US2291850A - Roofing and process of making the same - Google Patents

Description

Aug. 4, 1942. j A, TOPPING 2,291,850

ROOFING AND PROCESS OF MAKING THE SAME Filed Feb. 14, 1940 j CY Z I INVENTOR fay/v 4 ibPP/A/,

www WM ATTORNEYS Patented Aug. 4, 1942 UNHE RUOFZNG AND PROCESS 0F MAKING THE SAME 4 Claims.

This invention relates to covering material for the roofs and sides of buildings, and more particularly to covering material in strip form having tabs upon the edge thereof which is to be exposed.

Among the various types of tabs embodied in commercial strip covering material or strip shingles are tabs having dovetail-shaped outlines. These dovetail tabs, however, by reason or the substantially narrower width of the tab where it joins the main body of the strip, show a marked tendency to hinge about the junction with the main body of the strip when a wind tends to raise the broader ends of the tabs away from the plane of the roof. This puts a practical limitation upon the length of dovetail tabs and as a result detracts from the appearance of a roof or side wall covered with strip covering material having such tabs, because of the snub-nosed ap pearance of the tabs.

An object of the present invention is to provide a covering strip having tabs with generally dovetail outlines which, however, has the construction and outline of the tab as a whole so modified that a longer tab may be employed without increasing its tendency, by reason of the greater tab length, to hinge about the junction of the tab with the main body of the strip whenever a wind tends to raise the outer end of the tab, with the resultant weakening of the material at this junction.

A further object of the invention is to provide an improved method of making strip shingles of the general type hereinabove referred to, that is, shingle strips the tabs of which have dovetaillike exposed outlines but which are not complementary, which will facilitate cutting these strips simultaneously in pairs by a slight notching of the outlines of what would otherwise be strictly complementary strips. While the process of the present invention employs the principle of operation of the process described and claimed in my Letters Patent No. 2,006,417, granted July 2, 1935, a new and useful result is obtained by treating the entire lengths of the adjacent sides of the tabs of what would otherwise be covering strips having complementary rectangular or other straight-sided tabs and recesses, leaving only the complementary ends of the tabs untouched.

Other objects and important features of the invention will appear from the following description and claims when considered in connection with the accompanying drawing, in which Figure 1 illustrates the novel method of cutting one type of shingle strips embodying the present invention from roofing material;

Figure 2 shows the novel method applied to producing :a strip with modified tab outline; and

Figure 3 shows the novel method of cutting shingle strips applied to a strip having tabs with modified dovetail outlines but without reinforcing gussets.

As more fully described and illustrated in my Letters Patent No. 2,006,417, July 2, 1935, noncomplementary shingle strips may be produced by simultaneously cutting from the adjacent tabs, in the process of cutting what would otherwise be complementary shingle strips, like notches upon the two sides of the complementary boundaries, said notches being similarly positioned in the two elements in respect to said boundaries. As further brought out in said Letters Patent, by combining the means for cutting the notches in the adjacent, otherwise complementary tabs, into a single die or cutter, the modified complementary strips, having like tabs, can be produced by a single out without first cutting the complementary outlines. In other words, by simultaneously cutting like notches in the adjacent sides of what would otherwise be complementary tabs, non-complementar but like tabs can be produced by a single cutting operation and with a minimum waste of material.

Applying the same principle of operation to producing the novel shingle strip of the present invention, I have found that by extending the notches from the bases to the ends of the otherwise compiementary shingle tabs I can produce, from what would otherwise be complementary shingles having rectangular tabs, two like but non-complementary shingles having tabs the main extent of each of which is of a dovetail-like outline but each of which has a gusset-like connection with the main body of the strip, thereby providing a reinforcement against any tendency of the tab, as :a whole, to hinge about its junction with the strip. I am thus able to produce a shingle strip presenting a dovetail-like tab having a longer and less snub-nosed overall appearance without increasing the tendency of the tab to hinge about its narrowest section when its outer end is raised by the wind.

In Figure l of the drawing, in which is shown a strip shingle having tabs presenting a generally dovetail outline but with reinforcing gussets adjacent to the main body of the strip, the method of cutting such shingle strip-s from roll roofing is illustrated, it being noted that in the embodiment of the invention illustrated in Figure 1 the sides of the dovetail-like tabs have curved outlines. As shown in Figure 1, four shingle strips,

each of the desired strip length and of the desired width, or eifective shingle length, from the back edge of the main body of the strip to the end of the tab, may be cut from roll roofing of a width equal to less than four times the desired strip width or effective shingle length by reason of the overlap. For example, four strips of a width or eifective shingle length of 11 may be cut from roll roofing 36 wide, the tabs of each strip being cut from the material removed to form the spaces between the tabs of other strips.

The resultant shingle strip produced by the novel process of this invention are, however, noncomplementary although they have like tabs with side edges of substantially any desired contour. This result is obtained by so making like cuts in the adjacent side edges of the tabs of what would otherwise be complementary strips, at the same time that the strips are cut from the roll, that the resultant strips will still have like tabs but that they will no longer be complementary except as to their ends.

As shown in Figure 1, strips 2, 4, 6 and 8 may be simultaneously cut from the breadth of a sheet of roll roofing sufficiently wide to give the desired main body and tab dimensions for the resultant shingle strips. The die or cutter which effects the cutting may be of the usual type, that is, a die or cutter formed on a cylinder which, as it rotates, presents pairs of straight cutting edges l0, I2, I4 and It for cutting the ends of the tabs and the bottoms of the recesses between the tabs, the ends of the tabs and the bottoms of the recesses of adjacent strips being complementary, and presents a cutting edge l8 for separating the back edges of the middle two strips, the back edges 20 of the outer strips being formed by the side edges of the roll roofing. Other cutting knives arranged crosswise of the path of travel of the sheet cut the ends 22 and 24 of the respective strips.

Instead of providing knives for first dividing the sheet into strip-s having complementary sides 26, or even partially cutting said complementary sides, the present invention provides for removing a portion of the entire complementary side edge of each of two adjacent tabs so that the tabs will be both simultaneously separated from each other and simultaneously recessed throughout the entire lengths of the adjacent tab sides. As illustrated in Figure 1, the die cylinder may be provided with a cutting knife that will remove from the roll roofing an elliptical piece 28 made up of material, half of which is removed from the side edge of what would otherwise be a tab having a rectangular outline complementary to an adjacent tab having a like outline and half of which is removed from the adjacent side edge of said adjacent tab. In this manner a die or cutter having a closed outline which extends from the cutter which cuts the bottom edge of one tab to the cutter which cuts the complementary bottom edge of the adjacent tab will effect both the desired side contour formation and the complete separation of the side edges of said adjacent tabs.

In Figure 2 of the drawing, the method of cutting is shown as employed to produce a shingle strip having tabs of generally dovetail outline with reinforcing gussets, in which, however, the sides of the tabs have angular notches instead of curved notches. It will be noted that in notching the side edges of what would otherwise be complementary tabs to produce the shingle strip shown in Figure 2, the closed outline of the die which simultaneously removes portions of the side edges of two adjacent tabs will be an obliqueangled parallelogram with the obtuse angles 30 thereof so offset along the common boundary between the two tabs that the resultant notches formed in the sides of the adjacent tabs are in like positions in the two tabs and that the apices 32 of the acute angles of the oblique-angled parallelogram lie in the extremities of the complementary ends of the tabs.

Although in Figure 2 the cutout is shown as having the outline of an oblique-angled parallelogram, it will be apparent that a very similar tab outline could be produced with a cutout having the outline of a rectangular parallelogram. The particular outline of the closed die used simultaneously to notch and to separate the adjacent side edges of what would otherwise be complementary tabs depends entirely on what is desired in the way of tab design.

In Figure 3 the novel method of modifying what would otherwise be shingle strips having complementary tabs to produce shingle strips having like but non-complementary tabs which have certain desired characteristics is shown as applied to the production of shingle strips having tabs of dovetail outline but without gusset reinforcement of their junctions with the main bodies of the strips, these tabs, however, having curved side edges. In order to produce the shingle strip having tabs of the outline shown in Figure 3, an approximately elliptical die extending from the end of one tab to the complementary end of the adjacent tab removes a piece 34 of the narrow approximately elliptical shape shown in Figure 3, the inclination of this piece to the main body of the strip and its width being such that no gusset is produced.

From the foregoing description it will be seen that by utilizing a cutter or die having a closed outline and of a length equal to the side length of what would otherwise be completely complementary shingle tabs, non-complementary strip shingles having like tabs may be cut from roll roofing with a minimum of waste of material and with a minimum of cutting edges to be maintained in sharpened condition.

What is claimed as new is:

1. A strip shingle having tabs with straightedged ends and of narrower section between their ends and their junctions with the main body of the strip, said narrower sections being so located and so shaped as to provide tabs of generally dovetail outline with gusset-like reinforcement of their junctions with the main body of the strip, the space between the said junctions of adjacent tabs with the main body of the strip being equal to the width of the end of the tab.

2. A strip shingle having tabs with straightedged ends and of narrower section between their ends and their junctions with the main body of the strip, said narrower sections being so located as to provide tabs of generally dovetail outline with gusset-like reinforcement of their junctions with the main body of the strip, the width of the tab where it joins the strip approximating the width of the end of the tab, and also the space between the aforementioned junctions of adjacent tabs with the main body of the strip.

3. The process of making a strip shingle provided with like but non-complementary tabs having straight-edged complementary ends and sides recessed from the main body of the strip, which consists in cutting from sheet material two tabbed strips, each having its tabs formed from the material taken from the recesses of the other, and simultaneously removing, from each side of what would otherwise be the common straight side boundary lines of the tabs of complementary shingle strips having straight-sided tabs, material extending from the point only where said straight boundary line would meet the tab end line of the tab of one strip to the point only where said boundary line would meet the tab end line of the adjacent tab of the other strip to produce like and correspondingly located recesses in the sides of the respective adjacent tabs except at their ends, said removed material tapering to a point at each of said main body junctions.

4. The process of making a strip shingle provided with non-complementary tabs having complementary straight-edged ends and narrower sections between their ends and their junctions with the main body of the strip and of generally 20 dovetail outline but with gusset-like reinforcements of their junctions with the main body of the strip, which consists in cutting from sheet material two tabbed strips, each having its tabs formed from the material taken from the recesses of the other, and simultaneously removing, from each side of what would otherwise be the common side boundary lines of the tabs of complementary shingle strips having straight-sided tabs, material extending from the point only where said straight boundary line would meet the tab end line of the tab of one strip to the point only where said boundary line wouldmeet the tab end line of the adjacent tab of the other strip to produce like and correspondingly located recesses in the sides of the. respective adjacent tabs except at their ends, said removed material tapering to a point at each of said main body junctions.

JOHN A. TOPPING.

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