JP2024072745A - Punching material for flooring material set manufacture and manufacturing method of flooring material set - Google Patents

Abstract

To provide a punching material allowing easily manufacturing a flooring material set of forming a continuous pattern or design, when combining and laying a plurality of flooring materials, theoretically without any design restriction, and method for manufacturing the flooring material set using the punching material.SOLUTION: A punching material includes a plurality of sections 2 divided in a longitudinal direction L, each of the plurality of sections 2 is composed of a punching part 21 and a non-punching part 22, and each of the plurality of sections includes a pattern formed thereon. The pattern formed on each punching part is configured to be continuously connected to a pattern formed on at least another punching part, on at least one side of the punching part. The flooring material set produced by punching only the punching parts from the punching material with the foregoing feature turns out such a flooring material set that a series of pattern is formed by laying a plurality of flooring materials.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2

Description

The present invention relates to a punched material used in manufacturing a flooring set that forms a continuous pattern when laid on a floor surface, and to a method for manufacturing a flooring set using this punched material.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a wide variety of flooring materials, such as vinyl-based flooring materials such as carpets and cushion flooring, and other resin-based flooring materials, have been installed in the interiors of offices, commercial facilities, and ordinary homes.
The surfaces of many of these flooring materials have a variety of patterns and designs drawn on them, and by laying flooring materials of various designs, the overall design of the floor on which they are laid is enhanced.

Commonly used flooring materials can be broadly divided into large-sized flooring materials in sheet or roll form (e.g., roll carpet, long sheets, etc.), and relatively small-sized flooring materials in tile shapes such as square or hexagonal shapes (e.g., tile carpet, PVC tiles, etc.) that are laid down to make up the entire floor surface.

When a large-sized flooring material in sheet or roll form, such as roll carpet, is laid on the floor, it is possible to create a pattern or design using the entire surface area of the roll carpet, allowing for a design that is complete over a large area and creating an appearance with a sense of unity across the entire floor.

However, installing roll carpet requires a lot of craftsmanship and is not easy. For this reason, tile carpet, which is easier to handle and install than roll carpet, has been increasingly used recently. Tile carpet has the advantage that it can be partially replaced, so if it gets dirty, you can just replace the dirty part and keep the appearance clean.

Conventional tile carpets are rectangular with sides measuring approximately 20 to 80 cm, and when the tile carpets are laid on a floor surface, they often form a repeating pattern. However, recently there has been an increasing need to use tile carpets, which are easy to handle and install, to form continuous patterns or designs that are complete over a large area, like roll carpets.

However, when trying to create a design or pattern that covers a large area using carpet tiles, the pattern will be misaligned at the joints between the carpet tiles, which can make the design look unnatural when laid over the entire floor, posing a problem of limitations on the designs that can be expressed.

To solve this problem, Patent Document 1 discloses a tile carpet having a pattern that repeats vertically, in which the pattern in one direction is greater than one time the maximum length of one side of the tile carpet, and is applied at intervals that are not an integer multiple of the maximum length of one side of the tile carpet.

Furthermore, Patent Document 2 discloses a tile carpet set that, when multiple tile carpets are laid out on a floor or the like, can give an overall impression of unity even if each tile carpet has a different design.

JP 2010-259649 A JP 2020-5680 A

The tile carpet of Patent Document 1 makes the seams less noticeable and allows for the creation of large patterned patterns, but the direction of the stripes is limited and patterns other than striped patterns can only be used, restricting the designs that can be expressed.

On the other hand, the tile carpet set of Patent Document 2 can express one large pattern by combining multiple tile carpets, but there are many restrictions that must be satisfied for the pattern area of each tile carpet, which results in restrictions on the designs that can be expressed.

Furthermore, in the conventional method, in order to manufacture a tile carpet set in which a pattern that is complete over a large continuous area when multiple tile carpets are laid down, the carpets were cut to a specified size and then printed or tufted one by one to form the pattern, which required a lot of time and cost to manufacture one tile carpet set.

In view of these problems, the present invention provides a punched material that can easily produce a flooring set that has no design restrictions in theory and that forms a continuous, uninterrupted pattern or design when multiple flooring sheets are combined and laid, and a method for producing a flooring set using this punched material.

The punched material of the present invention has the following features.

[1] A punching material for manufacturing a flooring set in which a continuous pattern is formed by laying multiple sheets,
The punched material has a plurality of sections obtained by dividing the punched material in the length direction,
Each of the plurality of sections is composed of a punched portion and a non-punched portion, and a pattern is formed in each of the plurality of sections;
This punching material is for use in manufacturing flooring sets, and is characterized in that the pattern formed in each punched portion of the punching material is formed so as to be continuously connected to the pattern formed in at least one other punched portion along at least one side of the punching material.

[2] A method for manufacturing a flooring set in which a continuous pattern is formed by laying multiple sheets, comprising:
A method for manufacturing a flooring set, comprising a step of punching out only the punched portions from the punched material described in [1] above.

The present invention is characterized in that punched materials for manufacturing flooring sets, as described in [1] above, are prepared in advance, and only the punched portions of each section of the punched materials are punched out. The flooring sets manufactured by the present invention can form a continuous large pattern when laid side by side on a floor surface. This method does not cause discomfort such as misalignment of patterns at the joints between flooring units. Therefore, there are no restrictions on the design of patterns and designs that can be formed using multiple flooring sets, and it is possible to manufacture flooring sets that can theoretically express any pattern or design.

Furthermore, in the present invention, punched material is prepared in advance and then a flooring set is manufactured by punching out only the punched portions of each section, which reduces costs and manufacturing time compared to conventional methods and makes it possible to efficiently manufacture flooring sets that form continuous patterns and designs.

FIG. 1 is an overall view of a punched material according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is an enlarged view of one section of a punching according to the present invention. FIG. 13 is a plan view of a punched material having a pattern formed thereon when the number of sections according to the present invention is two. FIG. 4 is a plan view of a flooring set in which the punched portions shown in FIG. 3 are joined together and laid. FIG. 13 is a plan view of a die-cut material having a pattern with nine sections according to the present invention. FIG. 6 is a plan view of a flooring set in which the punched portions in FIG. 5 are joined together and laid.

The invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the drawings.

In this specification, the term "flooring set" refers to any flooring material that forms a continuous pattern when multiple sheets are laid on a floor surface. (Hereinafter, in this specification, all of these will be referred to as "flooring set").
For example, examples of flooring sets according to the present invention include tile carpet sets that form a continuous pattern when a plurality of tiles are laid, vinyl tile sets, and olefin tile sets.

In this specification, the term "punched material" refers to a single layer or laminate in the form of a sheet or long roll prior to being punched into the shape of a flooring material when producing a flooring set.

The material and configuration of the punching material of the present invention can be appropriately changed depending on the flooring set to be manufactured. For example, when manufacturing a tile carpet set, a raw carpet roll in which one or more layers of backing material are laminated on a grey fabric in which pile yarns are tufted on a base fabric is used as the punching material of the present invention. Also, when manufacturing a flooring set such as a vinyl tile set or an olefin tile set, the laminate sheet before cutting can be used as the punching material.

The features of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings, taking a method for producing a tile carpet set as an example, but the present invention is not limited to this embodiment.

As shown in Fig. 1, the punched material of the present invention has a plurality of sections divided in the length direction of the punched material. In this specification, "length direction" means the direction of the long side of the rectangular punched material, and is indicated as L in the figure. (In this specification, the side of the punched material that is punched first is referred to as the upper side (upstream), and the side that is punched later is referred to as the lower side (downstream). In the figure, the punched material is indicated as "upper" and "lower" in the length direction L, and the upper side of each section is referred to as the upper side, and the lower side is referred to as the lower side.)

Each of the above-mentioned sections has a pattern or design formed therein. In this case, there may be sections in the same punched material that have the same pattern or design, or the patterns formed in each section may all be different.

There is no particular limitation on the method for forming the pattern or design on the punched material. For example, the pattern or design may be formed on the surface of the punched material by printing, or in the case of manufacturing a tile carpet, the pattern or design can be imparted by the texture, the color of the pile yarn, or the weaving method.

Each section obtained by dividing the punched material in the length direction has a punched part that is actually used as a flooring material and a non-punched part that remains without being punched out of the punched material and is not used as a flooring material, and each section has a pattern formed across the punched part and the non-punched part.

The most distinctive feature of the punched material of the present invention is that the pattern formed in the punched portion of one section and the pattern formed in the punched portion of at least one of the other sections are formed so that the patterns are continuously connected along at least one of the sides of the punched portion.

In this specification, "the pattern is connected continuously" means that when the punched portions in each section are connected, either 1.) the pattern is connected continuously without any unnatural interruptions, or 2.) the color is connected continuously without any unnatural changes.

(Embodiment 1)
The features of the present invention described above in (0030) will be specifically explained using the case where the number of sections in the punched material is two (section A, section B), which is the simplest embodiment of the present invention. A plan view of the punched material in the case where the number of sections is two is shown in FIG.

3, section A (2A) and section B (2B) are included in the same punched material 1, and each section has a pattern formed across a punched portion 21 and a non-punched portion 22. Also, section A (2A) and section B (2B) have different patterns formed therein.

In the punched material shown in Fig. 3, punched portion 21A is punched out from section A (2A) and punched portion 21B is punched out from section B (2B) to produce flooring material. In this case, Fig. 4 shows a diagram in which the lower side 211 of punched portion 21A in section A in Fig. 3 is connected to the upper side 212 of punched portion 21B in section B in Fig. 3. When each section in Fig. 3 is punched out with a punched portion and the punched portions are connected to each other, the patterns are connected to form a star-shaped pattern as shown in Fig. 4.

In other words, a feature of the present invention is that a punched material with a pattern formed thereon is prepared in advance so that one side (lower side 211) of punched portion 21A in section A and one side (upper side 212) of punched portion 21B in section B are connected.

As mentioned above, by preparing in advance a punched material with a pattern that satisfies the characteristic of [1], it is possible to easily manufacture a flooring set that will form a continuous pattern when laid down by simply punching out only the punched parts from this punched material.

Furthermore, by simultaneously adding a process of cutting the punched portion into multiple pieces during the process of punching out only the punched portion from the punching material, it becomes possible to efficiently produce tile-shaped flooring material sets (e.g., tile carpet sets, vinyl tile sets, olefin tile sets, etc.) that form a continuous pattern when laid.

In the first embodiment, the features of the present invention have been explained using as an example the case where the number of sections is two, which is the simplest form of the present invention. However, by further extending the punched material in the longitudinal direction L and increasing the number of sections in the punched material, it is possible to easily produce a flooring material set that forms a continuous pattern that is completed over a larger area.

(Embodiment 2)
As an example of increasing the number of sections, FIG. 5 shows the case where a punched material having nine sections is produced.
(FIG. 5 includes non-punched portions, and the boundaries of each section are designed so that the punched portions of each section can be connected to each other on at least one side, as shown in FIG. 3, but this is omitted in FIG. 5 to avoid complicating the drawing.)

At this time, the nine sections 2A to 2I shown in Figure 5 have patterns formed in each of the punched portions 21A to 21I contained in the same punched material 1 so that the patterns are connected to other punched portions on at least one side of the punched portions, above, below, left, or right.

A specific example of (0040) will be described below. Fig. 6 shows a state in which only the punched portion 21 is punched out from each section 2 shown in Fig. 5, and the punched portions 21A to 21I of each section are connected to each other.

For example, when focusing on punched portion 21A in Fig. 6, the pattern can be connected at two sides, punched portion 21C (left side) and punched portion 21D (bottom side), and when focusing on punched portion 21E, the pattern is formed so that the pattern can be connected at the four sides, top, bottom, left and right, of punched portions 21C, 21D, 21F, and 21H. In this way, no matter which punched portion you focus on, the pattern can be connected at least at one side of the punched portion. By producing punched material with the above-mentioned pattern, punching out nine punched portions 21A to 21I, and laying them on the floor surface, a flooring material set that forms a continuous large pattern is created.

The order in which the patterns are formed in the sections 2A to 2I of the punched material is not particularly limited as long as the desired pattern or design can be formed when the punched material is finally laid as a flooring set. In other words, the sections 2A to 2I may be rearranged to produce a punched material having a pattern formed therein for production reasons.

In the punched material of the present invention, the shape of the punched portion is preferably rectangular from the viewpoints of ease of pattern formation and productivity.

Also in embodiment 2, by adding a process of cutting the punched portion into parts in the process of punching out the punched portion 21 as shown in Figure 5, it is possible to efficiently manufacture a tile-shaped flooring material set that forms a continuous pattern when laid.

In this specification, an example with up to nine sections has been disclosed in embodiment 2, but the longer the length L of the punched material is, the more the number of sections can be increased, making it possible to produce a flooring material set that forms a pattern or design that is complete over a larger area. Therefore, if a long roll of punched material with a pattern having the characteristics of the present invention is produced in advance, the flooring material set of the present invention can be manufactured simply by punching this punched material with the punching section, and therefore a flooring material set that forms a continuous pattern can be manufactured with advantages in both cost and productivity.

The width of the punched material of the present invention (indicated as W in FIG. 1) is not particularly limited, and can be appropriately changed depending on the situation during production.

In addition, although the present specification is described on the assumption that a single punched material is produced, it is also possible to produce the flooring set of the present invention using multiple punched materials, so long as the pattern formed in the punched portion can be connected on at least one side.

In addition, in the figures in this specification, for convenience of explanation, the features are explained using simple figures such as stars, but the flooring set using the punched material of the present invention does not have any misalignment of the patterns between the flooring materials, so there are no restrictions on the design and any design can be expressed using this flooring set. A floor installed with the flooring set of the present invention has a unified appearance without any sense of incongruity.

1. punched material, 2. section, 21. punched portion, 22. non-punched portion,
211: Lower side of punched portion, 212: Upper side of punched portion L: Length direction of punched material, W: Width direction of punched material

Claims (2)

A punching material for manufacturing a flooring set that forms a continuous pattern by laying multiple sheets,
The punched material has a plurality of sections obtained by dividing the punched material in the length direction,
Each of the plurality of sections is composed of a punched portion and a non-punched portion, and a pattern is formed in each of the plurality of sections;
This punching material is for manufacturing flooring sets, characterized in that the pattern formed in each punched portion of the punching material is formed so as to be continuously connected to the pattern formed in at least one other punched portion along at least one side of the punching material. A method for manufacturing a flooring set in which a continuous pattern is formed by laying multiple sheets, comprising the steps of:
A method for manufacturing a flooring set, comprising the step of punching out only the punched portions from the punched material according to claim 1.