US1736808A - Production of hook plates and hooks for temporary binders - Google Patents

Description

Nov. 26, 1 929. c. D. TRUSSELL 1,736,808

PRODUCTION OF HOOK PLATES AND HOOKS FOR TEMPORARY BINDERS Filed 'se t. 15. 1927 INVENTOR M .%w

By Attorneys, amm,h rw Patented Nov. 26, 1929 UNITED STATES PATENT, ormca PRODUCTION 0] BOOK PLATES AND BOOKS FOR TEMPORARY IBINDEBB Application filed September 15, 1927. Serial No. 219,710.

This invention relates to temporary binders of the nature of loose-leaf books or co-called rin binders. A common construction for sue books is to provide divided rings consisting of half-rings or hooks entering the marginal perforations of the sheets and which, when closed together, constitute com plete rings. Such half rings or prongs have commonl been applied to plates called ring plates or ook plates. These plates have been mounted with a rocking engagement in connection with a spring member adapted to cause the mating hooks or half rings, when closed, to remain pressed closely together, and when opened, to remain open. The hooks or half-rings have in some instances been riveted or otherwise fastened to such plates, while in other cases they have been formed integrally with the plates. The latter construction has the advantage of saving the labor incident to riveting or swaging the hooks and plates together, but it has heretofore required such a series of diflicult operations as to neutralize that advantage, with the result that the old construction of separate hooks riveted or swaged to the plates has been the most common one.

The present invention provides an improved means for the construction of ring plates having integral half rings or books. An instance of ring plates so constructed is found in my Patent N 0. 1,141,157, dated June 1, 1915. According to the method of said patent the plates are stamped out of sheet or plate metal with the hooks or prongs of exaggerated width, and they are then swaged y transverse pressure into an elliptical crosssection and bent to a semi-circular form. The present invention provides an improved method designed for greater economy in manufacture.

According to the present invention a stock plate or bar is formed by rolling, extfusion, or other means, having thinner marginal portions to form the plates, and a thicker middle zone to form the books; this is then punched to cut out scrap from the middle zone, leaving the two marginal plates each with thickened fingers projecting from them; and these fingers are then rounded by striking between dies, and the fingers are then bent up into the semi-circular form of the half rings or hooks.

he respective plates are then cut off to appropriate len th and are fitted together to ring the half rings into coincidence to form complete rings, being then fitted to the s ring plate or back plate requisite to the ring indmg mechanism.

he invention will be described in its preferred form with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein F1gure 1 is a transverse section of the pre viously formed plate or bar.

Fig. 2 is a plan thereof showing it partially punched out to form the fingers projecting from the respective plates.

Fig. 3 shows a fragment of one of the plates after the fingers have been struck up for rounding their surfaces.

Fig. 4 being an edge view thereof.

. Figs. 5 and 6 are corresponding views showmg a different cross-section of finger.

Fig. 7 is a transverse section showing the finger bent into the curved form of the half ring or hook.

Fig. 8 is an edge view of the ring plate having such bent-up half-rings or hooks.

Fig.9 is a plan of two such ring plates turned oppositely to their original position and brought together with the books or half rings in open opposed position.

Fig. 10 is a transverse section of the mating hooks forming a complete ring, as assembled in relation to a spring back plate.

Fig. 11 is a plan of Fig. 10.

Fig. 12 is a plan of the scrap punched out from Fig. 2. 7

Referring to Figure 1, the bar or stock plate A is a plate of steel or other suitable metal, rolled, extruded, or otherwise formed of the cross-section shown, comprising marginal portions B B and a middle zone C. The flanking portions B B are of the thickness and width of the plate on which the hooks or half rings are to be carried. The middle zone C is of greater thickness corresponding to that of the half rings, and being either equal in thickness thereto or of a thickness sufficiently approaching this, so that the rounded half rings may be struck up there from.

The bar A is first passed through a selffeeding punching press which at each stroke cuts out a blank such that the succession of punching strokes result in severing the marginal flanking portions B B into separate plates with fingers rojecting from them, as shown in Fig. 2. T 1e punch and die may be of such shape as to punch out blanks of the outline shown in Fig. 12, these corresponding to the spaces a: m (Fig. 2) which are left after the punching operations: When the entire bar or stock strip, A has been thus punched, the plates B B are completely severed and are then ready for the next 0 eration.

Each of the plates is tlien passed through another punching press which rounds the fingers D D in cross-section. This rounding may be either as shown in Fig. 4, or as shown in Fig. 6, the latter requiring a somewhat greater thickness of the middle zone C of the plate. After this rounding operation the late or blank appears as in Fig. 3 or Fig. 5.

y the same press stroke a corrugation E may advantageously be struck up in the plate opposite each finger, as shown in Fig. 3,-or this corrugation may be of the form shown at E in Fig. 5.

The next operation is bending up the straight fingers D D form, as shown in Fig. 7. This is performed in a suitable punching press which may best operate stroke by stroke with an intermittent automatic feed. In this bendingup operation some weakness might develop at the mounting of each of the hooks or half rings on the plate, since the plate is thinner than the hooks and to afford greater strength at this point is the function of the corrugations E E, or E, which form a sort of corrugated bridge or brace. In Fig. 7 the bent-up hooks are lettered d, the hook plate is b, and the corrugated brace is e.

The hook plate thus formed, shown in Figs. 7 and 8 with its hooks integral therewith, may be made of the length of the original stock bar, and he then cut off into shorter lengths corresponding to that required for the number of rings in any given ring binder (say six or seven, for example).

Two of the plates thus cut tolength are then placed together, so that the edges of the plates which were the outer edges of the bar, are brought together, or nearly together, and the ends of the hooks are brought into mating coincidence, as shown in Fig. 9. They are then ready for assembling as parts of the ring binder mechanism, which may be constructed in the manner shown in Fig. 10, where the inner edges of the plates b b have a rocking engagement and their outer edges are held between hooked flanges on a spring back plate f, this being a common and wellunderstood construction.

into nearly semi-circular The described method thus produces both hook plates, and their respective hooks, from one bar, providing heavier metal for the hooks and affording a minimum of waste as compared with punching out each hook plate with its projecting fingers from a separate bar or stock late. Thus a saving of metal is efl'ecte e ual approximately to the width of the thic ened zone C." The various operations are automatic punching or swaging press operations, the strip or plate being automatically fed forward at each operation a distance equal to the spacing of the rings.

It is advantageous in ring book construction to provide numerous rings engaging an equal number of perforations in the loose leaves, in order to minimize the liabilit of tearing the paper at its perforations, which is liable to occur when only two or three rings are provided. Heretofore an obstacle to the making of loose-leaf books with such numerous rings has been the cost of mounting the hooks or half rings on the rin plates. This difficulty is greatly diminished by the present invention.

In the description thus far given I have made no reference to any particular means for affording a rocking connection between the inner edges of the assembled ring plates, or for limiting the opening movement of the rings. Several different constructions are known in the art for accomplishing such purpose. One such construction is shown in my said Patent No. 1,141,157, wherein the plates have a knife edge contact at their abutting edges and are formed with lugs stamped out and projecting from each plate beneath the other to limit their upward movements during the opening)of the rings. A similar construction may e provided according to the present invention by suitably shaping the outer marginal edges of the stock bar or plate A and by performing cutting and bending operations upon these outer edges, which operations may be accomplished separately or during the same strokes of the press which perform the original punching and later swaging. These are details which are not essential to the present invention. Constructions are known in the art which require no such preparation of the ring plates to cause them to mutually coact to limit the opening ring movement, and any of such constructions may be applied in connection with the present invention.

The operations herein set forth may be more or less modified, as will be understood by those skilled in the art, without departing from the essentials of the present invention as defined in the claims.

What I claim is 1. The method of making integral hookplates and hooks for loose-leaf binders, consisting in (1) producing a flat bar of a form having thin margins of the gauge of the plates and a thicker mlilddle zonefotfh a 1thignesscorre ondmg' tot e u o e 00 (2) punch iiig out portionsori such bar at its middle zone to leave alternated fingers projecting from each marginal plate toward the other, and (3) bending the fingers up into curved form over the respective plates to form hooks.

2. The method of claim 1, with the additional step of assembling the plates of a air with their edges which were the outer es of the bar into rocking relation with each other with their hooks 0 posite one another, so that their ends may ahut to form binding rings. 1 v

3. The method of claim -1, with the additional step after such punching of swaging ghe fingers to any appropriate cross-sectional orm.

4. The method of claim 1, with the additional step of corrugating the fingers adjacent their junction with the plate to impart added stiffness thereto.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto signed my name.

CLARENCE D. TRUSSELL.

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