US2461535A

US2461535A - Toy building blocks with closure panes

Info

Publication number: US2461535A
Application number: US519433A
Authority: US
Inventors: Oscar P Erhardt
Original assignee: AC Gilbert Co
Current assignee: AC Gilbert Co
Priority date: 1944-01-24
Filing date: 1944-01-24
Publication date: 1949-02-15
Anticipated expiration: 1966-02-15

Description

Feb. 15, 1949. (1P. ERHARDT 2,461,535

I TOY BUILDING BLOCK WITH CLOSURE PANE Filed Jan. 24, 1944 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 0. P. ERHARDT TOY BUILDING BLOCK WITH CLOSURE PANE Feb; 15, 1949.

Filed Jan. 24, 1944 2 sheets-sheet 2 W7 m i m fan M A g, W

Patented Feb. 15, 1949 UNITED STATES PATENT orrics TOY BUIEDING -WI TII' CLUSU'RE' V Oscar Pt Erhauclt; West Haven, Conn., assignor to The A. 0-. Gilbert Company, New Haven, Conn, av corporation of Maryland Application J anuary'24, 1944", Serial-No. 519,433

This invention relates to building. block toys and to-component blocks-and pieces of the variety commonly sold in packaged sets to be piled by children into fanciful representations of buildings and related structures.

One object of the invention isto providetoy building blocks in miniature sizes simulating bricks and cut-or artificial stone havin structural features making them proof against mis-alignment and accidental displacement when piled upon one another unskillfully by a child.

Another objectis so to configure a brick or stone simulating toy building block that itwill not tend to rock when laid uponor in abutting contact with a mating block or'other fiat surface.

A further object is to make use; in a 0.0!1'? structional toy, of brick or stone simulating toy blocks of inexpensive. durable, molded" material having no grain tendingto cause warping and preferably requiring no application of heat to set in shape the material of which the blocks: are composed. Preferably alsomy improved blocks have a granular non-lustrous surface texture colored satisfactorily to resemble inminiature 7 Claims. (Cl. 46-25) blocks of the above: characteristics. bar-shaped- 4 help hold in accurately assembled alignmentone or more such toy blocks lying inabutting contact with one or more such timber sticks.

A further object is further to configure the above toy timber sticks so that they will -func-- tion to retain and hold against broadside displacement a closure pane filling the windowor" doorway opening that is bordered by the timber sticks;

A further object is to provide -aclosure-pane to be used in this connection: which in part is composed of transparent material whiler'bei'ng in other parts colored or surface ornamented to represent window sash or the paneled sections of: a door." g

In general an object of the invention is to increase the realism with which toybuilding pieces may; when piled together,v resemble in miniature actual full-sized brick; masonry. or stucco buildings incorporating wooden timbers as sillsheaders -jambs or outside board trim with trans: parent windows and doors that swing open.

The foregoing and other objects of the inventron will appear in clearer detail from the following description of preferred embodiments of the invention in which description referenceis had to theaccompanying drawings wherein-:-

Fig. l is an isometric View of a partially completed toy building structure made by piling to-' gether component toy building pieces separately pictured in other figures of thedrawin'gs and embodying the present improvements.

Fig. 2 is a view taken in section on a vertical plane at the location 2' 2 in Fig. 1 looking in the direction of the arrows.

Fig. 3 is an enlarged view of a portion of Fig. 2'.

Fig. 4 is. a perspective view of a. single one of thelongertoy brick blocks incorporated in the built up structure of 'Fig. 1 showing its side that contains dowel sockets.

Fig.5 is a view taken in central vertical section longitudinally through the block of Fig. 4-,

Fig. 6 is a-perspective view of a shorter toy Erick blockshowing its side that carries a dowel Fig. 7 isa perspective view of one of the toy timbersticks incorporated in the built-up structure of Fig. 1 showing interen'g'a'ged therewith a fragment of a toy block like that of Fig. 4.

Fig. 8 is: a perspective view of a closure pane as incorporated in the built-up structure of Fig 1 to simulatea window.

Fig. 9 shows awedgeshaped piece that may be used to fillin corners for producing sloping surfaces illustrated in Fig. 1.

Fig. 10 is an isometric view of the outside of a toy: brick building wall showinga hinged door.

Fig. 111: is an isometric viewof; the hinged door in closed position, parts of the'building structure appearing broken away or in broken lines.

In constructional toys of the type where blocks are loosely piled'upon and beside one another to the blocks slow and troublesome to fit together and take apart. Trouble also arises from the lossof flatness of abutting surfaces of the" blocks usually due to'their warping or shrinkage with age so that: they rock upon oneanother and make it diflicult to'pile them stably. Furthermore, constructional house building. toys heretofore have'commonly been composed of sets of pieces simulating either all-masonry construction or allwood construction. This limitation has imposed a lack of variety in the number of different kinds of toy building structures that can be erected by the use of a given set. of toy blocks.

Such shortcomings as the above have long characterized commercially available sets of toy building blocks, and to overcome these prior limitations my present invention contemplates combinations of brick or stone simulating toy blocks and timber simulating toy sticks so cooperatively fashioned alone or in conjunction with certain closure panes as to be relatively anchored when piled together and to be capable of assemblage in a greater variety of fanciful ways than heretofore. Illustrative examples of the novel features of assemblage appear in Fig. 1.

The toy building structure of Fig. l is composed in part of red or gray toy full bricks l0, red or gray toy half bricks ll, natural wood finish toy timber sticks 2 to 15, inclusive, and partially transparent toy closure panes i'l, l8 and L9. The difference in sizes of the various toy bricks, toy timber sticks, and toy closure panes may reside mainly or solely in the differences of their respective lengths wherefore a description of any exemplary. length will suffice to make clear the principles of construction and cooperative interfitting association of all such lengths. i2 and I5 are sills, i3 is a header, and i6 is a jamb.,

The brick or stone simulating toy blocks of these improvements may be made of various substances and may have devious appearances but preferably will possess a rather granular, non-lustrous surface appearance resembling in miniature real building bricks or cut or artificial unpolished stone or granite building blocks. It has been found that a satisfactory toy block material for purposes of this invention may include in its composition red slate flour or gray slate flour moistened with water and combined with a miscible adhesive in suitable proportions to serve as a binder substance, the whole being molded to shape under very heavy pressure preferably without application of heat. Material of such composition for making toy brick blocks, while believed to be new, is not 7 claimed in this application but is being claimed in a copending application owned incommon by the assignee of the instant application. I prefer to make the full brick Ill and some of the half bricks H out of red slate flour because its color more closely resembles the natural color and in miniature fineness the granular surface texture and light reflecting characteristics of the most common variety of real building bricks, while some of the half bricks il in a given set of the blocks may incorporate the gray slate flour thereby more closely to resemble blocksof cut or artificial stone contrasting in color with the reddish brick blocks in a finished toy building structure as is the case with stone trimming usedfor ornamental or structural effect over and about doorways and windows in the construction of real buildings.

By use of the foregoing materials and methods of production, registering dowel recesses and dowel bosses may be shaped in the improved blocks without resorting to machining or other secondary operations after the block is originally pressed into form. In making one preferred form of the toy full brick block I0 illustrated in Figs. 4 and 5, the pressing molds'are so contoured as to form the block with a. marginal ridge 24 upstanding from and bordering the remaining or relatively

recessed panel portions

25 and 25 alike respectively on the top and bottom larger faces of the block. This insures that the extreme peripheral edge of the block, andnever its central panel portion, abuts in contact with a mating companion block or other planar surface so that all tendency of the block to rock about any centrally located "high spot is avoided. In the bottom panel portion 25' of block i there are formed from the material of the block two rounded dowel bosses 26 which project to a greater extent from the face of the panel than does the border ridge 26. In the top panel portion 25 of the same block there are two dowel sockets 2? in direct crosswise alignment with dowel bosses 26, respectively, and these sockets are configured to receive dowel bosses like 26 on a mating block with a fairly snug lateral fit, which however leaves clearance space between the tip of the boss and the bottom of the socket freely permitting the straight marginal ridges 24 of mating blocks abuttingly to contact with each other throughout their panel bordering extent. In other words the dowel bosses sufficiently fit the dowelsockets to maintain said ridges in abutting register.

A toy half brick block H is'shown in Fig. 6 with its top panel portion 28 containing a single dowel boss 28, like one of the bosses 26, it being understood that a single dowel socket 2'5, like one of the dowel sockets 21, is carried centrally of the bottom panel 28' of block H.

In Figs. 3 and '7 one of the novel toy timber sticks or bars 12 is shown in mating relation to a broken off full brick block showing the nesting of one of the block dowel bosses 26 or 26' within one of a row of dowel sockets 29 spaced apart in exact accordance with the spac-' ing of the block bosses 26, 2G. This orients any timber'bar relatively to any block or blocks. This distance of spacing also'accords with the spacing of a boss 26 from a boss 26" when blocks 10 and H abut end to end. Fig. 7 also shows that the stick i 2 is provided with a straight lengthwise extending groove 31 which intersects the dowel sockets 29. In the opposite face of stick :2 there is a similar groove 32 coextensive with groove'3i lengthwise of the stick. Sockets 28 are deeper than sockets 21, 2?.

Either of grooves 3i or 32 will receive and retain against broadside displacement an edge of a closure pane such as H, l8 or i9 hereinbefore referred to. Such closure panes may be surface ornamented as at 35 by imprinting in colors a representation of window sash. In a similar manner the closure pane l8 in Fig. 1 is seen to be surface ornamented to represent the panel sections of a door. Portions of the closure pane which are not ornamented can be transparent if the pane or plate be composed of transparent materialsuch as celluloid, Cello phane, glass or transparent plastics. Thus it will be seen that closure panes such as l1, l8 and i9 may be incorporated in the built-up housing structure of Fig. l with two, three or all of their marginal edges lodged retainingly in the stick grooves 3| or 32 and retained thereby against broadside displacement or Warping.

For incidental use where sloping surfaces are desired the wedge-shaped block 33 may be employed to fill in corners, asillustrated in Fig. 1, or in devious other ways. 3.

' The relative disposition of any" full brick block 1d,; half brick block I L, or timber-stick L2,. I3 l4, Hit6, etc-.,;isentirely unrestricted andat the users free-choice; because the distances between the centers of every boss and every socket from the nearest; end ofevery block and stick as well as from each of the side edges of every block and stick are exactly equal while the distances between every two adjacent bosses or dowels in each block and stick are likewise equal. Thus in whatever evenly aligned edgewise abutting relation the blocks and stick may be placed the distances between the centers of all dowel socketsand between the centers. of all dowel bosses are equalr It will beunderstood' that one or both. sides of all of the difierent lengths of timber sticks l2, !3, M; I55 and maybe provided with grooves like 3|, 32 and with sockets like 29; and that the vertical sides of the window openings may be bordered'byupright timber sticks as in the case of thetgdoorway; The lengthof each timber stick preferably isan even multiple of the length, the breadth or the thickness of blocks is or ll, or even multiple of some sum of such block dimensions. These sticks may be natural wood.

Figs. 10 and 11 show how a closure pane representing a door 38, much like door l8,,. may be mounted in the same timber stick grooves Si or 32 in sill Hand'- header Win a manner to swing open and closed: Door'38 can be made of bendable metal so that two or more tabs 39 forming continuations of such metal and projecting from one upright edge of the door can be bent into hinge loops pivotally surrounding a vertical hinge pin section 4| of the complete bent wire door holder 40. This door holder and door combined are referred to in some of the appended claims as a closure pane structure since holder 48 consists of a springy wire bent to C-shape whose pane holding function takes the place of directly anchoring the edge of the pane proper. Thus the top and bottom horizontal free arms 42 and 43 of holder 40 flank the top and bottom edges or the door and serve the same holding purposes as the top and bottom edges of door It by being receivable and lodged in the grooves 3! and 32 of sill l4 and header l3, respectively, and thereby oriented in fixed lateral relation to said sill, header and the spaced tiers of blocks at the upright edges of the door. Preferably the door holding wire 50 will be bent to such shape and dimensions in relation to the height of the doorway between sill l4 and header 53 that wire arms E2 and 43 may be pressed slightly toward each other for passing into a completely constructed doorway and then automatically spring slightly apart to enter and be retainingly lodged in

grooves

31 or 32. Sockets or cavities 29 in the sill or header being wider and deeper than grooves 3!, 32 will make it easy to reach under and pry loose the holder arms 42 and 43 for removing them from the doorway without tearing down the surrounding toy building wall structure whenever desired. In this connection it may be mentioned that closure panes such as l1, l8 and I9 may be flexible and resilient enough to permit their being momentarily forced into a bowed shape for entering and removing them with respect to the window openings and doorways without disturbing surrounding wall structure. They can then spring back into fiat shape with two of their edges anchored in two of the timber slots.

The bent-over stretches of hinge pin M of door holder wire 40 are formed with jogs 44, 44 providing top and bottom thrust for the door so that airs held toiswingfcleanof: the bottomxw-ire am 4'3 and clear of the sill stick !4.. The free end of wire arm- 43 isbent up at is to project-outlier the stick groove and actraspastopagainst w hich' door 33 abuts in its closed position in-,Fig.jl:l;,-;A

stud to carried bythedoor may serveas a toy door knob.

Many other modifications will bersuggested; to

worker'sinthis art by the disclosure hereot and' molded.clays,.-or any suitable materialswhatever.

' The appended claims. are intended tocov er all vobi ious substitutes and equivalent for theparts,

shapes and arrangements defined thereby:

I'cl'aimf r I v 1. In a toy constructional. set, a pluralityor rigi'd'toy building blocks adapted to be pil'edl one .upon the other in horizontally oriented relation,

each of said blocks comprising a rigid some ody having miniature brick-like shape and propertions' and each of whose broadside 'facesconsists in major part of a relatively depressed hard panel surface, straight ma'rginalfiridges standing in re.- lief with respecttoand bordering each oi" said panel surfaces along the edges: of. each; of said blocks; at least two spaced" apart block orienting dowel sockets sunk in one of said panel surface of each of said blocl tstgand' a pluralityof. block orienting: dowel projections outstanding from'the other panel surface or each 'ofsaidblocks receiv able in and sufficiently fitting said dowel sockets respectively when said blocks are laterally aligned to maintain said straight marginal ridges of different blocks in abutting register with one another whereby said panel surfaces are kept separated and spaced apart when one block is piled upon another block.

2. In a toy constructional set, at least two rigid toy building blocks as defined in claim 1 in which the said dowel projections have rounded tips and are of such height and girth relative to the depth and girth of the said dowel sockets respectively that said projections nest freely in and fill the girth of said sockets when the said marginal ridges of different blocks are in abutting contact.

3. In a piled arrangement of toy constructional pieces, rigid blocks imitative of bricks and extending in the same direction spaced apart on a common level, dowel bosses carried on a horizontal face of each of said spaced blocks, a horizontal toy timber bar overlapping said spaced blocks and spanning the space therebetween, at least one horizontal face of said bar containing a groove extending lengthwise thereof and also containing a row of spaced dowel sockets engageable simultaneously by said dowel bosses of different blocks thereby to orient said bar relatively to said blocks as well as to determine and maintain the spacing of the latter, and a closure pane including mounting structure therefor receivable in said groove between said spaced blocks for orienting and holding said mounting structure in fixed lateral relation both to said bar and to said spaced blocks.

4. In a brick house constructional toy, the combination defined in claim 3, in which the said holder for the said closure pane comprises a resilient wire bent to C-shape whose upright section is adapted to function as a stationary hinge pin and is pivotally engaged by the said closure pane, the horizontal arms of said C-shaped wire being lodged in the said grooves in a manner to be' freed therefrom when one of said arms is flexed toward the other of said arms.

5. In a brick house construction toy, the combination defined in claim 3, in which the said holder for the said closure pane comprises a C- shaped wire terminating in top and bottom horizontal arms lodged in the said grooves, at least one of said arms being resilient and having a jog offsetting the free end of said arm from a resilient portion of said arm, said resilient arm portion being free and clear from the groove in which said free end of the arm is lodged.

6. The combination of, a toy constructional element having a groove, a closure element having an elongated resilient mounting rod removably lodged in said groove, and a cavity in said constructional element intersected by and deeper 1.

than said groove, said mounting rod passing through said cavity in a manner to leave a space below said rod in said cavity for the insertion of a tool in a manner to pry said rod out of said groove.

7. In a constructional toy, the combination of spaced rows of rigid toy blocks imitative of bricks and bordering a wall aperture, orienting projections carried by said blocks spaced lengthwise of said rows and facing toward said aperture, toy timber bars flanking said rows of blocks and bordering said aperture having orienting recesses facing said blocks and occupied respectively by said block carried projections and containing grooves disposed lengthwise of said bars facing 8 said wall aperture, a closure pane occupyin said wall aperture, and a holder on which said pane is hinged removably having longitudinal portions lodged in said bar contained grooves.

OSCAR P. ERHARDT.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 233,780 Lilienthal Oct. 26, 1880 312,420 Anderson Feb. 17, 1885 725,032 Brandt Apr. 14, 1903 729,918 Braun June 2, 1903 769,171 Kray Sept. 6, 1904 1,207,504 Converse Dec. 5, 1916 1,286,462 Wesche Dec. 3, 1918 1,403,196 Rasely Jan. 10, 1922 2,013.771 Tompkins Sept. 10, 1935 2,293,424 Costa Aug. 18, 1942 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 254,462 Great Britain July 8, 1926 403,228 Great Britain Dec. 21, 1933 806,957

France Oct. 5, 1936