US2039273A - Collapsible wire bound box - Google Patents

Description

28, 1936. E GARDNER 2,039,273

COLLAPSIBLE WIRE BOUND Box Filed ooi. 2, 1935 INVEN TOR.

ATTORNEY` Patented Apr. 28, 1936 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE COLLAPSIBLE WIRE BOUND BOX Application October 2, 1933,. Serial No. 691,769

4 Claims.

The object of my invention is to factory-fabricate the four major sides of a wire bound crate in connected form of such character as to be collapsible for convenient shipment and readily ex-V pansible for easy association with top and bottom elements- At the present time the general commercial practice is to produce, on specially designed machines, a blank composed of four cleat-and-slat sides connected by wires stapled thereto and eX- tending transversely of the side sections. Many of these blanks are of such length that as they emerge from the forming machine, the first two sections are folded back over the last two sections, in order to overlie the second two sections, so that the blanks may be more readily handled in shipment. This folding puts an undesirable kink in the bonding wires at the junction between the middle sections of the blank, and the user must first straighten the blank, through an arc of 180 degrees at the fold line, then further bend the wires, at this line, through an additional arc of 90 degrees, and twist the ends of each wire together. Special tools and skill are required for this operation and, generally, two workmen of the user are required to perform the necessary operations efliciently.

In blanks of this type, the adjacent ends of the cleats are of such form that the above-mentioned factory-folding operation must be made so as to place the cleats on the outside of the folded blanks and when the folded blanks are stacked they cannot be slid one upon the other.

In my present crate the cleats, at their adjacent ends, are so formed as to permit factoryfolding of the blanks between the middle sections with the cleats inwardly and the ends of the wires factory-connected so that the user has merely to expand the blank to rectangular form, whereupon the top and bottom elements may be immediately associated therewith.

The accompanying drawing illustrates my invention.

Fig. 1 is an edge view of one of my collapsed i blanks;

Fig. 2 an edge view, on a larger scale, of an expanded blank, with intermediate portions of the side sections omitted;

Fig. 3 a perspective View of adjacent ends of two cleats at the collapse fold-lines; and

Fig. 4 a perspective of a possible form of laterally-interlocking of adjacent ends of two cleats where collapsing folding is not possible.

In the drawing A, B, C and D indicate the four sections of the blank. The sections are formed of veneer sheeting or slats III and transverse cleats II. The sheetings or slats and cleats, as is customary, are secured together by staples I3 which also serve to attach the binding wires I4 which project beyond the sides of sections A and D, as is usual, so that these ends may be twisted together.

The cleats are identical and at one end are beveled, as indicated at I5, on a 45 degree angle while at the opposite end are provided with a square-end tongue I6 and associated beveled portion I'I, each of these portions having, preferably, a width slightly less than one-half the cleat width so that, when mated, space for the binding wire is afforded. The bevel I'I, depending upon the thickness of the slats, may be somewhat less than 45 degrees, but, where the cleats are in the neighborhood of V2 inch thick, as is somewhat general in the art, the angle of this level may be somewhere less than 45 degrees, it merely being necessary to cut back the inner corner enough to permit complete inward folding of adjacent cleats, as shown.

For convenience of description I designate the line between sections A and D, and between sections B and C as collapse fold-lines and the lines between sections A and B and C and D as eX- pansion fold-lines, the cleatl ends I5 being adjacent the expansion fold-lines and the cleat ends having the portions I 6-I 'I being at the collapse fold lines.

Assuming that section A is the rst to emerge from the forming machine, its cleat ends IG--I'l will be in advance and the beveled cleat ends I5 of cleats I2 of section B will be adjacent the similarly beveled ends I5 of the cleats II of section A. When section B emerges from the machine sections A and B may be swung downwardly and the free end of section A held vstationary in its depressed position so that the oncoming sections C and D may override and overlie the sections A and B, and the two pairs of sections A-B and C-D will be parallel. Thereupon the ends of the wires which are projected beyond the free ends (or edges) of the sections A and D may be twisted together by a workman, conveniently in the factory, to whom the offbear man, who performs the above described folding operation, delivers the folded blank as he carries it from the forming machine. The above-mentioned single folding operation is here performed by the off-bear workman in the factory who, at the moment, would, under earlier operations, be performing the upward and rearward folding of the iirst two sections of the blank.

The provision of the beveled end portions Il' permits the collapsing operation which has just been described.

The user merely takes one of the collapsed blanks and separates the blank laterally, moving the adjacent ends of the pairs of sections A--B and C-D away from each other until the beveled ends i5, l5 register. The tongues I6 of the other of the cleats, at the collapse fold-line ride over the bevels I1 and lie tight against the tips of said bevels when the blank has been fully expanded. 'Thereupon the expanded blank is associated, in the usual well-known manner, with the elements which are to form the top and bottom (or ends) of the crate.

The binding wires, at the collapse fold-lines is drawn between the overlapping tongues I6 and therefore is not too greatly tensioned, at this point, by the collapsing operation and is therefore in condition, on blank expansion, to hold the sections together satisfactorily at the collapse fold-lines.

Lateral interlock between the cleats at what I have termed the expansion fold lines, may be provided by forming the ends i5 by beveling only a portion of these ends, as indicated at l5', Fig. 4, and forming the other portions of the cleats with a cooperating tenon l5 or rabbet |5", as indicated in Fig. 4.

It will, of course, be understood that the twist junction 20 between the binding wires may be arranged adjacent one of the expansion foldlines, instead of adjacent one of the collapse fold-lines, without departing from the spirit of my invention, but in .that case section B would be the initial section of the blank and the workman would then fold it under section C as C emerged from the machine and section A would be folded under section D after section A had emerged from the machine, so that with such an arrangement the olf-bear man would have to perform two folding operations instead of one.

I claim as my invention:

1. A wire bound box blank comprising four sections cleated on one face and connected by transversely-extending binding wires on the opposite face, the mating ends of cleats at two alternate fold lines each having inwardly-beveled end portions flanked by tongues which overlie the beveled portion of the mating cleat.

2. A wire bound box blank comprising four sections cleated on one face and connected by transversely-extending binding wires on the opposite face, the mating ends of cleats at two alternate fold-lines each having inwardly-beveled end portions, and the ends of each binding wire united to form a continuous binding element, each of said binding wires opposite said alternate fold lines lying at less than a cleat thickness from the inner junction corner of adjacent cleats when the structure is expanded.

3. A wire-bound box blank comprising four internally-cleated sections composed of sheet material and transverse cleats having a thickness materially greater than sheet thickness and connected by external binding wires extending lengthwise of the cleats, the mating ends of the cleats at two of the diagonally opposite corners of the expanded box formed for abutting relation substantially at right angles to each other to permit relative swing into alinement and to resist relative swing into parallelism, the mating ends of the cleats at the other two diagonally opposite corners of the expanded box formed for abutting relation substantially at right angles to each other and to permit relative swing about an axis in the plane of one inner face of one of the cleats and spaced from the intersection of the planes of the inner faces of said cleats when in expanded relation into parallelism, the binding wires at these corners with the box expanded lying closer to the box center than the line of intersection of the planesof the outer surfaces of the immediately adjacent cleats, whereby the structure, with the two ends of each binding wire connected together, when expanded may be collapsed to bring the two cleats of diagonally opposite pairs of cleats into alinement with each other and the cleats of one pair into parallelism with the cleats of the other pair without separation of the connected ends of the binding wires.

4. A wire-bound box blank comprising four internally-cleated sections composed of sheet material and transverse cleats having a thickness materially greater than sheet thickness and connected by external binding wires extending lengthwise of the cleats, the mating ends of the cleats at two of the diagonally opposite corners of the expanded box formed for abutting relation substantially at right angles to each other to permit relative swing into alinement and to resist relative swing into parallelism, the mating ends of the cleats at the other two diagonally opposite corners of the expanded box formed for abutting relation substantially at right angles to each other and to permit relative swing about an axis in the plane of one inner face of one of the cleats and spaced from the intersection of the planes of the inner faces of said cleats when in expanded relation into parallelism, the binding Wires at these corners with the box expanded lying closer to the box center than the line of intersection of the planes of the outer surfaces of the immediately adjacent cleats, and the mating ends of the cleats at at least two of the corners of the expanded box formed for abutting relation transversely of the binding wires, whereby the structure, with the two ends of each binding wire connected together, when expanded may be collapsed to bring the two cleats of diagonally opposite pairs of cleats into alinement with each other and the cleats of one pair into parallelism with the cleats of the other pair without separation of the connected ends of the binding Wires.

GEORGE E. GARDNER.

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