US3389943A

US3389943A - Self-closing cabinet doors

Info

Publication number: US3389943A
Application number: US590238A
Authority: US
Inventors: Harold B Jones; Theodore E Zmuda
Original assignee: Leitner Equipment Co
Current assignee: Leitner Equipment Co
Priority date: 1966-10-28
Filing date: 1966-10-28
Publication date: 1968-06-25
Anticipated expiration: 1985-06-25

Description

June 25, 1968 JONES ET AL SELF-CLOSING CABINET DOORS 3 Sheetg-Sheet 1 Filed Oct. 28, 1966 FIG. 1

Hill

IN VE N TOPS Harold 5. Jones Theodore Z Zmuaa /I June 25, 1968 JONES ET AL SELF-CLOSING CABINET DOORS June 25, 1968 B. JONES ET AL SELF-CLOSING CABINET DOORS FIG; 6

3 Sheets-Sheet 3 Filed Oct. 28, 1966 United States Patent 3,389,943 SELF-CLOSING CABINET DOORS Haroid B. Jones, Lombard, and Theodore E. Zmuda,

Chicago, Ill., assignors to Leitner Equipment Company, a corporation of Illinois Filed Oct. 28, 1966, Ser. No. 590,238 1 Claim. (Cl. 312-138) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE This specification discloses a pair of doors slidably mounted on longitudinally inclined tracks removably secured to the bottom of a cabinet adjacent the door opening, whereby gravity causes each door to slide downwardly to provide a positive closing action. The removability of the bottom tracks facilitates cleaning of the cabinet.

This invention relates to a closure means for a cabinet, and is particularly concerned with self-closing sliding doors mounted on inclined tracks that provide a positive closing action and are removable to facilitate cleaning the cabinet.

The invention is specifically designed for food service cabinets, either refrigerated or non-refrigerated, but is applicable to any style of cabinet having one or more sliding doors to close an open side thereof. The cabinet may have its own bottom, or may be built on a counter that serves as the bottom.

Various types of self-closing doors have been used previously, but they have not been entirely satisfactory. In one type, the doors were mounted on inclined overhead tracks and binding often occurred because of misalignment of the rollers or deformation of the track. The overhead mounting was unsatisfactory for the additional reason that it made it difiicult to remove the doors when the cabinet needed cleaning. Another disadvantage of the overhead mounting was that it required relatively wide clearances around the doors, and thus impaired the refrigeration efficiency in the case of refrigerated cabinets.

Another type of self-closing door previously known used springs to pull the doors back to closed position. The springs lost their tension with age, and thus failed to provide a positive self-closing action. Furthermore, such an arrangement made door removal difficult and gave rise to lost parts which made reassembly a problem.

liding doors on food service cabinets have been hung from overhead tracks because of sanitation requirements of health authorities. It is not obvious to mount doors on tracks secured to the bottom of a cabinet, because of the difficulty of removing crumbs that fall on the floor of the cabinet.

In accordance with the present invention, a pair of oppositely disposed longitudinally inclined tracks are positioned at the bottom of the door opening, and a door is slidably mounted on each track. The use of an inclined track at the bottom of the door, rather than overhead, takes advantage of the weight of the door and gravity to assure positive closing. The inclination of the tracks causes the doors to remain in their low position, and when either door is moved up its track, gravity will return it to closed position as soon as it is released. An inverted channel that is secured to the underside of the cabinet top receives the upper edge of each door to provide lateral support for 3,389,943 Patented June 25, 1968 "ice the doors and is designed to be sufficiently deep to make it easy to remove the doors for cleaning purposes.

The inclined tracks at the bottom of the door opening are removable to facilitate cleaning the cabinet. The inclined tracks are held in place by short channel-shaped means which may be a continuous member, or may be longitudinally spaced clips. The relatively short clips do not interfere with cleaning the bottom of the cabinet. If a continuous member is used, there is provided an opening through its bottom to facilitate cleaning the bottom of the cabinet. Thus, there is provided a novel track assembly for cabinet doors, which insures positive closing of the doors after they have been manually opened. The doors are supported in tracks which can be removed to facilitate cleaning of the areas in which the tracks are located so that a high degree of cleanliness can be maintained. Furthermore, the doors can be easily removed to permit cleaning thereof and of the inside of the cabinet. The doors operate on the simple gravity principle and thus there are no parts that can be lost or need be interconnected when the doors are removed from the cabinet.

Suitable structure by means of which the above mentioned and other advantages of the invention are attained will be described in the following specification, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings showing two preferred embodiments of the invention, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a front elevational view of a cabinet with closure means embodying the invention, with portions of the cabinet broken away to facilitate illustration thereof;

FIGURE 2 is a fragmentary exploded perspective view, showing the lower tracks and the lower portion of the doors;

FIGURE 3 is an enlarged fragmentary cross-sectional view, taken in the plane indicated by the line 33 of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 4 is an enlarged cross-sectional view, taken in the plane indicated by the line 4--4 of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 5 is an enlarged cross-sectional view, taken in the plane indicated by the line 5-5 of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 6 is a view, similar to FIGURE 1, showing another embodiment of the invention;

FIGURE 7 is a fragmentary exploded perspective view of a portion of the structure of FIGURE 6;

FIGURE 8 is a fragmentary detail perspective view showing one end of the track holding channel of the structure of FIGURE 6;

FIGURE 9 is an enlarged fragmentary cross-sectional view, taken in the plane indicated by the line 9-9 of FIGURE 6; and

FIGURE 10 is an enlarged fragmentary cross-sectional view, taken in'the plane indicated by the line 1010 of FIGURE 6.

Referring to the drawings, a cabinet 11, comprising a top 12, a bottom 13 and ends 14, has an open side adapted to be closed by a pair of

doors

15 and 16. The open side may be at the front or back of the cabinet, and the opposite side of the cabinet, which is not shown, is closed by conventional structure. In the embodiment of FIG- URES 1 to 5, the cabinet is seated on a counter top which serves as the bottom of the cabinet, but the cabinet may have a separate bottom.

In accordance with the invention, there are tracks provided on wh ch the doors are mounted and which are designed so that the door will automatically move to the closed position due to the force of gravity. To this end, the doors are mounted on a pair of

tracks

17 and 18 that are held in place adjacent the bottom of the door opening by channel-shaped means 19 welded to the bottom of the cabinet. The channel-shaped means comprises a plurality of longitudinally spaced clips. As shown in FIGURE 3, the longitudinal edges 21 of the clips 19 are bent inwardly to facilitate positioning of the tracks.

The track 17 comprises a pair of

sidewalls

22 and 23 connected at their upper longitudinal edges by a top section 24. The track 18 comprises

sidewalls

25 and 26 joined at their upper longitudinal edges by a top section 27. The upper surface of each

top section

24 and 27 is preferably concave for a reason hereinafter disclosed. The tracks are inclined longitudinally in opposite directions and the

sidewalls

23 and 25 are welded together to provide a unitary track structure. A plate 28 is welded to the outer side of the wall 22 and a similar plate 29 is welded to the outer side of the wall 26 to reinforce the track structure. The

plates

28 and 29 are of uniform height throughout their length, and extend a short distance above the uppermost portion of the tracks to provide a neat appearance for the lower portion of the cabinet.

The entire track structure, including both

tracks

17 and 18, and both

plates

28 and 29 are handled as a unit when the tracks are removed to permit cleaning of the bottom of the cabinet, and when they are replaced after such cleaning. When the structure is removed, the bottom of the cabinet is left free of all obstructions except for the clips 19. These clips are so small, relative to the surface to be cleaned, and are spaced so far apart that they do not interfere with cleaning the bottom of the cabinet.

The door 15 is slidably mounted on the track 17, in a manner hereinafter described, and the door 16 is similarly mounted on the track 18. The upper edges of the

doors

15 and 16 are retained within inverted

channels

30 and 31, respectively, which are secured to the cabinet top and provide lateral support for the upper edges of the doors. The

channels

30 and 31 are deep enough to retain the upper edges of the doors throughout their movement, and to provide sufiicient clearance so that the doors may be lifted from the bottom tracks for removal when the cabinet is to be cleaned.

The doors are each approximately half the width of the opening they are designed to close, and each comprises a pair of glass panels 32 mounted in frame members 33 with an insulating strip 34 between the edge portions of the panels and another strip 35 sealing the joints between the panels 32 and the strip 34. The doublewalled structure is desirable for refrigerated cabinets, but it will be understood that the doors may be of any suitable construction.

The lower edge of each frame member 33 has a channel 36 welded thereto. Each channel 36 has a shaft 37 extending transversely near each end thereof. Each shaft 37 is provided with a ball bearing 38 on which a roller 39 is rotatably mounted. The rollers 39 are the same size, and a portion of the peripheral surface of each roller depends below the lower edge of the channel 36 to enable it to roll freely on the top section of one of the tracks. The

top sections

24 and 27 of the tracks are concave to provide a good seat for the rollers 39 and to keep them properly aligned.

The inclination of the track 17 causes the door 15 to slide downwardly in one direction with a positive closing action, and the inclination of the track 18 causes the door 16 to slide downwardly in the opposite direction with the same force. A handle 41 is mounted on each door to facilitate opening it against the force urging the doors to closed position. The shafts 37 of the rollers 39 mounted on each channel 36 are at different horizontal levels, and a line drawn between the two shafts on either channel 36 is inclined from a horizontal plane at the same angle as the track upon which the rollers 39 roll.

This mounting arrangement of the shafts 37 keeps the doors on an even keel relative to the bottom of the cabinet at all times.

Each of the

channels

30 and 31 has a bumper 42 mounted at one end thereof to limit the opening movement of the doors. The bumpers are preferably of rubber, but may be of plastic or any other suitable material. Each bumper is positioned to engage the frame member 33 of one door before the handle 41 of that door engages the frame member 33 of the other door.

In the embodiment of FIGURES 6 to 10, the structure is essentially the same as that hereinabove described, except for the few difierences hereinafter noted. The same reference numerals will be used to indicate identical structure, and the description of such structure will not be repeated.

In this embodiment, the cabinet is not seated on a counter top, and therefore is provided with a bottom 43. The handles 44 are in the form of knobs, but it is obvious that any suitable handles may be mounted on either door.

The

adjacent sidewalls

23 and 25 of the

tracks

17 and 18 are welded together and the Welded structure is positioned in channel-shaped means which comprises a channel 45 extending the full length of the track and a reinforcing member 46. As shown in FIGURE 9, the channel 45 comprises two

vertical walls

47 and 48 connected at their lower edges by a flat bottom section 49. The upper edge portion of the Wall 48 is bent outwardly to form a flange 51 that is welded to the underside of the bottom 43. The bottom section 49 of the channel may be flush with the bottom of the cabinet, but preferably depends below it a distance slightly greater than the maximum height of the

tracks

17 and 18.

The reinforcing member 46 comprises a horizontal section 52 welded to the bottom 49 of the channel and an inclined section 53 that is welded at its upper edge to the upper edge of the wall 47, as indicated at 54, to provide a rigid member for holding the

tracks

17 and 18. The tracks fit in the channel 45 and are removed therefrom when the cabinet is to be cleaned. An opening 55 extends through the bottom plate 52 and the bottom of the channel 45 so that when the bottom of the channel is wiped or brushed, dirt which may have fallen into the channel can be moved to the opening 55 and discharged therethrough.

The cabinet of FIGURES 6 to 10 is preferably provided with a channel 56 and a reinforcing member 57 secured to the underside of the top 12 adjacent the door opening to provide suitable lateral support for the upper edges of the doors 15' and 16'. The doors shown in FIGURES 9 and 10 comprise a single panel, but the double walled structure of FIGURE 3 may be used, if desired.

Although two preferred embodiments of the invention have been described in considerable detail, it will be understood that the description thereof is intended to be illustrative, rather than restrictive, as many details of structure may be modified or changed without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. Accordingly, it is not desired to be restricted to the exact structure described.

What is claimed is:

1. In a cabinet having a top, a bottom having a substantially fiat upper surface, an open side and a pair of sliding doors for closing said open side, the improvement comprising a plurality of short, spaced longitudinally aligned channel-shaped clips each having a hat bottom wall permanently secured to said flat upper surface adjacent said open side and a unitary track structure removably mounted on said clips for guiding the doors between open and closed positions, each of said doors having a channel depending from its lower edge and a pair of rollers mounted in said channel, said rollers being positioned to maintain the doors level with respect to the bottom of the cabinet, each of said clips having edge portions bent upwardly and inwardly from opposite longitudinal edges of its bottom wall, said unitary track struc ture comprising two oppositely inclined tracks each having a concave upper surface for supporting one pair of said rollers whereby the rollers of each of said pairs of rollers are self-aligned, said tracks being secured in side by side relationship with the outer sidewalls of said tracks engaging the outer surfaces of said longitudinal edge portion of said clips, said clips being spaced apart a distance suflicient to permit cleaning devices to be passed between adjacent clips, whereby the upper surface of said bottom may be cleaned easily when said track structure is removed.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS Smith 16-106 XR Wicke 312-138 Deitz 312-138 XR Keil 312138 XR Spring 312138 XR Tobiasz 312--333 XR Bergstedt 312-138 XR BOBBY R. GAY, Primary Examiner.

JAMES L. KOHNEN, Assistant Examiner.