US2570705A - Guard for sewing machines - Google Patents

Description

Oct. 9, 1951 R. PELLETIER GUARD FOR sswme MACHINES Filed Aug. 2, 1949 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTOR ROGER PELLET/ER ATTORNEY 1951 R. PELLETIER 2,570,705

GUARD FOR SEWING MACHINES Filed Aug. 2, 1949 2 SheetsSheet 2 FIG. 6.

INVENTOR ROGER PELLET/ER ATTORNEY Patented Oct. 9, 1951 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE The present invention relates to improvements in sewing machine guards adapted for the protection of the operator.

In the use of sewing machines, both of the home type and the industrial type, the rapidly oscillating machine needle ofiers a considerable danger to the operator. Thus in close or fast work, and. particularly in such work as shirring, the operator tends to place his or her fingers in close proximity to the point at which the material is being sewn, thereby exposing himself to the liability of having a finger pierced by the needle. Such needle pierced fingers are a common occurrence, especially in sewing factories.

In addition, at times the needle may strike a button or some hard object associated with the material, such as a zipper, and may thereby suddenly break, the severed piece easily flying out with great force and being a further source of imminent injury.

For these reasons it has become customary, for the purpose of safety, to use guards enclosing the needle of the machine in use to afford protection to the operator. The guards most commonly in use are generally formed of metallic wire or the like which have some inhibiting eiiect so far as needle piercing is concerned, but cannot absolutelyprevent such accidents, since the wires are located merely in the regions of most likely approach of the finger, but cannot and do not absolutely prevent the finger from being positioned beneath the needle. In addition, such guards to some extent impair the efiiciency of the operator because they interfere with vision. It is essential that the operator have clear unobstructedvision at the point where the needle enters the material being sewn and just in advance of that point in order to be able to accurately guide the material under the needle during sewing. Any obstruction to the vision of the operator thereby either places a strain upon the operator to avoid that visual obstruction, or necessarily lowers the speed of operation and the operators efiiciency. Furthermore, such sewing machine guards have had to be specially constructed for each different type of sewing machine in use, thereby causing the manufacturer and the vendor to make and to stock a wide variety of different guards.

These defects and disadvantages of the prior art are substantially overcome by the present invention, by which is provided a greatly improved sewing machine guard which substantially completely encloses the danger zone within which the needle moves so as to prevent completely the 2 Claims. (Cl. 112-261) positioning of the operators finger beneath the' needle while at the same time providing substantially no obstruction to prevent visibility at the point of work.

According to a further feature of the present invention, a needle guard is provided which is universal in its application, being adapted to be used with sewing machines of widely different type and size.

These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description of preferred embodiments thereof taken in conjunction with the appended drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of one form of my invention shown in place on a sewing machine;

Figure 2 is a perspective view of the same novel sewing machine guard viewed from the other side;

Figure 3 is one side view of the guard of Figures 1 and 2;

Figure 4 is a front view of said guard;

Figure 5 is the other side view of said guard;

Figure 6 shows a perspective view of a further form of guard for universal use;

Figure 7 is a perspective view of the guard of Figure 6 viewed from the opposite side;

Figure 8 is a side view of the same guard applied to a different type of sewing machine;

Figure 9 is a perspective view of the guard of Figure 8; and

Figure 10 is a side view of said same guard in condition for use with still another type of sewing machine. 1

Referring to Figure 1, there is shown in dotted lines the customary construction of a sewing machine including a work table II, a needle bar I2 to which is secured the machine needle I3 as by a set screw I4, and a presser foot I0 detachably secured to a presser foot bar IT as by a screw IS. The novel sewing machine guard 2| of the present invention is shown applied to this sewing machine in Figure 1 and its configuration is shown more clearly in Figures 2, 3, 4 and 5.

This guard 2| is fabricated of a transparent moldable material such as vinyl acetate, Lucite, tenite or the like. It is shaped generally in the form of a U having a front wall 22, left side wall 23, and a right side wall 24. The left and right side walls have registering notches 26 in their back edges, at least one of these notches being adapted to engage the presser foot set screw 48 and serving as a mounting for the guard. That is, the guard is secured in place merely by loosening the presser foot set screw I8, slipping 'where convenient ,or desired.

the guard in place and then tightening the set screw [8 so that no further mounting or clamping means is necessary. The left side wall is provided with a slot 21 extending from the top edge of the guard downwardly to a point adjacent the bottom edge but leaving a web 28 serving to join the sections of the guard on either side of the slot 21. The right side of the guard is provided with a similar slot 29 extending from the bottom edge of the guard upwardly leaving a further web ill in the shoulder 32 of the guard. The

shoulder 32 of the guard extends to the right of the right wall and forwardly of the front wall and then upwardly, thereby providing further shielding even above the top of the visible portion of the needle bar and around the needle bar guide 33 of the machine.

The two slots 21 and 28 permit ready threading of the needle even with the guard in place. Customarily the needle is threaded from the left side through to the right side, and this operation is in no way impaired or prevented by the present guard. Preferably the guard is made as narrow as can conveniently encompass the needle bar in order to facilitate such threading. sired, part of the left wall may be ofiset as shown at 34 to permit the slots 27 and 29 to be more closely spaced than the thickness of the presser foot mounting permits at the back edges of the guard. However, this offset may be omitted The needle set screw [4 preferably extends symmetrically within the slot 29 and rides up and down in that slot without obstruction.

Since the guard is made of transparent material, it offers practically, no obstruction to visibility. However, if even more perfect visibility is desired, an opening 3'! may be provided. This opening 3! may be omitted where not necessary or desirable. In order to conserve material and also to provide a more pleasing appearance, the lower back corners of the side walls may be rounded or chamfered as shown at 38.

Figures 6 through show a modified form of guide of even simpler construction and adapted for a wider variety of types of sewing machine. This guard comprises a transparent portion H,; to which a mounting clip 42 is rotatably secured as by riveting as shown at 43. v

The transparent portion 5! has a front wall 5!, a back wall 52 and two side walls; 53 and 5d. The front wall 5| may have an aperture 55 at the bottom edgejthereof similar to the aperture 3'! of the guard of Figures 1 to 5, although this aperture may be omitted if desired. The left wall 54 as viewed from the front has a slot 5t extending from the top edge nearly to the bottom, but separated from the bottom by a web 51 in afashion similar to the slot 2'! and web 28, shown in Figure 3. The back wall may have an opening 58 at the bottom edge thereof adapted to straddle the presser foot in certain types of machine in which the foot may otherwise obstruct or interfere with the positioning of the guard. The right wall 53 has a slot 59 extending the full length thereof. It will therefore be appreciated that the transparent section ll of this guard may be formed by bending as well as by molding, where desired. The side edges at the front of the guard are also beveled as shown at 52 to provide clearance when used with downwardly extending presser feet such as that shown in Figure 8.

The mounting clip 42 is formed as a bracket having a flat side juxtaposed to the back wall Where deill 52 of the guard and an outwardly extending bifurcated section at right angles thereto. As will be seen from Figures 7-9 and 10, the mounting clip 42 may have several different positions. As shown in Figure 7 it is mounted with the bifurcated section 65 in a vertical plane being thereby adapted for use with sewing machines having horizontally extending presser foot retaining screws as shown at l8. Figure 9 shows another position of the mounting clip with the bifurcated portion 65 in a horizontal plane useful for machines of the type shown in Figure 8 where the presser foot is secured at the end of the presserfoot bar I? by a retaining nut H on a vertically extending screw 72. For some types of machine where it is desired that the guard be lowered slightly, the clip may be mounted as shown in Figure 10 with the bifurcated portion horizontal, as shown in Figure 9, but above the rivet 43 instead of below.

In manufacture, the clip 42 is riveted lightly to the transparent section 4% in such fashion that it will retain its position, but can be rotated readily to another of the three positions shown in Figures 7-9 or 10. It will thus be apparent that this guard presents all the advantages of the form discussed above and additionally is universally applicable to different machines having different presser foot mountings.

In this way a sewing machine guard is-provided which because of its transparency, as well as its apertures, does not interfere with good visibility during operation, and at the same time so completely encloses the needleas to completely prevent placing the finger of the operator beneath the needle, whereby needle piercings are prevented. Similarly any broken needles cannot fly outwardly toendanger the operator. The guard is readily'mountable and demountable in the same manner as the presser foot, and per mits easy threading of the machine needleduring use. It will be appreciated that where desired, the material of which the guard is may can be selected sufficiently thin to .make the guard partially flexible so that, to further facilitate threading, the parts can be manually compressed or shifted slightly and flexibly as desired.

Since many minor modifications of the present invention can be readily conceived without departing from the essential spirit thereof, it is to be understood that the above description is intended to be illustrative only and should not-be just-ably mounted on one wall of said sheet and providing mounting means for said guard, said clip comprising a pair of flat perpendicularly disposed legs, one of said legs being pivotally mounted against one wall of said unitary sheet for pivotal movement about a horizontal axis, the other of said legs being bifurcated by a-slot adapted to receive a presser foot retaining screw whereby said clip in different positions thereof i adapted to be affixed to, both vertical and horizontal presser foot retaining screws of different types of sewing machine.

2. A guard for a sewing machine or the like formed of a unitary sheet of material having a generally tubular configuration with a front wall, side walls and a back wall, one side wall being vertically slotted from the top edge downwardly to a point separated from the bottom edge, the other side wall being slotted vertically from the top edge to the bottom edge and a bracket clip rotatably fixed to said back well, said clip consisting of a flat strip having two perpendicularly disposed legs, one of said legs being rotatably aifixed to said back wall and the ing retaining screw while in a second position with said bifurcated leg in a horizontal plane, said clip being adapted to be ailixed to a presser foot having a vertically extending retaining 5 screw.

ROGER PELLETIER.

other of said legs being bifurcated by a slot 10 m of t i patent;

adapted to receive a presser foot retaining screw, said clip in one position with said bifurcated leg in a vertical plane being adapted to be aflixed to a presser foot having a horizontally extend- UNITED STATES PATENTS Number

Images