GB2185389A - Adjustable width support cradle - Google Patents

Abstract

A cradle 10 (Fig. 2) for supporting tall unstable articles or dimensionally unstable ones, such as books, comprises a pair of base parts from which extend upstanding, and conveniently upright, members 11, 12 and forming sub-units 16, 17. Each base part has an integral extending base limb 19, 21 which operatively extends to, and rest upon, a surface portion 23 of the cooperating base part of the other sub-unit so that the limbs extending side by side form at least a portion of the cradle base. The lower tip 22 of each limb and upper surface portion 23 have engaging projections and recesses which enable the distance between upstanding members to be defined and prevent separation of sub-units by lateral forces of a supported article bearing on the upstanding members. The weight of the article maintains the interengagement of projections with recesses. The base may extend outwardly to increase lateral support (Fig. 3) and a cradle with more than two sub-units may be formed (Fig. 8) or a wider cradle with additional base parts intermediate the sub-units (Fig. 9). <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Adjustable width support cradle This invention relates to article support cradles and in particular to support cradles for supporting in an essentially upright attitude articles which are not inherently self supporting in that attitude, which are tall in relation to at least one base dimension, or which have an uneven base.

In this specification the term upright means in an operatively vertical plane or substantially vertical plane displaced from the vertical to the extent that the weight of the object is able to act through its base on the cradle.

Such an article when supported may be said to have side walls which are upstanding, that is, extend upwardly, either vertically, when they may be considered upright, or inclined at an angle to the vertical.

An uneven base is essentially a base which may be irregular or non-flat so as to be unable to support the article in a stable position or attitude.

A known problem exists in supporting dimensionally unstable articles such as papers or files of papers and support cradles or troughs have been proposed in which the articles are supported on a base member extending between two or more upwardly extending rigid members which serve to contain and retain the articles.

It is known also to make such a support cradle of adjustable width to facilitate the support of different numbers or widths of articles by forming a base member, representing the base of the cradle, as a series of interdigitated base limbs which may slide parallel to each other to vary the separation between the upright members but operatively maintain a set separation by means of the weight of the articles on the base limbs.

One such support cradle, specifically for dimensionally unstable articles such as papers or files, is described in British Patent No.

1,408,793. The support cradle described therein relies for maintaining separation of upright members upon friction between the base and/or surface on which it stands or by engagement between projections on its underside and recesses on a specially prepared surface.

A problem also exists in supporting articles which are dimensionally stable but are tall in relation to at least one base dimension. Such an article, although possibly possessing a flat base capable of supporting the article in an upright attitude, is susceptible to laterally acting forces or knocks rotating the centre of gravity of the article beyond the edge of the base and thereby upsetting it. Such a 'tall' article may be unstable in all directions, for example, a cylinder, or may be unstable in respect of applied forces in one direction but quite stable in respect of applied forces in other directions.

One example of an article of this latter type is a micro-computer of the so-called desk-top configuration in which processing electronics and peripherals such as disc drives are housed in a substantially rectangular box having a width and depth large in relation to its height and forming a support surface for a CRT visual display unit and to which a separate input device, such as a keyboard, is coupled.

As more facilities have been added many such computer housings have becomes unwieldy for, and present an unacceptable footprint for, desk top mounting and a recent innovation has been to mount the housing in an upright, or end-on, attitude alongside a desk, although the relative dimensions of the housing are maintained to facilitate such desk-top mounting if required. Clearly the mounting of such micro computer housing in an upright attitude in which its smallest (height) dimension becomes one (width) dimension of its base makes it unstable and susceptible to forces acting on it in the direction of that dimension.

Furthermore, styling practices may lead to the edges of the housing to be rounded both for manufacture and consumer appeal so that the effective footprint of the housing in said smallest dimension is effectively reduced further.

It has been proposed to stabilise such an upright housing, which may also be referred to by the more general term tall article, by attaching to the major upright faces of the housing, adjacent the face forming the base support, stays or legs acting between the housing and floor to extend its base width and provide lateral stability. However the provision of such stays or legs attached to the housing by fastening members may be expected to involve extra manufacturing steps to the article to facilitate the attachment, such as making fixing holes in the case and possibly functional or cosmetic arrangements, such a blanking plugs to mask such holes when not used, as well as extra operation on the part of a user in attaching or removing such stays when the position of the housing is varied.

Furthermore such additional stays or legs often cause detraction from the appearance of the housing.

Such tall articles may also be supported by location in a trough-like cradle in which a reaction to lateral toppling forces is provided by upstanding, usually upright, members forming trough sides, the upright members being joined by means of a base member on which the article is supported. The reaction may be supplied by way of securing the base member to the surface on which it stands or by extending the base of the cradle outwardly of the base of the supported article.

Clearly such tall articles requiring support may come with bases of different dimensions and a support cradle of general applicability to providing support requires to be adjustable in width. However, the lateral or toppling forces acting with a tall article such as a microcomputer housing require a more positive way of locating any relatively displaceable parts than the frictional engagement with an underlying surface or requiring a special surface as proposed in the above mentioned patent specification. Does not offer much less complexity than the provision of individual stays discussed above.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a support cradle for an article which is of simple construction and mitigates at least some of the disadvantages of known article supports.

According to the present invention an adjustable width support cradle for an article or stack of articles comprises a plurality of coupled article supporting base parts at least two of which comprise sub-units each having at least one upstanding member with an article facing surface defining a lateral abutment for a supported article, each of the base parts having base limb means extending towards an operatively adjacent base part to be supported on an upper surface portion thereon and an upper surface portion to receive and support corresponding extending base limb means of an adjacent base part whereby a portion of said article supporting cradle base is defined by collaterally extending base limb means of adjacent base parts and the adjacent base parts are coupled against separation by lateral forces between the supported article and the upstanding members by the weight of a supported article on the base limb means.

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described by way of exampale with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a perspective view of an adjustable width support cradle according to the present invention formed of cooperatively disposed sub-units, having two upstanding members which are upright and oppositely disposed, Figure 2 is a perspective view of the component sub-units of the adjustable width support cradle of Fig. 1 illustrating the locating means between sub-units, Figure 3 is a perspective view of component sub-units of an alternative form of support cradle with an extended base, offering greater support to tall articles, and upright upstanding members, Figure 4 is a plan view of the component parts of Fig. 2 illustrating the positions of locating projections and recesses, Figure 5 is a plan view of support cradle sub-units similar to Fig. 4 but comprising a plurality of operatively interdigitated base limbs, Figure 6(a) is a plan view of a support cra dle similar to Fig. 4 but showing a modified form of base limbs and locating projections and recesses, Figure 6(b) is a sectional elevation along the line I-I of Fig. 6(a), and Figures 7(a) to 7(c) are sectional elevations through alternative forms of adjustable width support cradles showing different configurations of upstanding members, Figure 8 is a plan view showing an alternative form of adjustable width support cradle according to the present invention showing three upstanding members, Figure 9(a) is a perspective view of component parts of an alternative form of cradle including two sub-units and an intermediate base part, Figure 9(b) is a side elevation of a cradle formed of the component parts of Fig. 9(a), and Figure 10 is a perspective view of component parts of a cradle formed similarly to that of Fig. 9 but including three sub-units and an appropriately shaped intermediate base part.

Referring to Fig. 1 an article support cradle 10 according to the present invention comprises two upstanding members 11, 12, having article facing surfaces 13 and 14 respectively, disposed to face each other and separated by a cradle base 15, the upstanding members defining a lateral abutment for an article supported on the cradle.

The cradle base is substantially planar and is intended to be located in a horizontal plane or one having at least a horizontal component whereby the weight of an object supported in the cradle acts through the base. The upstanding members are upstanding in the sense of being upwardly inclined with respect to the base plane and are preferably, as shown, upright in that they extend in a direction perpendicular to the base plane.

One face of each of the upright (as shown) upstanding members may comprise an article facing surface 13, 14 and may be given a suitable surface finish or be coated to provide frictional properties. The article facing surfaces 13, 14 may be other than coextensive with the face of the upstanding member depending on the form of article to be supported.

The cradle, and in particular the article supporting base 15, comprises a plurality of coupled base parts. As illustrated in Fig. 1 there are two such base parts carrying respective ones of the two upstanding members 11, 12 and which may be considered as comprising sub-units 16, 17 respectively which form the cradle. The component sub-units are shown uncoupled and slightly separated in Fig.

2.

The two sub-units 16, 17 are identical. The sub-unit 16 comprises a substantially planar base part 18 from the plane of which extends the upright member 11 and in the plane of which extends base limb means in the form of a single base limb 19. The base limb is integral with the remainder of the base part and extends from that side of the base part adjacent the article-facing surface 13 of the upright member. The sub-unit 17 likewise comprises a base part 20, base limb 21 and upright member 12.

The base limb of one sub-unit is adapted to cooperate with the other sub-unit such that the two limbs extend collaterally, in the case side by side and parallel and locate the subunits in relation to each other, defining both a portion of the article supporting base member and also the separation of the upright members.

The sub-units may be adapted to be coupled in operative disposition by laying a lower surface portion 22 of the distal end, or tip, of each limb on an upper surface portion 23 of the base part passing the other sub-unit, said surfaces being provided with cooperating projections and recesses. One or both of the tip 22 and surface portion 23 may be rebated to provide a uniform upper surface to the two adjacent limbs upon which the article is supported. Maintenance of engagement between the limb and upper surface portion 23 of the sub-unit is effected in operation by the weight of an article supported on the base limbs to keep them in contact with the other base part.

Depending upon the magnitude of any lateral forces expected to act by way of the article on the faces of the upright members and tending to cause movement, and particularly separation, of the sub-units the projections and recesses may be of small size, numerous and possibly randomly distributed, that is, reduced to the state of roughened or frictional surfaces. If significant forces are to be experienced between the supported article and the upright members tending to separate the subunits the projections and recesses may be more defininitely defined.

If the support cradle is required not only to withstand significant lateral forces but also provide lateral support to prevent toppling of a tall article the support cradle may, in effect, increase a base dimension of the supported article by the provision of base extensions 24, 25 to each sub-unit 16 and 17 as shown in Fig. 3. The extensions are from that side of the base part opposite to the article facing surfaces 13, 14 of the upright members, that is, extend away from the article facing surfaces.

It will be appreciated that in general toppling forces acting through the upright members outwardly of an extended base also lead to a corresponding separation force acting between sub-units and the ability to effectively withstand such forces depends not only on the provision of the extended base but also on the interengagement between coupled sub-units.

As shown in Fig. 2 and the plan view thereof in Fig. 4, one only of the upper surface portions 23 of each sub-unit and the lower surface portion 22 of the base limb 21 adjacent its tip, as shown the upper surface portion 23, is provided with a plurality of recesses in the form of grooves 26 extending transversely to the length, that is, direction of extension, of the limb and the direction of separation of the upright members.The other portion, the lower surface of the base limb tip 22, is provided with one or more cooperating projections, in the form of similarly transversely extending ribs 27 such that when the two sub-units are operatively disposed with the lower portion of each limb tip supported on said upper surface portion of the other sub-unit the rib or ribs locate in the grooves and with said location maintained by the weight of supported article on the base limbs the engagement between ribs and groove walls prevents sliding between the sub-units and their separation.

It will be appreciated that the number and nature of grooves and ribs may be varied. For instance, providing each rib is capable of being located in different grooves, each of which will be at a different distance from the article engaging surface of the upright member, the separation of the upright members may be varied in predetermined steps. Whereas only one rib is required to define the location it will be appreciated that any sub-unit separating forces acting along the base limb will be borne between that rib and a cooperating groove wall. Accordingly it may be preferred to increase the load bearing capacity, or lessen the load on each wall by having a plurality of ribs at the same pitch as the grooves.

Also, within any constraints imposed by the magnitude of such separating forces and the strength of the material of the sub-units, the cooperating ribs and grooves may be dimensionally small and large in number, giving a large number of separation steps between the sub-units, or may comprise a smaller number of relatively larger ribs and grooves (as shown in Fig. 2) giving fewer preset sub-unit separations.

In either case the interengaging walls of ribs and grooves preferably extend upright parallel to the article facing surfaces of the upright member to prevent any sub-unit separation forces causing the ribs to ride out of the grooves in a camming action. The ribs and grooves may for this purpose have a rectangular profile although the edges thereof may be rounded to facilitate location. The opposite surfaces of the ribs and/or grooves, that is, those which engage when the sub-units are pushed towards each other, may, however, be inclined to permit such a camming action and having a ratchet effect whereby with an article in the cradle, the sub-units may be simply pushed together until their article facing sur faces effect a desired position with respect to the article which is thereafter supported by the effective base member.The rib and/or groove provided may be other than as described above and curved or otherwise profiled such that relative movement between sub-units by sliding of the ribs from groove to groove is possible in both directions in the absence- of a significant weight acting on the cradle base but effectively inhibited under the engagement forcing action of the article weight.

The location of ribs and grooves may be reversed with one or more ribs being located on the upper surface portion 23 and a plurality of grooves formed at the lower surface of the base limb portions 22.

The plan view of Fig. 4 illustrates the relative locations of the engaging portions of the base limb tip 22 and an upper surface portion 23 of the sub-unit adjacent the base of the upstanding member. Furthermore the interengaging portions are shown as a set of parallel solid lines 26 on the upper surface portion 23 representing either grooves or ribs and a set of parallel broken lines 27 on the lower surface portion 22 of the base limb representing ribs or grooves.

The convention adopted in Fig. 4 of representing upwardly facing grooves or ribs by solid parallel lines and downwardly facing ribs or grooves by broken parallel lines may be employed to illustrate other possible support cradle constructions by separate sub-units as shown in Figs. 5 and 6.

Referring to Fig. 5 the support cradle 10 is formed of two base part sub-units 31, 32 the base limb means comprising a pair of spaced base limbs 33, 34 associated with sub-unit 31 and base limbs 35, 36 associated with subunits 32, coupling of the sub-units requiring interdigitation of the limbs of the sub-units which both prevents relative movement between the sub-units parallel to the article facing surfaces of the upright members and distributes the areas of loading between limbs and opposite sub-units.

The number of base limbs and supporting upper surface areas 37 may be chosen in accordance with the overall length of the support cradle and is not limited to the numbers shown.

Fig. 6(a) illustrates another form of support cradle 40, also comprising two identical subunits 41, 42, in which the base limb means of each sub-unit comprises a single limb 43 adapted to be supported on an upper surface portion of another sub-unit in a manner similar to that shown in Fig. 4, but where to increase the load bearing area the grooved upper surface portion 44 extends laterally for ail, or a greater part of the length of, the sub-unit including the proximate, or root, end of the base limb at 45. The ribbed tip 46 of the base limb also includes an enlargement 47 extending laterally of its longitudinal axis. The extended upper surface portion 45 and limb enlargement 47 are preferably, but not necessarily, also provided with cooperating projections and recesses, conveniently extensions of the ribs and grooves of the limb tip 46 and upper surface portion 44.

A sectional elevation of the sub-unit 41 is shown in Fig. 6(b). It will be seen that the elongated and ribbed upper surface portion 44, 45 is rebated with respect to the plane of the base limb and that when the sub-units are coupled to each other the loading between each base limb and the other sub-unit is distributed uniformly along the length of the support cradle base and a larger area of engagement between cooperating ribs and grooves is effected.

It will be appreciated from Figs. 4 and 6 that although interengagement between base limb and upper surface portions prevent separation of the sub-units in the direction between their upright members there is little to prevent relative motion in transverse directions causing separation of the base limbs.

One way of limiting such relative motion within the plane of the cradle base is to form the projections and recesses other than as ribs and grooves, that is, with engaging surfaces in more than one direction, for example, as pegs and holes, although this limits the effective area of surface engagement in the direction of sub-unit separation. Alternatively, one or more walls 48 or the like may be imposed along an edge of the upper surface portion or between sections of the grooves with a corresponding recess between sections of the ribs. Alternatively, and not shown, the ribs and grooves at different section of the engaging portions may be angled at different directions to each other, say in a V-configuration.

A means of limiting relative movement out of the plane of the cradle base, that is, in an operatively vertical direction, may be effected by forming further projections on the walls of the ribs and corresponding recesses in the walls of the grooves, as shown by dotted lines 49' and 49" respectively in Fig. 6(b), whereby the further projections and recesses engaged after the ribs and grooves are engaged to define the cradle width. It will be appreciated that the overall relative dimensions of the projections and recesses (ribs and grooves) must take account of the further projections.

The interlocking between further projections and recesses after engagement of the ribs within the grooves may be effected manually during operative disposition of the sub-units or may be effected by disposing the sub-units as outlined above, with the ribbed base limb resting on the grooved upper surface, and causing the sub-units to be forced apart and further projections and recess engaged by introduc tion of an article to be supported between the upstanding members.

It will be appreciated that in forming a support cradle from separate sub-units not only can the cradle be made adjustable in width but also the sub-units may be easier to form as a unitary structure, for example, as a single moulding. Preferably the sub-units are arranged to be identical, as shown in the Figures, thereby simplifying the manufacture although, of course the sub-units could be made different from each other requiring a corresponding number of moulds, or other means of formation, but possibly of simpler form.

It will further be appreciated that the upstanding member of each sub-unit, for example, 11 or 12 in Fig. 1, may be inclined with respect to the base plane to be other than substantially perpendicular and operatively upright as shown in Figs. 1 to 6.

Fig. 7(a) shows in side elevation a support cradle 50 formed of two sub-units 51, 52 disposed so as to provide a cradle base 53 in a substantially horizontal plane and upstanding members 54, 55 upwardly inclined to the base plane at an angle of less than 90". The article facing surface 56, 57 respectively, are conveniently coextensive with the upstanding member so as to receive therein on article, such as shown ghosted at 58 which has said walls other than 'upright' or perpendicular to its base. In order to provide effective lateral support for such an article against forces acting between it and the upright members, the base of each sub-unit is extended outwardly as shown at 51', 52' and as described above with reference to Fig. 3.

It will be appreciated that each article facing surface may be less than coextensive with the upstanding member and in effect comprise an upright or inclined portion merely supported by another portion of the upstanding member of indeterminate shape, providing said article facing surface is operatively disposed within the limits of the cradle base.

Fig. 7(b) shows a sectional elevation through a support cradle 60 of identical sub-units 61, 62 disposed as described above so as to provide a substantially planar cradle base 63.

Considering sub-unit 61, upstanding member 64 has an upright article facing surface 65 joined to the base by a non-upright portion 67. The upstanding member may be joined to the base outwardly of the plane of the article facing surface or, as shown, the base may be extended outwardly as shown by portion 66.

If it is desired to widen the base for providing lateral support as described above and with reference to Fig. 3, the support cradle may take the form 70 shown in Fig. 7(c) and comprising identical sub-units 71, 72. In the sub-unit 71 the article facing surface 73 is not coextensive with the upstanding member and a portion 74 joining it to the base 75 is inclined such that it joins the base outwardly of the plane of the article facing surface.

It will be appreciated that in the arrangements described in Figs. 7(b) and 7(c) the article facing surface may also, similarly to that of Fig. 7(a), operatively extend other than upright. Furthermore, where the article facing surface is other than upright the inclination may be outwardly of the cradle to facilitate the introduction of an article of appropriate shape after the cradle dimension, that is, separation of sub-units, has already been defined, or inwardly, to conform with an article which is introduced between the upstanding means or from their ends before the sub-units are closed towards each other.

Although support cradles formed from two separate sub-units have been described above for the purpose of explaining the engagement between sub-units and variations to upstanding members it will be appreciated that a support cradle according to the present invention and having more than two upstanding members disposed in different planes may be formed from a greater number of separate sub-units, preferably identical ones.

Referring to Fig. 8 this is a plan view of a three-upstanding-member support cradle 80 formed of discrete and identical sub-units 81, 82 and 83. The sub-unit 81 comprises a cradle base part having an upstanding member 84 with article facing surface 85, outwardly extending base extension 86 and at the base of the upstanding member an upper surface portion 87 containing a series of grooves as described above and a base limb means in the form of a single base limb 88 at the lower surface of a tip portion 89 of which is formed one or more transverse ribs.

The base limb 88 has a longitudinal axis 90 extending at 60 to the normal to the article engaging surface 85 and the upper surface portion 87 has a longitudinal axis 91 (transversely to the lengths of the recesses) symmetrically disposed at 60 to the normal to the article facing surface 85. The width of the upper surface portion 87 and the lengths of the recesses thereon is greater than the width of the base limb 88.

It will be appreciated from the Figure that with the three sub-units symmetrically disposed the ribbed tip portion of each base limb is supported on the corresponding grooved upper surface portion of the adjacent sub-unit such that the support cradle formed thereby is self supporting when rested on a substantially horizontal surface in the absence of the weight of a supported article to aid engagement between sub-units.

Furthermore the sub- units may be moved apart from each other by locating the ribs of the limb in different grooves to define the separation of the article facing surfaces.

Clearly such movement not only alters which ribs and grooves cooperate but also involves lateral movement of the ribs with respect to the grooves. However, providing the grooves are of sufficient length to accommodate a lateral component of base limb displacement, engagement is maintained.

Clearly other configurations and with different numbers or dispositions of sub-units, with their upstanding members, may be produced without departing from the scope of the invention.

It will be appreciated that in the above described embodiment with three upstanding members the cooperating ribs and grooves may extend other than transversely to the longitudinal axis of the associated base limb providing the engaging surfaces of ribs and grooves extend in a direction to effect resistance to separation of the members.

In all of the above described embodiments a support cradle according to the present invention has been described in which all of the base parts comprise sub-units containing the upstanding members.

It will be appreciated that base parts, including the base limb means and upper surface portions for supporting baselimb means but without upstanding members, may be interposed betwee, and coupled to, other base parts any of which may include sub-units, provided of course that the outermost base parts of any coupled plurality are sub-units with the article suporting upstanding members.

Fig. 9(a) shows a plurality of separate component base parts disposed to form a support cradle 93 in the manner of Fig. 3, that is having two sub-units 94, 95 with intermediate the sub-units a further base part 96 having at each end thereof adjacent another base part base limb means 97, 97' each comprising a single base limb corresponding to, that is, of equal length to, the base limb of the subunits. The base part 96 also has upper surface portions 98, 98' arranged to receive the base limbs of the sub-units and the base limbs 97, 97' of the intermediate base part are received on the upper surface portions of the sub-units.

Fig. 9(b) shows in side elevation the assembled cradle with the base parts 94, 95 and 96 coupled. The lower portion of the base limb tips and limb engaging upper surface portions may, as shown, have the above discussed projections and recesses to provide both resistance against lateral separation and a limited degree of adjustment to cradle width, that is, overall length of base.

The plurality of recesses permitting multiple positioning of base limb tip may be limited to some only of the base parts, such as the subunits, excluding any intermediate base parts.

Also any number of intermediate base parts of any size may be employed to define cradle width and the base limb means of the subunit may have other than the single base limb shown in accordance with the base limb means configuration of the adjacent base part, such as the base limb variants shown in Figs.

5 and 6.

The use of intermediate base parts between sub-units is not limited to cradle structures in which there are two upstanding members and may, as Fig. 10 shows, be employed with a larger number of upstanding members, that is, when a larger number of base parts are subunits.

In Fig. 10 a support cradle 100 comprises three outer base parts comprising sub-units 101, 101' and 101" and between which, and adapted for coupling thereto, is a three-legged or star-shaped base part 102. Each leg of the intermediate base part 102 has base limb means corresponding to the adjacent sub-unit and an upper surface position for supporting the limb means of the adjacent sub-unit. Providing it has the limb means for coupling to adjacent sub-units or other intermediate base parts there is no limit to the plan shape of an intermediate base part.

In all of the above described embodiments the base of each sub-unit and the base limb means thereof, although conveniently described as planar and able to support a flatbottomed article may be profiled such that the assembled cradle has an upper surface to the base which conforms to the shape of the base of any article supported therein.

Furthermore it will be appreciated that because the base parts are constructed to interengage one with another, they are not dependant on the characteristics of a supporting surface or the provision of a special one.

Claims (20)

1. An adjustable width support cradle for an article or stack of articles, comprising a plurality of coupled article supporting base parts at least two of which comprise sub-units each having at least one upstanding member with an article facing surface defining a lateral abutment for a supported article, each of the base parts having base limb means extending towards an operatively adjacent base part to be supported on an upper surface portion thereon and an upper surface portion to receive and support corresponding extending base limb means of an adjacent base part whereby a portion of said article supporting cradle base is defined by collaterally extending base limb means of adjacent base parts and the adjacent base parts are coupled against separation by lateral forces between the supported article and the upstanding members by the weight of a supported article on the base limb means.

2. A support cradle as claimed in claim 1 in which the base parts are all of sub-units, said sub-units being operatively disposed with respect to each other with the base limbs extending such that the extremity of each base limb is supported on an upper surface portion of another sub-unit.

3. A support cradle as claimed in claim 1 including at least one intermediate base part between sub-units.

4. A support cradle as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 3 in which one only of an upper surface portion of each base part and a lower surface portion of each base limb means extremity is provided with a plurality of recesses and the other portion is provided with one or more cooperating projections such that with the base parts operatively disposed with respect to each other, at least one projection of one base part engages in said recesses of an other base part, interengagement between projections and recesses being operable to prevent separation of at least the subunits.

5. A support cradle as claimed in claim 4 in which the portions carrying the recesses and projections are rebated with respect to said surfaces of the base limb means and base part such that the projections and lands between recesses do not rise above the surfaces adjacent the respective portions.

6. A support cradle as claimed in claim 4 or claim 5 in which said projections and recesses comprise ribs and grooves respectively, each being arranged to extend transversely to the axis of extension of the base limb means associated therewith.

7. A support cradle as claimed in any one of claims 4 to 6 in which the recesses and/or projections are profiled so as to slide over each other in a direction to lessen the separation of the component sub-units thereof.

8. A support cradle as claimed in any one of claims 4 to 6 in which the profiles of the recesses and projections are substantially rectangular.

9. A support cradle as claimed in any one of Claims 4 to 8 in which each projection wall is provided with a further projection substantially in the plane of the base limb means and each recess wall engageable by the projection is provided with a corresponding further recess, said further projections and recesses being adopted to cooperate in response to a separation movement of the sub-unit in the plane of the base after location of each projection in a corresponding recess.

10. A support cradle as claimed in Claim 9 in which said separation movement is arranged to be provided by support of an article in the cradle.

11. A support cradle as claimed in any one of the preceding claims in which the sub-units are identical.

12. A support cradle as claimed in any one of the precedin claims in which limb means of each of at least two adjoining base parts comprises at least two base limbs spaced apart by at least the width of at least one of the limbs.

13. A support cradle as claimed in claim 12 in which the base limbs are arranged such that with the base parts operatively disposed the base limbs of the two parts are interdigitated.

14. A support cradle as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 11 in which limb means of each of at least two adjoining base parts comprises a single base limb having an enlargement at the extremity thereof extending laterally in a direction whereby it operatively overlaps a rebated upper surface portion of a cooperating base limb of an operatively disposed base part.

15. A support cradle as claimed in any one of the preceding claims comprising 9 pair of sub-units arranged to be operatively disposed in relation to each other with the article facing surfaces of the upstanding members facing each other.

16. A support cradle as claimed in any one of the preceding claims in which the base of each sub-unit is arranged to extend away from the article facing surface of the upstanding member.

17. A support cradle as claimed in any one of the preceding claims in which the article facing surface is substantially coextensive with one surface of the upstanding member.

18. A support cradle as claimed in any one of the preceding claims in which article facing surface is arranged to extend substantially perpendicularly to the direction of extension of the base limb means.

19. An adjustable width support cradle comprising only sub-units and substantially as herein described with reference to Figs. 1, 2 and 4 or any one of Figs. 3 to 8 of the accompanying drawings.

20. An adjustable width support cradle comprising sub-units separated by intermediate base parts and substantially as herein described with reference to Figs. 9 to 10 of the accompanying drawings.