EP3345732B1

EP3345732B1 - Cutting structure for assisting the curvature of a flexible sheet to form a stereoscopic contour

Info

Publication number: EP3345732B1
Application number: EP17207779.4A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Hwa-Yi Hsu; Cheng-Yu Tsai
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2017-01-04
Filing date: 2017-12-15
Publication date: 2020-09-16
Anticipated expiration: 2037-12-15
Also published as: EP3345732A1; TWM546894U

Description

[FIELD OF THE INVENTION]

The present invention provides a cutting structure for assisting the curvature of a flexible sheet. In particular, the cutting structure is formed at the corresponding position to allow the flexible sheet to bend into a stereoscopic contour.

[DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART]

The manufacturing of conventional leather bags involve complicated processes, such as plate-making, tailoring, gluing, punching, sewing or the like and preparation of tools and materials. For those that are not professional artisans, making a leather bag by oneself has a considerably high technical threshold.
Moreover, during the sewing and weaving of general leather, a plurality of thread holes need to be prefabricated at a joint position of at least two pieces of leather, and then the threads are utilized to pass through the thread holes to fix the two pieces of leather. When an article of a complicated structure (e.g., a handbag or a wallet) is to be manufactured, a plurality of pieces of leather is required and moreover, the sewing process consumes a lot of time. Thus, the self-made leather goods cannot be manufactured within a short period of time, and it is hard for a non-professional artisan to enjoy making leather bags.
US 2004/0134250 A1 , teaches that a sheet of material which can be bent along a bend line to form with bending strap-defining structure, wherein the slits are arranged at intervals to provide a fatigue-resistant structure to the sheet. It further discloses that each slit presents a longitudinal folding line and includes two ends. According to US 2004/0134250 A1 , the two ends of each slit are moving away from the bend line.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a special cutting structure to solve the aforesaid technical problems of a time consuming process, a required skill level and lengthy manufacturing process.

[CONTENTS OF THE INVENTION]

The invention is defined in claim 1, a sheet comprising a cutting structure. The present invention provides a cutting structure to be formed on the bent position of a flexible sheet. The cutting structure comprises two parallel cutting paths. Each of the cutting paths has a plurality of cutting sections adjacently arranged at intervals to each other. Each cutting section is of a liner shape to cut through the flexible sheet. The cutting sections on one of the cutting paths are laterally offset with respect to the cutting sections on another cutting path. Two ends of the cutting sections of the two parallel cutting paths are oppositely interlaced without connecting
with each other. Each cutting section is projected to form a first cutting projection towards a first direction and a second cutting projection towards a second direction. Two second cutting projections from any two oppositely interlaced cutting sections are partially overlapped, and the first direction is vertical to the second direction.
When the aforesaid cutting structure is correspondingly formed on the bent position of the flexible sheet, the flexible sheet can be formed into a stereoscopic contour by bending the bent position.
The cutting structure of the present invention can be widely applied to a leather material, a plastic material, a fabric material or a paper material. When the cutting structure is applied to the leather material, the leather material in the form of a sheet can be formed into a stereoscopic article simply by bending these bent positions without the need of sewing skills and without using adhesive attachment.
The detailed technology and preferred embodiments implemented for the subject invention are described in the following paragraphs accompanying the appended drawings for people skilled in this field to well appreciate the features of the claimed invention.

[BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS]

FIG. 1 is a schematic view illustrating the sheet of the present invention.
FIG. 2A is a schematic view illustrating arrangement of a first embodiment of the cutting structure according to the present invention.
FIG. 2B is a partially schematic view taken from FIG. 2A .
FIG. 3A is a schematic view illustrating another pattern of cutting sections of the first embodiment.
FIG. 3B is a partially schematic view taken from FIG. 3A .
FIG. 4 is a schematic view illustrating another pattern of cutting sections according to the second embodiment of a cutting structure of the present invention.
FIG. 5 is a schematic view illustrating the arc-shaped cutting sections according to the third embodiment of a cutting structure of the present invention.
FIG. 6 is a schematic view illustrating the cutting structure of the present invention applied to a leather material and bent into a stereoscopic contour.

[DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS]

In the following description, the present invention will be explained with reference to embodiments thereof. However, the description of these embodiments is only for purpose of explaining technical contents and objectives of the present invention rather than to directly limit the present invention. It shall be appreciated that in the following embodiments and the attached drawings, elements unrelated to the present invention are omitted from depiction; and dimensional and positional relationships among individual elements in the attached drawings are illustrated only for ease of understanding, but not to limit the actual scale and dimension.
FIG. 1 is a schematic view illustrating the sheet of the present invention. In this embodiment, a whole piece of flexible sheet 1 may first have a predetermined shape, and then the cutting structures 2 of the present invention are correspondingly formed on the bent portions.
The cutting structure of the present invention comprises two parallel cutting paths, and each of the cutting paths has a plurality of cutting sections adjacently arranged at intervals to each other. The specific aspects of the cutting structure will be detailed hereinafter with reference to the attached drawings.
FIG. 2A is a schematic view illustrating the arrangement of a first embodiment of the cutting structure according to the present invention. For ease of description of the two parallel cutting paths and arrangement of the cutting sections thereof, different reference symbols are used to represent different elements. For example, the cutting structure 2 comprises a cutting path 20 and a cutting path 22 parallel to each other, the cutting path 20 has a plurality of cutting sections a1, a2, a3, a4, a5...(which can be collectively referred to herein as a "cutting section a") adjacently arranged at intervals to each other, and the cutting path 22 also has a plurality of cutting sections b1, b2, b3, b4, b5...(which can be collectively referred to as a "cutting section b") adjacently arranged at intervals to each other. Each of the cutting sections a, b has a liner shape to cut through the flexible sheet 1; this means that linear cutting lines running through the flexible sheet 1 in a vertical direction are generated in the flexible sheet 1 by using laser cutting, cutters, cutting dies or choppers.
A feature of the cutting structure of the present invention lies in that the cutting sections on one of cutting paths are laterally offset with respect to the cutting sections on another cutting path. The two ends of the cutting sections of the two parallel cutting paths are oppositely interlaced without connecting with each other. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 2A , each of the cutting sections a, b has two ends P, the cutting sections a1, a2, a3, a4, a5...on the cutting path 20 are laterally offset with respect to the cutting sections b1, b2, b3, b4, b5...on another cutting path 22, the two ends P of each cutting section a are oppositely interlaced with the two ends P of each cutting section b, and the two ends P of each cutting section a are not connected with the two ends P of each cutting section b.
The cutting sections of a linear shape as shown in FIG. 2A , FIG. 3A , FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 may have different patterns. To describe the arrangement relationships between the two parallel cutting paths more clearly, projections will serve as the basis for defining positions and dimensional proportions of the cutting sections. Still in reference to FIG. 2A , the first direction X and second direction Y perpendicular to each other may be defined, and the first direction X refers to a direction parallel to the two cutting paths.
As shown in FIG. 2A , the cutting sections a1, a2, a3, a4, a5... and the cutting sections b1, b2, b3, b4, b5... are respectively projected to form first cutting projections 23a, 23b (which can be collectively referred to herein as the "first cutting projection 23") toward the first direction X and are respectively projected to form second cutting projections 24a, 24b (which can be collectively referred to herein as a "second cutting projection 24") towards the second direction Y.
The two second cutting projections 24a, 24b generated from any two of oppositely interlaced cutting sections are only partially overlapping. Specifically, with reference to FIG. 2B , the two second cutting projections 24a, 24b generated from any two of the oppositely interlaced cutting sections (e.g., the cutting section a1 and the cutting section b1) are partially overlapping. It shall be appreciated that the case in where the second cutting projections 24a, 24b of the cutting section a1 and the cutting section b1 are completely overlapping is not the best implementation mode although it can be implemented.
On the other hand, in addition to the arrangement shown in FIGs. 2A to 2B , the two first cutting projections 23a and 23b may also have another arrangement as shown in FIGs. 3A to 3B . In FIGs. 2A to 2B , the two first cutting projections 23a, 23b from any two oppositely interlaced cutting sections a, b are not overlapping, i.e., the first cutting projections 23a, 23b are separated from each other by a distance, or the first cutting projection 23a is tangent to the first cutting projection 23b. Both of the above cases fall within the scope that can be implemented by the present invention. However, a good effect of assisting the bending cannot be obtained if the distance between the first cutting projection 23a and the first cutting projection 23b is too large.
In FIGs. 3A to 3B , the two first cutting projections 23a, 23b from any two oppositely interlaced cutting sections a, b are partially overlapping.
Moreover, as shown in FIG. 2B , each cutting section defines a pivot 25 which is projected towards the first direction X to form a first pivot projection 251 and towards the second direction Y to form a second pivot projection 252.
In terms of the distance between the cutting sections adjacently arranged at intervals to each other, the distance between the two second pivot projections from any two of adjacent cutting sections on either of the cutting paths is preferably between 4mm to 40mm. For example, as shown in FIG. 2A , the second pivot projections at the cutting sections a1, a2, a3, a4, a5... are equally spaced by a distance T, and the second pivot projections 252 at the cutting sections b1, b2, b3, b4, b5... are also equally spaced by the distance T.
In terms of the distance between two oppositely interlaced cutting sections, the first distance between the two first pivot projections from two oppositely interlaced cutting sections is preferably between 2mm to 20mm, and the second distance between the two second pivot projections from two oppositely interlaced cutting sections is preferably between 2mm to 20mm. For example, with reference to FIG. 2B , the first distance T1 between the two first pivot projections 251 from two oppositely interlaced cutting sections a1, b1 is between 2mm to 20mm, and the second distance T2 between the two second pivot projections 252 from the two oppositely interlaced cutting sections a1, b1 is between 2mm to 20mm. The second distance T2 is the lateral offset distance between the cutting sections a1, b1.
By the aforesaid arrangement, the second cutting projection of one cutting section, except for the cutting sections at the two ends of the cutting paths, is oppositely interlaced with the second cutting projections of the other two cutting sections. For example, as shown in FIG. 2A , the second cutting projection of the cutting section a2 is oppositely interlaced with the second cutting projections of both the cutting sections b1, b2, or the cutting section b1 is oppositely interlaced with both of the cutting sections a1, a2.
Furthermore, the cutting sections of the present invention are cutting sections of a linear shape rather than conventional circular, rhombic or rectangular thread holes. As shown in FIGs. 2A to 2B and FIGs. 3A to 3B , each of the cutting sections a, b includes a first edge 211 and two non-parallel second edges 212 in which the two second edges 212 are respectively are not vertically connected with two sides of the first edge 211, and the two ends P of the cutting section are terminals of the two second edges 212.
The cutting sections of the linear shape described above are not limited to what is shown in FIGs. 2A to 2B and FIGs. 3A to 3B . Instead, the cutting sections may have another pattern of "
" as shown in FIG. 4 . In this case, each cutting section 31 includes a first edge 311 and two parallel second edges 312 in which the two second edges 312 are respectively connected with two sides of the first edge 311 vertically, and the two ends P of the cutting section are terminals of the two second edges 312. Alternatively, the cutting section may have another pattern as shown in FIG. 5 , wherein the cutting section is an arc-shaped cutting section 41, and the two ends P of the cutting section are the terminals of the arc-shaped cutting section 41.
It shall be again noted that the cutting sections a1, a2, a3, a4, a5... and the cutting sections b1, b2, b3, b4, b5... mentioned in the above embodiments are of the same shape and size. The different reference symbols used to represent the cutting sections are only for ease of description in the above embodiments. In principle, the shapes of individual cutting sections in FIGs. 2A to 2B , FIGs. 3A to 3B and FIG. 4 may be the following: bilaterally symmetrical, i.e., the second edges of each cutting section are not parallel but are symmetrical (i.e., FIGs. 2A to 2B , FIGs. 3A to 3B ), parallel and symmetrical (i.e., FIG. 4 ), or symmetrically V-shaped (not shown). However, as can be inferred by those of ordinary skill in the art, the individual cutting sections may also have shapes that are not completely bilaterally symmetrical (not shown).
In terms of the size of the cutting sections, the first length of the first cutting projection and the second length of the second cutting projection serve as a unified basis for defining the depth and the width of the cutting sections because the cutting sections of the linear shape may have different patterns. For example, in FIG. 2B , the depth of each of the cutting sections a, b corresponds to the first length D1 of the first cutting projections 23a, 23b and the first length is preferably between 1mm to 10mm. The width of each of the cutting sections a, b corresponds to the second length D2 of the second cutting projections 24a, 24b and the second length is preferably between 3mm to 30mm.
According to the above descriptions, the cutting structure 2 of the present invention can replace the conventional sewing process and adhesive attachment by assisting in bending the flexible sheet 1 into a stereoscopic article, wherein the flexible sheet 1 may be a leather material, a plastic material, a fabric material or a paper material.
In terms of business application, front-end manufacturers prefabricate the cutting structures of the present invention on flat flexible sheets for mass production, and then the flexible sheets are sold to rear-end consumers to be assembled into stereoscopic structures by the consumers themselves.
Moreover, the cutting structure of the present invention can vividly simulate the visual effect of thread sewing when it is applied to the leather material. As shown in FIG. 6 , the manufacturer applies the cutting structure 2 of the present invention to a piece of leather material, and the cutting structure 2 is formed at each of the plurality of portions to be bent on the leather material. The leather material can then be sold to the consumer on the rear-end so that the consumer can bend the bent positions of the leather material by hand to change the leather material into a stereoscopic wallet. Accordingly, the consumer does not need sewing skills, and he or she may easily make leather bags. Since the leather material is flexible, a water color pen, a writing brush, or a wet sponge may be used to first moisturize the cutting sections oppositely interlaced so that the leather material can be bent more flexibly.

Claims

A flexible sheet comprising a cutting structure (2) formed on a bent position of the flexible sheet (1) for assisting curvature of the flexible sheet, the cutting structure comprising:
two parallel cutting paths (20, 22), each of the cutting paths has a plurality of cutting sections adjacently arranged at intervals to each other, each cutting section is of a liner shape to cut through the flexible sheet, the cutting sections (a1, a2, a3, a4, a5) on one of cutting paths (20) are laterally offset with respect to the cutting sections (b1, b2, b3, b4, b5) on another cutting path (22), and two ends (P) of the cutting sections of the two parallel cutting paths (20, 22) are oppositely interlaced without connecting with each other,

wherein each cutting section is projected to form a first cutting projection (23a, 23b) toward a first direction (X) and a second cutting projection (24a, 24b) toward a second direction (Y), the two second cutting projections (24a, 24b) from any two of oppositely interlaced cutting sections are partially overlapped, and the first direction (X) is vertical to the second direction (Y).
A flexible sheet as claimed in claim 1, wherein the two first cutting projections (23a, 23b) from any two of oppositely interlaced cutting sections are not overlapped.
A flexible sheet as claimed in claim 1, wherein the two first cutting projections (23a, 23b) from any two of oppositely interlaced cutting sections are partially overlapped.
A flexible sheet as claimed in claims 1, 2 or 3, wherein each cutting section can define a pivot (25) which is projected toward the first direction (X) to form a first pivot projection (251) and toward the second direction (Y) to form a second pivot projection (252), and a distance (T) between the two second pivot projections from any two of adjacent cutting sections on either of cutting paths is preferably between 4mm to 40mm.
A flexible sheet as claimed in claim 4, wherein a first distance (T1) between the two first pivot projections (251) from any two of oppositely interlaced cutting sections is preferably between 2mm to 20mm, and a second distance (T2) between the two second pivot projections (252) from any two of oppositely interlaced cutting sections is preferably between 2mm to 20mm.
A flexible sheet as claimed in claims 1, 2 or 3, wherein each cutting section of the liner shape includes a first edge (211) and two non-parallel second edges (212), wherein the two second edges are respectively connected with two sides of the first edge (211) not vertically, and the two ends (P) of the cutting section are terminals of the two second edges.
A flexible sheet as claimed in claims 1, 2 or 3, wherein each cutting section (31) of the liner shape includes a first edge (311) and two parallel second edges (312), wherein the two second edges (312) are respectively connected with the two sides of the first edge (311) vertically, and the two ends (P) of the cutting section are the terminals of the two second edges (312).
A flexible sheet as claimed in claims 1, 2 or 3, wherein each cutting section of the liner shape is an arc-shaped cutting section (41), and the two ends (P) of the cutting section are the terminals of the arc-shaped cutting section (41).
A flexible sheet as claimed in any of claims 1 to 8, wherein a depth of each cutting section corresponds to a first length of the first cutting projection and the first length (D1) is preferably between 1mm to 10mm, and a width of each cutting section corresponds to a second length (D2) of the second cutting projection and the second length is preferably between 3mm to 30mm.
A flexible sheet as claimed in any of claims 1 to 9, wherein the flexible sheet can be a leather material, a plastic material, a fabric material or a paper material.