some panels 3, eg the sides, with extended length internal holes 6 which in use receive securing dowels 15 mounted in an adjacent panel. The panel 3 may thereby be shortened to a required length, eg by sawing, whilst leaving a sufficient depth of hole to receive the dowels.

Description

DESCRIPTION The present invention refers to a system for the effective realisation of adjustable size components, such as drawers, small basins and the like, obtained from the assembly, out of factory, for example of the DIY type, of components or side pieces with fronts, back etc. which are to be connected to each other and to a base, these components being susceptible to be cut, and being provided with seats in particular holes for the mutual rigid coupling through fixing organs such as screws, dowls and the like.

This system, according to the invention, has the advantage that it can be commercialized in DIY form, i.e. extremely compact flat packed sets, its components being synergically assembled and adapted with the technics of the DIY type in situ, i.e. in the place where they are to be used thus out of the factory of their manufacture.

Even if here we will refer, for descriptive simplicity and to fix better the ideas, generically to drawers, especially for furniture, it is evident that the invention involves more generally all articles formed (as anticipated above) of several components and pieces, for example small basins, open containers etc. for house furniture, such as kitchen furniture, waredrobes etc, also for components of other types, as collectors etc. etc.

In the prior art, the boxes obtained from DIY technics, that means starting from Kits comprising for example two sides, one base, one back and one front, require the following operations to be adapted to the furniture sizes: - cut of the components; - drilling at the ends of the cut components; putting glue in the holes obtained out of factory; - fixing of dowls or pins into the glue filled holes etc. etc.

This system involves several inconveniences: among these it suffices to emphasize the need and the difficulty of drilling holes in situ (out of the factory) after that the components are cut to the desired size.

As these components are being supplied in flat form to be assembled in situ, it is necessary to have the availability of an adequate boring machine to operate a drilling of highest accuracy with regard to the position of the holes and their alignment; besides, diameters must be constant and strictly tied up with the shape of the downs or pins that the holes must accomodate.

Out of the factory, in situ, these operations can be quite difficult, and above all, there is a lack of uniformity and repetability: holes with inclined generatrix and/or diameter-shape-section gradients, generate couplings with holding gradients; besides also the glueing can underline this bad uniformity.

The aim of this invention is now to provide a system which eliminates the above inconveniences and allows a quick, reliable, uniform and accurate assembly in situ, without need of much equipment.

The characteristics of this system in accordance with this invention, are recited in the claims.

The different aspects and advantages of this invention will appear more clearly from the description of the embodiments (illustrative and non limitative), represented in the attached drawings, in which: - Figure 1 is the view from the top of the elements making up a box.

- Figure 2 is the prospective outline view of a piece of furniture MO to which a drawer box according to the invention is to be adapted after having defined its size as in figure 2.

- Figures 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 show a prospective outline of the elements which are being cut (figure 4 and 5) and which are assembled with the help of the dozes represented in frontal view and in plan view in Figure 13.

- Figures 11 and 12 are cross-sections of the sides provided with extended holes, and Figures 13 show a plastic pin in front view and in cross section.

Figure 1 shows unassembled elements of a drawer box, as they are purchasable in a commercial flat package, comprehensive of a base FO two sides Spdx (3) and SP sx (4), one front FR (5') and one back RE (5).

The package can include the metal runners or guides GUI and the relative screws V (which however have here no relevance).

If the piece of furniture MO (Figure 2) to which the box DR to be applied has a width A between the two internal sides of the cabinet 1 and 2 and if the space for the two runners (GUI) is of 12,5 mm each, then the external dimension of the box DR to be adapted to MO will be B = A - 25.

As already mentioned the furniture MO is out of the factory, f.i. in a house kitchen (in situ) where the standard components of Figure 1 must be adapted to the size of MO.

Accordingly the first step, as shown in Fig. 5 is to cut the base FO of Fig.

5 to reduce its width to the (each time) requested B = A - 2 GUI = A -25 cm.

Then the side components SP sx (4) and SPDx (3) carrying the very extended longitudinal holes 6, 6' (figures 11 end 12) are cut as in figure 4 to reduce their size to B (of course the standard initial dimensions of the components of fig. 1 are higher than those of MO). Where the cut T takes place the long holes 6 (obtained by machining in the factory) extend still further than T, i. e. they extend innerly over at least 20% of.the length of side boards 3 and 4, starting from each end of side 3 and 4.

Accordingly the holes 6 (6') extend over f.i. 40% of the length of said sides.

On the contrary, front-and rear-components 5, 5' show holes 10 which have an extension not higher than the height H of pins 15.

Thus after that the base FO (without holes) and the side boards 3 and 4 (having extended holes 6, 6' precisely machined in the factory) have been cut (in situ) to have a length B, in the short holes 10 of the front-and rear-component 5 and 6 are forced the bottoms 30 of pins 15 (Figure 13) whose heads 31 are free to penetrate into the extended holes 6, 6'.

In Fig. 11 are shown the pins 15 having an end 30 forced in the short holes 10, and the pin heads 31 smoothly forced in portion of the extended holes 6.

The holes 6 can also be provided with glue.

The finished drawer DR having a width B is shown in perfective in Fig. 10.

The main feature of the invention consists thus in precisely machining extended holes 6-6' in the side boards 3-4 which in situ need only to be cut according to the width B derived from the furniture width B.

Figure 10 shows the easiest case of a box in which cross sections A-A and BB are shown in figure 11 and 12.

Even if the main aspect of the invention (to drill in the factory the holes avoiding thus precarious drill in situ) might appear very simple at a first glance , it brings enormous advantages: - by machining extended holes 6, 7 in the factory, holes are obtained which are regular and with uniform' diameter all over their extension; - it is avoided to make these holes on the sides 3 and 4 in situ, i.e.

where the drawer is utilized and where it is very difficult to make a good drilling; - good possibility to perfectly adapt the width dimension of the drawer to the dimension of the in situ present furniture; - in the stock house: reduction of the stock quantities necessary to satisfy the request of drawers for all the possible modules of f. i.

kitchen bases; - by simply drilling deeply the sides (or equivalently the front-and back components), a size reduction up to 100 mm is possible, covering thus a wide range of furniture size; - the perfectly machined long holes allow now to use simple and effective pins of plastic materials which are easely forced in the short holes and in the mouth of the extended holes; - the plastic pins with two longitudinal cuts, channels or grooves are easely inserted with adhesive ( avoiding then the piston effect) or without glue.

Grooves SCA are provided in the components 3, 4, 5 and 5' to conventionally receive the edges of the base FO. In one advantageous embodiment pins of pofpropylene are used giving the chancteristic hereunder reported.

TECHNICAL SCHEDULE Polypropylene MATERIAL X 30 Gr

UNITY VALUES TEST METHODS MEASURE dg./min. 8 ASTM 1238/L SPECIFIC WEIGHT g. / cm3 0,9 ASTM D 1505 INJECTION FLOWING mm 670 INTERNAL ELASTIC MODULE TO N/mm2 1550 ASTM D 780 DEFLECTION TRACTION RESISTANCE N/mm2 36 ASTM D 638 EXTENTION RESISTANCE % 12 ASTM D 638 BUMP RESIST CE Jim 37 ASTM D 258 HARDNESS ROCKWELL Scale R 94 ASTM D 785 SOFTENING POINT C 154 ASTM D 1525

Claims (3)

1. CLAIMS 1. System for the effective realisation of composable furniture articles of adjustable dimensions in particular of composed articles such as drawer box, small basins and the like, formed by assemblying out of factory, for example through DIY technics, components comprising front- back and side pieces to be tied Bp to each other and to a bottom component, said components being susceptible to be cut and being provided of seats in particular of holes for the rigid, mutual coupling by means of fixation organs, such as screws, dowls, pins and the like, characterized in that said holes or seats provided in the components factory on the tKsversal faces of said dimensionally modifiable components have a longitudinal extension which involves the whole zone susceptible of cut so to avoid drillings and glueing out of the factory, the cross-section and shape of said extended holes or seats machine made in the factory being constant and uniform so to couple without gradients and with perfect shape matching with the dozes over each cut portion.
2. 2. System in accordance with claim 1, characterized by the fact that the only operation which is done out of factory, is the component cut and possibly the application of glue.
3. 3. A system in accordance with claims 1 or 2, characterised in that the holes extend over about 30% of each part of the components of adjustable dimension.

   3. System in accordance with claims 1 and 2, characterized by the fact that the longitudinal holes extend till about 30% of each part of the elements to be dimensionally adjusted.

   4. System in accordance with claims 1 and 2, concerning drawers consisting of two sides and of two transversal elements (front and back), characterized by the fact that for the modification of the width, the two sides are provided with holes that extend towards the inside, from each extremity.

   5. System accordance with the above claims, characterized by the fact that the dowls present two major portions provided with hat shaped lapels or wings; one series of said hat lapels having widening up laps the other series having widening down laps.

   6. System in accordance with claim 5, characterized by the fact that the two portions of inverted laps are separated by a central portion of smaller diameter, without laps and are crossed by two longitudinal small chanels which do not involve said central part without laps.

   7. System in accordance with claim 5, in which said dowls or pins are made of olefins or amide (co)-polymers, in particular polpropylene or technical nylon.

   8. System in accordance with previous claims, for the realisation of a drawer box, which includes: - one recutable base: - two elements transverse to the sides, i.e. one front and one back, said sides being both provided with holes that extend from the begin of each extremity for at least 20% on the lenght of each element, giving as a result a box which is adjustable in width from 2 to 40% of the initial lenght of the sides, these holes being industrially produced in the factory with an accurate, constant and uniform section, in order to receive a dowl with or without glue by a slight forcing on each dowl.

   9. System in accordance with the previous claims, commercially delivered in flat packs, including: two sides, one front, one back, and a number of dowls, said sides being provided at each extremity with at least two holes that extend to about 20% of the lenght of said components, the dowls in polipropylene having two portions specular at 1800, each with six expansions, separated by a central portion without expansions, and each portion being crossed by two small canals.

   Amendments to the claims have been filed as follows CLAIMS 1. A system for the situ construction of articles of furniture, such as drawers, boxes, small cupboards and the like, of selectively adjustable dimensions, the system comprising front and back pieces and side pieces adapted to be fixed to each other and to a base panel by fixing means, such as screws, dowels, pins and the like, at least some of said components being adapted to be cut to a reduced dimension in situ and being provided with holes for rigidly receiving the fixing means, characterised in that the holes are formed in-factory in the components of adjustable dimension with extensions whose lengths correspond to the maximum variation in dimension of the associated components, and in that the holes are of uniform cross-sectional shape throughout their extended length for receiving the fixing means securely irrespective of their final cut length.

   2. A system in accordance with claim 1 characterised in that the only operation which is done in situ is the cutting of the components and possibly the application of glue.