GB2474669A - Guard for barbeque tongs and kitchen utensils to protect users hand from heat - Google Patents

Abstract

A hand guard, particularly for existing barbecue tongs, has a basket-shaped design. It has rectangular apertures A and B in the front and back of the guard through which the hinged end of the tongs is inserted. A larger aperture C is provided in the top of the guard to enable the user to hold the tong's handles. Alternatively, tongs may be manufactured with a built in guard (Fig. 9). The guard makes cooking safer by preventing burns from either hot liquid splashing onto the cook's hand or being burnt by flames from a grill. The guard is more hygienic than a glove and improves handgrip when compared to a glove. It is made from materials of low conductivity (e.g. a silicone compound) and which meet food safety / hygiene standards. A guard may be used with other handheld kitchen utensils including a flipper (Fig 10), spatula, basting brush, spoon, whisk, skewer (Fig 11), or with cookware such as pans with handles. A bottle opener may be built into the base of the guard (Fig. 5).

Description

Description: UniversaJ hand guard for barbegue tongs The hand guard protects the cook's hand from dry heat and hot liquid splashes whilst using cooking utensils.

A guard (of various designs) would work on many cooking utensils but was originally inspired by a BBQ session so the drawings are weighted to the barbeque tongs.

The guard would be slid onto the hinged end of barbecue tongs through aperture A (shown on fig 1 page 1/5) on the front elevation, through the cavity where the handles will sit and out through aperture B on the back elevation of the same drawing.

When the hand is holding the tong handles through aperture C (fig 2 page 1/5) there should be room to move freely, with increased grip when compared to an oven glove, it will also be more hygienic than a glove as the surface will be non permeable and wipe clean.

The guards would be made from heat retardant materials, with the most appropriate being of low heat conductivity with heat reflective properties and non permeable to hot liquids. The materials used will have properties to protect from dry heat and hot liquids but could be either flexible or rigid, the guard surface will be wipe clean and hygienic, Fig 2 page 1/5.

This version of the guard is likely to be made from a silicone compound but is not limited to that material.

The set of drawings on pages 1+2+3/5 are various views depicting the basic idea for a universal, full basket, hand guard for barbecue tongs. The shape/design would change for use on other utensils as shown on pages 4+5/5.

Figure 1 on page 1/5 show the universal hand guard with barbecue tongs being inserted, the tongs do not form part of the design. The hinged end of the tongs would be inserted through a suitably shaped hole (aperture A) in the front elevation of the hand guard to reappear through a hole on the back elevation (aperture B). A pin or other fixing mechanism may be required to hold the tongs in place.

Figure 2 on page 1/5 depicts the hand guard with tongs fully inserted.

Figure 3 on page 2/5 is a plan view without tongs and figure 4 is the same view but with tongs.

Figure 5 on page 2/5 is a plan view from underneath the hand guard showing a bottle opener fixed to the base.

Figure 6 on page 3/5 is the front elevation where aperture B on the rear elevation can be seen through aperture A on the front.

Figure 7 on page 3/5 is a side elevation, the other side would simply be a mirror image of this one.

Figure 8 on page 3/5 is the rear view.

The first plan drawing, figure 3 on page 2/5 includes lines to depict the barbecue tongs although these would not be part of the universal hand guard, whereas figure 4 on page 2/5 shows the top plan view without the utensils inserted.

The guard could be built into the designs of the various utensils not necessarily as a universal design, such as the barbeque tongs figure 9 page 4/5 where the hand guard forms part of the tongs themselves working with the scissor action by overlapping the two sections of the basket, or a fork, flipper figure 10 page 4/5 shown here as a simple shield but it could also be shaped around the hand, or basting brush etc. The guard could be used as an accessory either tailored to a brand of cooking utensils or a universal product approach as shown on figure 10 page 5/5 as an alternative to the full basket design on pages 1 +2+3/5.

Guard design is dictated largely by its intended utensil and what someone may cook with it, if for example a guard was built to fit kitchen utensils such as spatula's, baister, spoons, whisk etc, for these a guard shaped like a cone may be most suitable as shown in figure 11 page 5/5. Figure 12 page 5/5 shows another guard that would be used on such things as kebab sticks, the guards could also rest on a grill, one at each end of the skewer keeping the kebab from touching the grill and protecting the handles from getting too hot to touch.

The guards would be of various designs as demonstrated by all the drawings presented here but not limited to them.