US2377778A - Suction nozzle for vacuum cleaners - Google Patents

Description

June 5, 1945. V L K I 2,377,778

SUCTION NOZZLE FOR VACUUM CLEANERS Fil ed March 28, 1942 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 June 5, 1945. hv R. HALLQCK 2,377,778

SUCTION NOZZLE FOR VACUUM CLEANERS Filed March 28, 1942 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 fax WW Patented June 5, 1945 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE 2,377,778 SUCTION NOZZLE FOR VACUUM CLEANERS Robert Lay Hallock, Larchmont, N. Y. Application March 28, 1942, Serial No. 436,600

face contacting member, looking at it from be- 4 Claims.

My invention relates to suction nozzles for vacuum cleaners and more particularly to suction nozzles for vacuum cleaners of the kind essentially employing suction alone, as distinguished from those employing power-driven agitators combined with suction.

All electric vacuum cleaners rely on suction as a factor in cleaning. While a strong suction alone is generally adequate for removing particles of dirt, it is not as expeditious as a combination of beating, brushing, and suction for removing lint and the hair of cats, dogs, and other pets from certain carpets and rugs. However, beating is destructive to rugs, and bristle brushes are undesirable in that they accumulate lint, threads, cotton, etc. a

It is an object of my invention to provide a surface contacting device for effectively removing surface litter, especially very fine lint, hair, fibres, etc., preferably in co-operation with strong suction adequate to remove imbedded dirt and dust and to pick up debris agglomerated by the action of my improved device.

I might first generally describe the surface contacting member of myinvention as including a series of teeth alternating with pile-depressing surfaces which are extended forwardly of the teeth and are provided with narrow inlets to spaces or bays around the teeth, the teeth being pointed both laterally and vertically. A characteristic of my improved device is that the piledepressing surfaces create a wave-lik motion of the carpet pile to spread the pile at the places of contact with the teeth. and relieve pressure of the pile against the teeth, while co-operatingwith the teeth to weave'or hook hairs and lint onto the teeth on the forward stroke of the nozzle to detach them from adhesion to the pile and agglomerating them, the agglomerated litter being sucked into the suction stream on the backward stroke of the nozzle.

The invention will be more readily understood from the following description of a preferred form. taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, forming a part of specification, of which:

Fig. 1 is a front view partly in section of a vacuum cleaner nozzle employing the invention;

Fig. 2 is a bottom view of the nozzle;

Fig. 3 is an enlarged bottom view of part of the surface contacting'member;

' Fig. 4 is a transverse sectional view taken on line 4-4 of F18. 1;

Fig. 5 is a perspective view of a part of the surlow; a

Fig. 6 is a perspective view of a part of the surface-contacting member looking at it from above; Fig. ,7 is a cross-sectional view of the surface contacting member in a semi-finished state; and Fig. 8 is a cross-sectional view of the surface contacting member showing its action against a rug.

In the accompanying drawings, reference character I 0 designates generally a suction nozzle adapted to be connected to a tube and hose and a I cleaner unit having the usual motor-driven fan and dust separator. In operation, the cleaner unit is stationary, while the operator moves the nozzle attached to the suction tube with forward and backward strokes on the carpet or rug. The

I prefer that lowermost point nozzle is preferably long transversely to the direction of movement and narrow in the direction of movement, as is general in such nozzles. In Fig. 4, the arrow marked F indicates the direction of the forward stroke and the arrow marked B designates the backward stroke. The nozzle has an internal passage ll open at the bottom where the gliding surface I2 contacts the carpet. Passage H tapers upwardly to the connection to the tube.

The forward wall 13 of the nozzle may be formed with a narrow lip [4 adjacent the suction opening and extending the full length thereof. This lip may be termed a sealing lip.

Extending along the rear wall i5 of the nozzle and preferably for. substantially the full length thereof is my improved surface contacting member i6. Member It may be'attached to the main body of the nozzle as by welding, rivets, or drivescrews, indicated at H. The member is preferably madeof a'very thin strip of stainless steel or other durable, non-corrosive material. Preferably it is made of hard steel to'resist abrasion. The member preferably projects forwardly somewhat beyond the back wall iii of the suction passage I i into the suction passage and is curved convexly with reference to the pile to provide a lip ii! at the rear wall of the suction opening corresponding to the forward lip l4, so far as concerns the sealing function. In this lip l9 are apertures 20 so cut or punched as to form teeth 2| which are essentially horizontal and at the of curvature of the lip and which point forwardly toward the suction openmg Apertures 20 may be closed or open at the front edge of the surface contacting member but they be closed in order to afford of the apertures should be higher than the teeth and at this front part, each aperture is preferably narrow, so that wide pile-depressing surfaces (width indicated at 22 in Fig. 6) are provided between adjacent apertures. Farther back the apertures or bays are wide so as to leave relatively large spaces laterally of the teeth to afford opportunity for the teeth to, so to speak, thread themselves under hairs or fibers which are held more remotely by the intermediate piledepressing surfaces.

The more teeth per inch, and the narrower the aperture at their forward parts, the better the fiber picking action. As an example, the surface contacting member may be made of stainless steel of a thickness of ten thousandths of an inch, the apertures may be ten thousandths of an inch wide at their forward portions and have a maximum width of forty thousandths of an inch. I prefer to have twelve or more teeth to the inch.

The teeth 2| are pointed vertically as well as horizontally. This may be accomplished as shown in Fig. '7. Reference characters 35 and 38 represent die blocks between which the surface contacting member is formed in a press after the apertures 20 have been punched out while the stock is in the flat. Die block 36 has a groove 31 running lengthwise of the surface contacting member below the projections which are to become teeth 2|. The die blocks are formed to give the indicated curvature to the member except for the relief provided by groove 31.. This results in the teeth portions remaining straight and, in effect, entering groove 31 so as to constitute projections 2 la extending below the general convex ultimate lower surface of the surface contacting member. The member is then removed from the forming dies 35 and 36 and a grinding operation is applied to remove so much of the projection 2|a as is below the general bottom surface; that is, to the dotted line in Fig. 7, so that the tooth 2| is formed as shown in Fig. 8.

I have tried to depict the action of the surface contacting member against a rug in Fig. 8. The rug 30 is of the ordinary pile type. The nozzle is pulled against the rug by the suction imposed by the fan. When the operator moves the nozzle to the right, the forward part of the surface contacting member pushes the top part of the pile forwardly; and I have found that due to the connection of the pile tufts to the backing, the forward displacement of the pile causes a pull or induced forward movement of pile nearer the teeth so that the teeth 2| can be relatively sharp and yet not cut or injure the pile because there is a great spread of pile strands where the teeth 2| are. This is in part due to the narrowness of apertures 20. A pile tuft may be much thicker than the width of the aperture so that the forward bearing surfaces of the surface contacting member move the whole pile tuft forward. At the same time the bearing surfaces tend to hold loose fibers while leaving them loose within apertures 20. In Fig. 8, 3| indicates a fiber. Most fibers are irregular as indicated. Thus the fibers are caught by and threaded onto the points 2|. Also as some fibers are caught, these seem to assist in the catching of others. The suction bein a 2,377,778 rigidity to the member. However, the front parts forward of the surface contacting member, when the nozzle is reversed and moved backwards, the

fibers slip off the teeth and are pulled into the suction stream. Thus although the teeth 2| are tapered both vertically and laterally to points, they do not injure the rug. My improved device is especially designed to pick up fibers of such small size as constitute the fiber components of an ordinary thread or the small fibers in medical cotton or threads or hairs of a size below three thousandths of an inch in diameter or thickness.

It will be obvious that various changes in structure may be made within the scope of the invention. For example, the surface contacting member may be formed in a cylindrical tube or a sheet wrapped into tube shape around a supporting rod.

What I claim is:

1. A surface contacting member for a suction cleaner nozzle comprising an elongated relatively narrow element of thin strip material having small spaced apertures in its surface, certain of said apertures having a pointed tooth therein, the lower surface and point of each tooth being located substantially in the contacting surface of said member, the upper'and side surfaces of each tooth being inclined and converging toward said point.

2. A surface contacting member for a suction cleaner nozzle comprising an elongated relatively narrow element of thin strip material having small spaced apertures in its surface, certain of said apertures having a pointed tooth therein, the lower surface and point of each tooth being located substantially in the contacting surface of said member, said apertures providing spaces on either side of each tooth and above the pointed end of the tooth, the width of said spaces on either side being sufficiently small to prevent a thread of a rug from entering the space above the tooth, while being sufficiently large to permit entrance of a thread fiber, the upper and side surfaces of each tooth being inclined and converging toward said point.

3. A surface contacting member for a suction cleaner nozzle comprising an elongated relatively narrow element of thin strip material having small spaced apertures in its surface, certain of said apertures having a pointed tooth therein with its lower surface conforming in contour to the bottom surface of said surface contacting member and with the upper and side surfaces of each tooth inclined and converging toward said point, and the point of each tooth being located substantially in said bottom surface.

4. A suction cleaner nozzle having a surface contacting member comprising an elongated relatively narrow element of thin strip material having small spaced aperture in its surface, certain of said apertures having a pointed tooth therein, the lower surface and point of each tooth being located substantially in the contacting surface of said member, the upper and side surfaces of each tooth being inclined and converging toward said point, said nozzle contacting the upper surface of said strip material and reinforcingly supporting the same with the points of said teeth spaced from the reinforcing support.

ROBERT LAY HALLOCK.

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