US3300805A

US3300805A - Disposable rotary brush spacer ring

Info

Publication number: US3300805A
Application number: US449130A
Authority: US
Inventors: Louis D Rizzo
Original assignee: Danline Manufacturing Co
Current assignee: Danline Manufacturing Co
Priority date: 1965-04-19
Filing date: 1965-04-19
Publication date: 1967-01-31
Anticipated expiration: 1984-01-31

Description

Jan. 31, 1967 D. RIZZOI 3,300,805

DISPOSABLE ROTARY BRUSH SPACER RING Filed April 19, 1965 hi il s b W :4: INVENTOR AWORNEYS United States Patent 3,300,805 DISPOSABLE ROTARY BRUSH SPACER RING Louis D. Rizzo, Union, NJ. assignor to Danline Manufacturing Company, Kenilworth, N.J., a corporation of New Jersey Filed Apr. 19, 1965, Ser. No. 449,130

1 Claim. (Cl. -181) This invention relates to improved spacer rings adapted to engage and resiliently support the brush elements of cylindrical or roller brushes, and more particularly to spacer rings or strips that are disposable.

Many rotary brushes, such as power driven street sweeper brushes use a series of individual brush sections assembled upon reusable cores or shells which normally and desirably have some means of spacing the brush rings. The use of brush ring spacers minimizes brush stiffness, improves the brushing action of the bristles, and increases the life of the bristles. Reusable, molded metal or elastomer, annular, channel spacing members have been used in the past; however, in practice it has been extremely diflicult and time consuming to retrieve these spacers for reuse from the worn-out crimped and knitted wire bristles.

Another approach to brush spacing has been the use or convoluted brush sections without spacers. However, even through convoluted brush sections achieve effective spacing, brush performance is impaired because of the skewness or non-radiality imposed on the bristle wires by the convoluting process. Therefore, from the standpoint of highly eflective cleaning the more expensive spacer rings are normally used in the better rotary brushes.

Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide low-cost, disposable spacer rings in strip form that need not be salvaged and reused.

Another important object of this invention is to provide spacer rings or strips that are easier to pack and transport.

Still another object of this invention is to provide spacer rings that can be extruded in strip form.

Other objects and advantage will be apparent from the discussion, drawings and claims which follow.

I have discovered that by extruding the spacers of this invention in the form of straight flexible channel strips and providing cooperating engaging and locking means at the corresponding ends of the strips which allow one to unite the corresponding ends and lock the strips in ring form, effective, economical, disposable spacer rings are produced. If one desired to salvage and reuse the spacer rings of this invention they could; however, since these extruded spacer strips are relatively inexpensive, it is usually much cheaper to use new ones than to salvage the used ones.

Preferred forms of the invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIGURE 1 show a schematic top view of one embodi ment of the end engaging and locking portion of the spacer ring;

FIGURE 2 shows a schematic bottom view of the same embodiment;

FIGURES 3A to D show various modifications of the engaging and locking means; and

FIGURE 4 shows a cross section of a typical brush cylinder and the relative position of the brush rings and spacer rings.

3,300,805 Patented Jan. 31, 1967 ICC Referring to FIGURES 1 and 2, an overlapping notched tab portion 5 on one end of spacer strip ring 10 fits into and locks in place in the locking slot 6 on the other end of spacer strip 10. The term overlapping refers to the tab extending beyond the abutting ends of the raised channel side walls '8. The extension of the tab past the channel side Walls 8 is a desirable embodiment but locking means without this extension may also be used.

The specific shape or type of end engaging and locking means used is optional and this feature can be varied to suit the specific type of brush cylinder or individual taste. A few variations of the end engaging and locking means are illustrated in FIGURES 3A to D, in which the tabs 5 are specifically designed to engage and lock into the corresponding slot 6. Many other locking variations are possible.

FIGURE 4 shows a typical brush assembly utilizing the spacer strip rings 10 of this invention and the relative position of the brush rings 9 and spacer rings 10. The brush rings 9 are a-but against the resilient Walls 8 of spacer rings. These walls give the spacer rings a U-shaped or channel cross section. The resiliency of walls 8 reduces the stiffness and increases the brushing efficiency of brush rings 9 and bristles 12. The walls 8 may be modified in any manner desired or a uniformly thick spacer strip can be used. However, the thickness of the end wall of the spacer ring should be thick enough to perform the function of supporting the brush rings in the manner set forth above.

Various methods and materials may be used to produce the flexible spacer strips of this invention. For example, the strips may be extruded from various flexible elastomeric or plastic materials such as polyethylene, polypropylene, etc. The formation of the end engaging and locking means and the cutting of the strips to a prescribed length are most economically done at the same time with a specially designed cutting and shaping die. But the cutting and end notching may be done in separate steps. It should be understood that many flexible materials and many modifications in forming the spacer strips, such as molding, may be used.

To form the spacer ring from the flat spacer strip, tab 5 is merely inserted into slot 6 and twisted to form a positive lock. This assembly is relatively quick and simple, and requires relatively little labor time.

The low cost, disposable spacer rings of this invention have another important advantage over prior art spacer rings; they are much easier to pack. In practice one merely drops the straight, flat strips into the same box in which the brush sections are shipped. They do not require special or separate packing, and they allow one to provide a more efficient and much less bulky package. This ease of packaging is not possible with spacers already in circular form because they occupy too much space. The single package does away with the problem of separating and misplacing of the space ring package or the brush ring package.

I claim:

A rotary brush spacer strip comprising a flat, flexible, strip of substantially uniform width having (1) a notched tab at one end and a slot shaped to receive and retain said tab at the opposite end which serve to lock said strip in ring form, and (2) raised side walls which serve to resiliently support adjacent brush rings.

(References on following page) References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 023 11 Palmer 29-513 Schlemmer. 5 Comstock.

Rice 2423 Nielsen 15-181 Friedman 308237 X 8/1962 Batcheller 29-S13 X 5/1963 Nelson 15181 9/1963 Martin et a1. 24l6 FOREIGN PATENTS 5/1960 France.

CHARLES A. WILLMUTH, Primary Examiner.

P. FELDMAN, Assistant Examiner.