GB2499780A

GB2499780A - Slotted joint

Info

Publication number: GB2499780A
Application number: GB1202477.4A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Peter John Charles Spurgeon
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2012-03-02
Filing date: 2012-03-02
Publication date: 2013-09-04
Also published as: GB201202477D0

Abstract

A joint between two joint members 26, 27 or 30, 33 comprises a first member 26 or 30 having at least one channel and at least one open ended slot and a second member 27 or 33 having at least one open ended slot, the end of the second member not protruding beyond the side of the first member when the slots are engaged with one another. The two joint members may be retained at right angles. The second member 27 or 33 may include at least one channel. The channels in the two members may be identical and each slot may be half the height of the channel in the other member. The members may be of rectangular or circular cross section. The joint members 30, 33 may be attached to members 31, 34 e.g. by screws 32. The joint may be used in construction, furniture, toys or models.

Description

Background

Article Having a Joint

There are various means for joints securing articles with a joint. Many of these require clamping in order to hold the members in registration, such a joint being a mitre joint in a picture frame. Other joints, such as the log cabin corner joint has a part extending outside the periphery of the walls that may be weaker or be subject to more weathering. Joints in the ends of members have the disadvantages of being unweildy, difficult to machine by automatic methods and of having to be of the same material as the member. The innacuracies due to these manually fitted joints lead to the requirement for extra filling of the interstices and various securing means. When the article is more compact than the member to which it is to be attached it is easier to settup for machining on a smaller machine or it is easier to mold or form. It can have several advantages in use over a joint which is integral with the member:

1) Shorter for fixing to a right angled end of a member.

2) Member may be rectangular square elliptical or round.

3) Longer stem to make it a wall bracket etc.

4) Longer stem and angled.

5) Angled adapter piece.

6) Various fixing methods.

7) Material for shock or vibration absorption.

8) Material stronger than member material.

9) Lapjoint block, stem long enough to enable fixings.

10) Sealable slot in mounting for glass etc.

11) Sealable slots in mounting for double glazing or cavity wall.

12) Easy to secure to a straight cut flat surface using screws, adhesive, welding, magnetic force etc.

13) Member may be designed mainly for resistance to bending, the joint for known tensional, shear, torsional, bending and compressive durability.

14) Two device when joined have only one degree of freedom.

15) Joint may have identical parts (hemaphrodite) thus reducing the number of variations and not requiring the preplanning of which joints shall be male and which shall be female types.

The joint can be used in the construction of buildings, packing cases, containers, boxes and models, particularly where the assembly may be assembled and re-assembled without damage. Sides or increasing sides can be constructed using the joint in its double slot form by erecting layers of the members and joint members. When used in this way to form the sides of a box the sides can be reduced in height as each layer of jointed members is reduced. Such an arrangement enables the sides of a box containing items to be reduced in height as the items are removed. - it then being easier to remove items from the bottom of the box and for a storekeeper to observe the levels of contents within boxes.

Description

The invention comprises of a slotted joint of two interlocking members. In a preferred application the two members each have a joint that is designed to fit into the joint on the other member at right angles and at leqast one of the members has its joint end flush with the surface of the other member after the joint is assembled. In constructions of a single layer of members of the same height the slot of each joint extends to half the height of the component. In constructions of several layers or courses of identical height members each member may have opposing slots, each one extending to one quarter the height of the member. The first and last courses of construction usually need finishing with half height members, having slots in one edge only. Parts may be manufactured by machining, extrusion, press-forming or injection molding, blow molding.

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Some materials may be blow molded or vacuum formed. Sheet materials such as cardboard, corrugated cardboard or correx corrugated plastic and thin metals may be folded to produce hollow sections in the factory or by the user. Parts may be supplied cut to a shape and having interstices and fold-lines such that they may be folded into shape and assembled on delivery, the folds may then interlock or be secured with adhesive, adhesive tape, hook and loop (e.g. Velcro®) tapes or or by mechanical means. Additional folds may form reinforcing ribs when bent at an angle, conventional mechanical means including welding. Other means of holding components together more securely include the drilling of a hole through the centre of the joint at 45 degrees to the components of the joint such that a bolt, stud, spring, melted plastic, etc in the hole then prevents relative movement of the components. When constructed from flat material having fold lines or hinged or pivoted joints and cutouts the devices may be folded into shape during construction and later packed flat after dismantling, this producing a level of elasticity to the slotted joint. Detailed Description

The figures show a few of the many uses of the invention.

In figure 1 the slotted joints of existing inventions are shown - figure la shows a slot 1 extending to half the height 2 of a member 3 and another member 4 containing a similar slot. Figure lb shows members 5 and 6 with their slots near their ends assembled to form a corner 7 and the outside pieces 8 and 9 can be seen. Figure lc shows a corner 10 comprising of members 11 of half height and members 12 of full height and the protruding ends 13 of these members.

In figure 2 is shown an intermediate T junction 14 between the thicker member 15 and the thinner member 16 as may occur in a construction where member 16 is a spacer between two walls having outer leaves 17 and inner leaves 18. The thinner member 16 may also be used as a divider in a box having opposite sides 17 and 18 at its ends.The joint in the first member 15 - it having grooves 19 and 20 of width equal to the thickness 23 of the second member 16 and the distance between the grooves being equal to the width of a slot 21 near the end of member 16. The first member then also has a slot 22 of width equal to the thickness 23 of member 16. The depth 24 of the slots 21 and 22 are identical. The distance 25 between the slot in the second member 16 and its end is the same as the depth 24 of the slots in the first member. It can be seen that the ends of the member 16 are flush with the face of the thicker members 15 17 or 18.

Figure 3a shows the joint for the first thick member 26 and a second thick member 27 and wider angle sided grooves 28 extend down the sides 29. Figure 3b shows the assembled joint in two half-height members where the members 26 and 27 are of equal half-height. Figure 3c shows how this angled groove can produce a flush-sided corner of two walls, the mitred edge of the joint being at the end of each member. Figure 3d shows where the joint member 30 is attached to the end of a member 31 by means of screws 32 and joint member 33 is ready for attachment to the end of member 34. Joint members 33 and 30 may be identical since they form a hemaph-rodite joint and do not have to perform the functions of members 31 and 34 which may be of different lengths, forms, materials and purpose.

The design can also be used for joining round section members or tubes or pipes, particularly in the case where the slot depth is half the external diameter. Figure 4 shows a cylindrical member 35 with an end joint member 36 that may be attached to a member 37 with a similar end joint 38 to produce a mitred corner effect 39. The members in figure 4 could be tubes or pipes and the resultant joint would not have any restriction of the cross section of the bore.

T-joints and X-joints may be formed analogously to the joints shown for rectangular sections. When identical joint members 36 are made for the first and second members it is important that the tolerances for the grooves and slots are such that a desired clearance, sliding or clearance fit is obtained. Joint members 36 may nevertheless be made cheaply using mass production molding, forming, machining, extruding, casting, forging or assembly of its parts. The joint members may also incorporate resilient materials or be assembled at a plastic temperature.

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Figure 5 a joint member 40 that has one side of the member cut away to enable a similar joint member 41 to be joined lengthwise by means of the joint member 42.

In figure 6 the joint member 44 has a spigot 45 to enable it to be inserted in the hole in the end of the member 43. This would enable the joint to be attached at various angles to the member 43 or for the spigot 45 to be inserted into the member 43 in a rotateable fashion of plain, roller or ball bearing type.

Figure 7 shows a joint 46 having slots 47 of one quarter the height 48 and having a number of through fixing holes 49 (shown in a cross sectional view), to enable it to be joined to a plain-ended member at a number of different angles. Such holes, and other holes in diverse parts of the joint member may also carry liquids or gases, or may be used to acommodate reinforcing rods, screws etc. The joint 46 could be assembled from the separate parts 50, 51 and 52.

In figure 8, various vies are shown of joint members having a shaped cross section 53. View 53 shows the plan view of the joint members which all have grooves 58 and 59 in opposite sides. Joint member 55 is a full height joint member that can be interlocked with similar joint members to increase the height of an assembly or with the half height joint member 57 to obtain a level top or bottom to an assembly. The joint member 56 is a tall half height member that, when interlocked with similar joint members produces a single layer assembly.

Figure 9 illustrates a number of cross sections suitable for full height joint members on account of their symmetry and internal structure at the positions corresponding to the end of the slots, these shapes may improve the appearance of an otherwise flat, square building or object. An embodiment could include the joint member part being of solid form whilst the attached member would be of hollow cross section. The dotted lines 60 show the positions of the bottoms of the slots where the cross section is used for the joint member part, Views 61 and 64 show solid cross sections and views 62 and 65 show hollow cross sections. The air spaces 63 and 66 provide areas that could provide insulation, channels for building services - piping, electricity, heating etc or may be filled with an insulating foam or structural material after assembly. The various cross sections may be used in the joint members, and/or in members attached to the joint members.

By making components hollow they enable less material to be used whilst maintaining the rigidity of a wider-slotted joint compared with a thinner solid component. Components may be designed for use in the construction of trade stands at exhibitions or in interior and exterior wall-building applications. Materials such as this may also be used in the construction of undersea structures or groynes and other sea defences. Single walls or double skinned walls may be constructed, the double skinned walls being filled with insulating material, rubble, concrete etc or topped with soil for growing plants. Rungs may be fitted into the styles of ladders by the method or scaffolding parts may use the joints. Handrails using the joints between circular sections would have smooth transitions. The components may include parts of magnetically active material in order to secure the slotted parts in their fully engaged positions. Slots and grooves may be tapered or the material may be flexible to enable the components to be self-retaining without the requirement of high accuracy of manufacture. Alternatively the slots may be curved or bent such that force is required to engage or disengage the slots due to the required bending of the components. Whilst the joint may be held together by gravity or by the effect of other layers of the construction individual joints may be retained using screws to hold the piece between slots together or sprung retainers such as those used on various lids etc.

Individual components shown in the drawings are not limited to use in their drawings and they may be used in other drawings and in all aspects of the invention.

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Claims

1. An article having a joint and in which the joint member comprises of a first member and a second member and in which the first and second members fit together with at least the first member having at least one channel and at least one open-ended slot and the second member having at least one open-ended slot such that the end of the second member does not protrude from the side of the first member when the slot of the second member is engaged in the channelled slot of the first member.

2. An article according to claim 1 in which the first and second members are retained at right angles after assembly.

3. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which the second member has at least one channel.

4. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which at least one channel has at least one side at an angle of 45 degrees.

5. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which the first member has a channel whose opposite sides are at angles of 90 degrees to each other.

6. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which the channel in the first member is identical to the channel in the second member.

7. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which the slot in the first member is one half the length of the channel in the first member.

8. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which the first member has two open-ended slots opposite to each other and each slot is of a depth equal to one quarter the length of the channel in the member.

9. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which at least one of the members is of rectangular cross section at one edge of the channel.

10. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which at least one of the members is of circular cross section at one edge of the channel.

11. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which there is a through hole.

12. An article according to claim 11 in which the hole cuts into the slot.

13. An article according to claim 11 in which the hole is for the passage of a material in particulate, gas or liquid form.

14. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which the joint between the two members is retained by friction.

15. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which the joint between the two members is retained by gravity.

16. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which the joint between the two members is retained by adhesive.

17. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which the joint between the two members is retained by a device.

18. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which at least one of the members is attached to another article.

19. An article according to any one of the preceding claims in which at least one of the members is attached to the end of another member having a matching shape.

20. An article according to any one of the preceding claims for use as part of a toy.

21. An article according to any one of the preceding claims for use as part of a model.

22. An article according to any one of the preceding claims for use in assembly of furniture.

23. An article according to any one of the preceding claims for use in the construction industry.

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