VISORS
The present invention relates to visors and, in particular, to visors for attachment to a pushchair to provide shade or shelter to a child in the pushchair.
It is frequently necessary to provide a child in a pushchair with shade from the sun or shelter from a shower of rain it is possible to purchase, for example, shade umbrellas which have, at one end of the stem of the umbrella, a mounting unit which can be suitably attached onto a part of the frame of the pushchair However, these items are bulky to carry and store Another known type of weather protector is a concertina type hood which can be clamped onto the frame of the pushchair.
Again, however, this type of product is bulky and sometimes difficult to fix The present invention seeks to provide a simpler and less bulky visor for a pushchair From a first aspect, therefore, the present invention provides a visor for a pushchair, said visor being formed from a sheet material and comprising a central, protective portion, and a pair of wing portions arranged on opposite sides of the central portion, said wing portions having a proximal portion and a distal portion, said distal portion being foldable, or folded, so as to lie face to face with said proximal portion around a frame of a pushchair Thus in accordance with the invention, a visor has a central, protective portion, with attachment wings provided on either side thereof These wings can be folded back on, and secured to, one another around a part of the pushchair frame in order to maintain the visor in position Preferably, each wing comprises means for fastening the two portions thereof together in a face to face orientation when the visor is properly positioned on the pushchair in order to retain the visor on the pushchair Most preferably, complementary fastening means are provided on the respective wing portions for mutual engagement Preferably the fastening means are formed in the plane of the visor so as to keep the visor as flat as possible The fastening means may comprise mechanically interlocking means, such as tabs and slots In other embodiments, the fastening may comprise an adhesive or bonding material Preferably at least two sets of fastening means are provided, at longitudinally spaced positions along each wing whereby the distal and proximal portions can be secured together at two locations Typically a pushchair will have a construction in which, at each side of the pushchair, respective diverging frame members are pivotally joined at an upper part of the pushchair by a pivot joint. Preferably the visor of the present invention is configured to extend around the diverging frame members just below the pivot joint.
This has the advantage that the visor will not be able to slip down the frame due to the diverging frame members In the preferred embodiment, a fastener is provided to lie between the frame members so as to closely retain the wings of visor around the frame members 1 5 Preferably a gap is provided between a portion of each wing and the adjacent protective portion in order to accommodate the thickness of the frame members Preferably the visor is made from a waterproof or water resistant material to provide protection against rain Most preferably, therefore, the visor is made from a plastics sheet material, such as polypropylene The visor may be printed with a suitable pattern or, in, for example, a UV opaque material so as to provide not only shade but IJV protection A preferred embodiment of the invention may now be described by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which Figure 1 shows a visor in accordance with the present invention, Figure 2 shows the visor of Figure 1 attached to a pushchair, Figure 3 shows the mounting arrangement of Figure 1 in greater detail, and Figure 4 shows an intermediate step in mounting the visor to a pushchair With reference to Figure 1, a sun visor 2 is made from a sheet of semi-rigid foldable plastics material, for example, a 650 micron thick polypropylene material The visor 2 comprises a central protective panel 4 and a pair of wings 6 arranged on either side of the protective panel 4 The wings 6 are attached to the central portion 4 around respective crease lines 8 Each wing 6 comprises a proximal portion 10 and a distal portion 12. Each distal portion 12 is connected to the proximal portion 10 around respective crease lines 14 formed in each wing in order to facilitate the folding of each wing 6.
The distal portion 12 of each wing a 6 comprises pair of spaced apart fasteners 16 Each proximal wing portion 10 comprises corresponding fasteners 18 The fasteners 16 formed in the distal portion 12 of the wing 6 each comprise a pair of oppositely facing tabs 20, while the fasteners 18 in the proximal portion 10 each comprise a pair of slots 22. The tabs 20 can be inserted into the slots 22 when the distal portion 12 is folded over the proximal portion 10 so as to secure the two wing portions together A gap 24 is provided between an intermediate portion of each wing 6 and the central protective panel 4 of the visor 2 The visor 2 described above is intended for attachment to a pushchair 30 having an A- frame, as shown in Figures 2 and 3 In these Figures, it will be seen that the central panel 4 of the visor 2 (which, as will be seen, has been decorated with a suitable pattern, for example of UV resistant ink or paint) sits between the handles 38 of the pushchair In fact, the lateral dimension of the central panel 4 is typically greater than the spacing between the sides of the pushchair 30 such that it assumes a convex configuration as shown As can be seen from Figures 3 and 4, the visor 2 is retained on the pushchair 3 by the respective wings 6 In particular, the visor 2 is located such that each wing 6 is located just below a pivot joint 36 of the pushchair frame such that frame members 32,34 are accommodated within the gap 24 formed between the central panel 4 and the associated wing 6 The distal end 12 of each wing 6 is folded around the rear frame member 32 about the respective crease lines 14 (which generally align with the rear of the frame member 32) and the distal portion 12 of each wing then secured to the proximal portion of each wing by fastening the fasteners 16,18 It will be seen that one fastener pair 42 is arranged between the frame members 3 2,34 while the other 44 is arranged in front of the foremost frame member 34 This provides a particularly robust attachment It will be appreciated from Figure 3 that the visor 2 will not be able to slip down the push chair frame very far without the inner edge 40 of the slot 24 engaging the foremost frame member 34, thereby wedging the visor 2 in position To remove the visor 2, the user simply needs to release the fasteners The visor can then be stored flat, thereby taking up very little space It will be appreciated that various modifications can be made to the arrangement shown without departing from the scope of the invention For example, the visor need not be made from a plastics material but could be made from any suitable foldable sheet material, for example a paperboard or cardboard material provided, if necessary, with a suitable waterproof coating Also, the fasteners may take a different form to those shown They could, for example comprise poppers or the like suitably attached to each wing portion In a further embodiment, the fastening means may be separate from the visor and attached thereto when needed 1 5 In a yet further embodiment, the front most fastener 44 could be replaced by a glued, welded or bonded connection. With such an arrangement, the visor may be slipped down over the handles of the pushchair into the desired position Preferably a rear fastener, for example such as one discussed above, is provided between the frame members so as firmly to anchor the visor in position Thus, for example, at least the front most fastener of the visor could be thrnied say as a contact adhesive provided on one or other of the wing portions A user could simply peel off a protective cover so as to allow the wing portions to be bonded together in the desired position Alternatively, a separate adhesive could be supplied for the purpose Indeed it is possible that the visor could be supplied pre-honded in this region