US2142519A - Elevator door guide - Google Patents

Description

Jan. 3, 1939. H, LOFT]; 2,142,519

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Patented Jan. 3, 1939 UNITED STATES ELEVATOR noon GUIDE Homer J. Loftis, Ironton, Ohio, assignor to Henrite Products Corporation, Ironton, Ohio, a corporation of Ohio Application May 26, 1937, Serial No. 144,863

2 Claims.

This invention relates to an improved guide member for use on sliding doors, and especially on elevator doors, such as hatchway doors and car doors.

As an elevator car travels up and down its hatchway, the movement of the car creates a region of increased pressure in advance of the car and a region of reduced pressure behind the car. These variations in pressure, created by the movement of the car, cause elevator doors, such as hatchway doors and car doors, to rattle or vibrate. Rattling is very disturbing and objectionable, the same being especially noticeable in buildings having high speed elevators. Ordinarily elevator doors are provided with metal guide shoes or guide shoes of other materials which are hard and unyielding and which, as the same ride in the guide channels provided in the metal threshold plate of floor landings, or in the sills of elevator door frames, vibrate laterally in said channels with the resultant production of objectionable noisy rattling.

It is an object of this invention to provide a novel construction of door guide which is not only.

of simple and inexpensive construction, but com-, prises, in the main, a body of resilient or yielding material having a degree of flexibility which renders the same of both sound deadening and vibration dampening effect. Furthermore, by reason of its flexibility, the door guide body will readily accommodate itself to any imperfections or mis-align-ments in the guide channel in which the same is caused to ride.

Another object of the invention is to provide a door guide member comprising a main body of resilient material having connected therewith, in a novel manner, wear resisting and friction reducing facings for direct contact with the sides of the guide channel in which the same moves.

Another object of the invention is to provide in a guide shoe of the kind mentioned, a novel arrangement for attaching the same in operative relation to the bottom of a door by fastening screws and including rigid tubular bushings or bearings to receive and pass said screws, said bushings being bonded. to the guide shoe body.

Other objects of this invention, not at this time more particularly enumerated, will be understood from the following detailed description of the same.

An ilustrative embodiment of this invention is shown in the accompanying drawing, in which:-

Fig. 1 is a fragmentary side elevation of a door provided with the novel guide member of this invention as disposed in a cooperating guide channel, the guide member being shown in side elevation, and the guide channel structure in longitudinal section; Fig. 2 is a vertical cross-section, taken on line 2--2 in Fig. 1; and Fig. 3 is a horizontal section, taken on line 3-3 in Fig. 1.

Fig. 4 is a central longitudinal section through the guide member per se; and Fig. 5 is a transverse sectional view of the same, taken on line 55 in Fig. 4.

Similar characters of reference are employed in all of the above described views, to indicate corresponding parts.

Referring to the drawing, the reference character I indicates the floor of an elevator car having a sliding door II, which is shown as equipped with the novel form and construction of door guide embodying the improvements of the present invention. Each door, and similarly each hatchway door, is ordinarily equipped with two U1 more of the said guides, which are secured to the door bottoms so as to project downwardly therefrom into the guide channel I2 provided in the sill or threshold plate I3 of the car door or of the hatchway door, as the case may be.

The novel door guide, according to this invention, comprises a main body l4 of molded relatively soft vulcanized rubber. Said main body I I is of substatnial length and is of rectangular cross sectional shape. In width said main body is sized to fit easily within and across the guide channel I2 of the sill or threshold plate I3. At its respective ends, the main body I4 is formed to provide tapered or rounded terminal portions I5. Extending perpendicularly through the main body I4, ator adjacent to each terminal portion l5 thereof, are openings or pasages I6. Disposed within the upper portions of said openings or passages it are metallic tubular bushings H, the bores I8 of which are of reduced diameter as compared with the diameters of the openings or passages I6. Said bushings terminate short of the free bottom surface of said main body l4, thus providing receiving socket portions Ill. The bushings H are bonded to the door guide body by vulcanization, and thus firmly and securely held in assembled relation thereto.

To secure the door guide in operative relation to the bottom of the door II, the shanks 20 of fastening screws are passed upwardly through the bores l8 of the bushings I1, and suitably engaged with the door material. When the screws are driven home, the heads 2| thereof will enter the socket portions I9 and will stop in abutting relation to the lower ends of the bushings, which form seats 22 therefor. The heads H of the screws will thus be enclosed within said socket portions [9, and consequently will be countersunk relative to the bottom side or surface of the guide shoe body !4.

The side surfaces of the body portion I4, which respectively oppose the vertical wall surfaces oi the guide channel [2 of the sill or threshold plate l3, are provided with wear resisting and friction reducing facing members 23, which extend therealong between the terminal portions IS with their lower margins preferably contiguous to the bottom of the body portion 14. Preferably these facing members are in the form of thin sheet metal plates, which are preferably made of brass, bronze, stainless steel or other metal which is resistant to oxidation or corrosion. The facing members 23 are strongly secured to the body portion I4 by being bonded thereto by vulcanization. The extremities or end marginal portions of the facing members 23 are formed to provide inturned end portions 24 which are countersunk or imbedded in the rubber material of the body portion l4, the side surfaces of the latter being indented as at 25. so that the end edges of the facing members are disposed inwardly of the plane of said body portion side surfaces, thus protecting the facing members from likelihood of catching on the side walls of the guide channel I 2 as they slide along the latter, and consequently eliminating risk of deformation of the facing members or of displacement or ripping of the same away from the guide shoe body. Said facing members 23 provide smooth friction reducing surfaces for direct contact with the guide channel walls when the guide shoe moves back and forth through the guide channel in accompanying movement with the opening and closing movements of the door served thereby. The facing members 23 also provide a wear resistant medium intermediate the door guide body and the guide channel walls which prevents defacement or injury to the latter. The facing members 23, being relatively thin, will readily flex with the resilient body portion l4 of the shoe, and consequently the whole structure of the shoe. as a unitary element, will be sufficiently resilient or flexible to readily yield to any inequalities or mis-alignment in the side wall contours of the guide channel l2, this being of considerable advantage, since it eliminates any tendency of the door movements being unduly frictionally opposed, and any tendency of the door to stick at any point along its line of travel.

In addition to the advantages above pointed out, the resilient character of the door guide and the fact that the body thereof is not composed of hard or noise producing material, assures that a substantialy noiseless movement of the door guide in the guide channel is assured, and at the same time the sound of any lateral vibration is thoroughly dampened so that rattling noise from such cause is likewise eliminated.

To the above advantages are added the economy of cost which the simple unitary door guide construction provides, since the same can be produced with a minimum of labor and material, and requires no machining or expensive assembling operations. At the same time, the guide shoe is exceedingly easy to apply in operative assembled relation to a door to be served thereby.

As various changes could be made in the above described construction, and many apparently widely different embodiments of this invention could be made without departing from the scope thereof, as defined by the following claims, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description or shown in the accompanying drawing shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

I claim:--

1. A sliding door guide adapted to ride in a door guidechannel comprising, a body portion of comparatively soft vulcanized rubber of rectangular cross-section and substantial length and of a width approximately the width of said door guide channel, said body portion having affixed to its sides facing members of flat relatively thin and flexible sheet metal secured to and extending along its channel wall opposing sides, and said facing members being adapted to flex in company with flexing movements of said body portion.

2. A sliding door guide adapted to ride in a door guide channel comprising, a body portion of comparatively soft vulcanized rubber of rectangular cross-section and substantial length and of a width approximating the width of said door guide channel, said body portion having facing members of flat relatively thin and flexible sheet metal extending along its channel wall opposing sides, said facing members being bonded to said body portion by vulcanization and being adapted to flex in company with flexing movements of said body portion, and said facing members having oblique- 1y inturned end portions indentingly imbedded in the rubber body portion to countersink their terminal edges inwardly of the face planes of the later and thus providing said facing members with forwardly and inwardly inclined leading ends.

HOMER J. LOFTIS.

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