US2167555A - Packing spacer - Google Patents

Description

2 Sheets-Sheet 1 E. P. SHERMAN PACKING SPACER Filed April 15,v 1936 Juy 25, 1939.

I INVENTOR.

n BY [2409 FIS/fwz( v 61,16/ ATTORNEY.

July 25, 1939.

E. P. SHERMAN PACKING SPACER Filed April l5, 1936 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENT OR.

ATTORNEY`.

Patented July 25, 1939 UNITED STATES PTENT @ETFQE PACKING SPACER Application April 15, 1936, Serial No. 74,572

4 Claims.

This invention relates to a unitary article for spacing, holding and protecting merchandise within a larger container. As illustrations of the purposes for which it is intended to be used, when such articles as radio cabinets, refrigerators, filing cabinets, book cases, and similar goods are packed for shipment it is necessary and customary to use blocks, strips, pads and so on Within the shipping container in order to space the sides of the packed article from contact with the container, to hold the contained article -against shifting, and in order also to prevent irregularities and protuberances, such as handles, beads and the like from bearing upon the inside Walls of the container.

Ordinarily a number of these spacing blocks, strips and the like are used, disposed at top and bottom only, and specially formed and positioned as may be required by the characteristics of the goods to be transported. Oftentimes as many as eight or a dozen such spacing elements will be used in each end of the outside container, and these must all be placed by hand and fastened in their proper positions, as by gluing or sometimes by nailing.

If in packing or during shipment some of the blocks or strips come loose damage to the merchandise ensues, either through movement of the packed article within its container or by chafing of the spacing elements against the article. All or most of the blocks at one end, and sometimes at both ends, have to be removed to unpack, which is a time consuming operation and usually entails the destruction or loss of the blocking or padding.

In many instances the article has to be packed and unpacked more than once between the factory and the ultimate consumer. For example, radio cabinets are often built on contract by a furniture maker and sent to the radio plant to have the electrical parts fitted in. These cabinets, particularly in the larger sizes, `are first boxed at the furniture factory, then unboxed at the radio manufacturing plant, reboxed for shipment to the dealer, taken out by him for display, and again boxed for delivery to the customers home. Since the external shape of the cabinet is never changed from the time it leaves the furniture factory, the same box can thus be used several times, and the work of blocking and padding the cabinet within the container has to be repeated each time with the possibility at each unpacking of loss or destruction of some or all of the holding and spacing material.

55 My invention aims to avoid all such difculties by providing a unitary element, in the nature of a cap preformed to proper size, not needing any closing, fastening or interiitting of parts, such that asingle one at each end of a packed article of merchandise Will serve all the purposes for which a multiplicity of blocks, spacer strips, pads, and so on, are at present required. With my invention, the packing operation requires only applying a single one of my unitary spacers on each end of the article to be packed, 10;;

and fastening the article, with its ends so protected, in the shipping box or carton. It will be observed that although the preferred material for making my spacers is corrugated fiber board, the spacers may be used equally Well within any 15 sort of outer container, Whether of iiber board, Wood, metal or composite, and Whether a completely walled box or a crate. Various embodiments of the principle of my invention are i1- lustrated, some of them including, also by Way 20 of illustration, specic modifications for particulai` types of merchandise.

Within the limits of the invention, the amount and'disposition of material is subject to considerable variation.

To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, said invention, then, consists of the means hereinafter fully described and particularly pointed out in the claims.

The annexed drawings and the following description set forth in detail certain structures embodying the invention, such disclosed means constituting, however, but one of various structural forms in which the principle of the invention may be used.

In the accompanying drawings:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a spacer which is partly skeletonized and which is designed to provide a substantially uniform amount of spacing on all sides, with very little protection at the ends of the article;

Fig. 2 is a perspective of an other form of spacer affording padding and spacing at the corners and at the right and left edges, but intended for articles which do not need much support in the middle of the end area. Here, however, the spacer completely covers the end of the article;

Fig. 3 is a section on the plane 3 3, Fig. 1, looking in the direction of the arrows;

Fig. 4 is a section on the plane 4 4, Fig. 2, look- 50 ing in the direction of the arrows;

Fig. 5 is a section on the plane 5-5, Fig. 2, looking in the direction of the arrows.

It will be appreciated that all the forms of spacers shown illustrate the lower spacer in which 'broken bottom 25.

the bottom of the packed article is to be set. The article packed and the external container, being no parts of the invention, are not shown in any of the gures.

A spacer similar to that on the bottom may be used, inverted, on the top, or the top spacer and bottom spacer may be of different build if the diierence in shape of bottom and top of the article packed makes such difference needful. The height of the side walls may be varied as required.

Referring now particularly to Fig. l, the spacer is comprised of a plurality of side walls I, 2, 3 and 4 and bottom members 5 and 6. The side walls are built up of one or more plies (two in the illustration) of corrugated board, forming a complete collar '1, which, in the present illustration, comprises an inner ply 8 and an intermediate ply 9. This collar is set into two open topped and open sided tray elements Il and I2 respectively, the bottom members 5 and 6 being parts of the respective tray elements il and l2.

In this illustration the side walls I, 2, 3 and 4 are all of the same effective spacing thickness because this spacer is designed for an article which has no overhanging parts extending further on one side than on another. Here the bottom protection is slight, being afforded only by one thickness of board, 5, 6, and there is a gap between the boards 5 and 6, since the spacer is made for an article in which nothing beyond skeletonized protection is required.

All the various contiguous faces of material in the entire structure are fastened together preferably by covering all interfacial areas with adheslve and pressing the parts together sufficiently to secure firm binding and a solid structure.

The modification shown in Fig. 2, being for an article in which greater spacing is required and in which the right and left edges and their corners call for more protection than the middle portion, complete bottom coverage as well as side spacing. The outer thickness or shell of the spacer may be in the form of an outside tray 2D having walls 2l, 22, 23 and 211 and an un- Within the tray 2Q the wall thickness is built up at both sides, as shown at 26 and 21, by a plurality of plies of material which thus give a spacing and cushioning effect at the front, the rear, the bottom and the sides, but the intermediate front, rear and bottom portions of the packed article either do not need so much cushioning or may slightly protrude, are sufciently protected by a lesser thickness. It will of course be appreciated that the tray 20 might be made of any number of plies required, still economizing by omission of unnecessary material in the intermediate parts of the spacer as shown in the drawings.

As previously mentioned, the spacers illustrated are shown in position for use on the bottom of a packed article, and the description heretofore has been from that point of view. The spacers are equally applicable to the top by inversion, in which instance the bottom of the protector itself would of course become the top. Again, the protectors might be used upon the ends of a packed article of appropriate shape.

Other modes of applying the principle of my invention may be employed instead of the one explained, change being made as regards the structure herein disclosed, provided the means stated by any oi the following claims or the equivalent of such stated means be employed.

I therefore particularly point out and distinctly claim as my invention:

1. A packing protection cap of corrugated brous board, said cap consisting of a rectangular structure including laminated reinforcing protection members secured thereto to form unitary ends with trihedral corners and solid edges, and a connection of less thickness between said ends.

2. A protecting and spacing cap of corrugated board consisting of at least two trihedral portions of a plurality of thicknesses solidly joined along an edge and at its corners, and panels of less thickness connecting said portions.

3. A packing protection cap of corrugated iibious board, said cap consisting of a rectangular tray and laminated reinforcing protection members of greater thickness than said tray set therein, said laminations being secured into unitary ends and trihedral corners secured throughout their thickness along their junction edges.

4. A protecting and spacing cap of corrugated board consisting of a rectangular tray of at least one thickness of such board, and laminated trihedral protection inserts in the tray ends, said inserts being joined along the entire thickness of their angular edges, said cap being adapted to t upon edges of an article which is to be packed in an outer container,

ELROY P. SHERMAN.

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