WO1981002486A1

WO1981002486A1 - Manual display board system

Info

Publication number: WO1981002486A1
Application number: PCT/AU1981/000027
Authority: WO
Inventors: F Kimberley
Original assignee: F Kimberley
Priority date: 1980-02-28
Filing date: 1981-02-26
Publication date: 1981-09-03
Also published as: EP0053116A1; JPS57500393A

Abstract

A manual display board system for charts, and instant signs having a background board (10) bonded to a backing sheet of particle board (11) and of magnetically attractive steel sheet (12) with parallel, profiled grooved tracks (13) extending transversely across the board (10) and formed by laminating thin strips of steel (14) onto the board (10); magnetic display indicia carrier bars (16) of ferrite impregnated nylon have an indicia supporting ledge (19) in the lower edge of the flat front surface (17) and a groove-engaging rib (20) extending along the flat rear surface (18) of the carrier bar (16); the bars are magnetized with front to rear, or rear to front polarity and alternate bars have reversed front to rear, or rear to front polarity for synergistic magnetic adhesion to the board when used in close parallel proximity.

Description

MANUAL DISPLAY BOARD SYSTEM TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates generally to information display boards for interior use in offices, factories and the like, such boards having removeable display characters adapted to be used in temporary and interchangeable manner upon a vertical surface which, supports the display board and for conveying immediate information. The invention is more particularly concerned with providing a chart display system including a display board and display indicia in which the character pieces can be more readily placed upon, arranged and then removed from the board. BACKGROUND ART

Various display boards are known for use inside offices, factories, stores, warehouses and the like. One type of board known as a "peg board" comprises a broken or discontinuous surface having a matrix of holes into which are inserted and removed the supporting pins of display indicia. Another type of board is constructed of relatively rough, soft or porous material such as soft fibre board, prepared from spent sugar cane fibre onto which indicia is pinned.

A display board with an even more rough or porous type of surface is the felt board. All of these display boards have disadvantages. One disadvantage is the the surfaces become coated or clogged with vapors, fumes, smoke and the likebecause they have to he used in atmospheres laden with contaminating or soiling materials. Another disadvantage with peg-boards is that they are time-wasting in use because of the effort needed to properly locate pins in the correct holes and then remove them as needed. If the surfaces of display boards are made smooth for easier cleaning, then display indicia such as magnetic indicia, are difficult to align and can slip out of place and it would he necessary and desirahle to provide pins more tightly located in holes or to clamp or fasten the pins from the board, which again would make insertion and removal more difficult and time consuming.

ADVANTAGES OFTHE INVENTION

The advantages of the invention are that a smooth surface display board with smooth surfaced removahle indicia are provided. The indicia can he quickly placed upon and correctly located on the board and then removed from the board. An entire chart display system can be built up by the user and the indicia can be moved around the board.

The manual display board system of the invention as claimed is intended to provide a remedy and an industrially useful result. It solves the problem of not being able to quickly clean a display board on location, due to porous, discontinuous, rough or clogged surfaces. The display board of the invention has a hard, nonporous and very smooth surface, but also solves the problem of slippage of display indicia from a smooth surface by providing magnetic display indicia. It also solves the problem of accidental dislodgement or difficulty in aligning magnetic display characters on a smooth display surface by the provision of co-operating ribs and channels and grooves on a smooth metal board and smooth backed magnetic display indicia or characters.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Figure 1 is a plan or front view of the magnetic, manual display board system of this invention.

Figure 2 is an enlargement in perspective showing structural details of one form of the metal display board for the magnetic, display system. Figure 3 is an enlargement, in perspective of the magnetic indicia carrier detached from the display board.

Figure 4 is enlarged profile or end view of the assemhled display components as in use.

Figure 5 is an enlarged, rear perspective view of an alternative indicia locating and holding arrangement for large magnetic indicia characters.

BEST MODE OF CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION AND PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The manual display board system of the invention, basically comprises two main components. Firstly, a metal surfaced display board with parallel or guide tracks for magnetic indicia in one dimension designed for horizontal installation and secondly, magnetic indicia pieces with guide means on the reverse face for sliding in alignment along the guide tracks. In one form, the display 10 board is a laminated sheet consisting of a rigid backing or support sheet 11, of resin-bonded wood particles such as the product sold under the trade mark "PYNEBOARD" , which is fixed to a thin metal hase sheet of magnetically attractive material and preferahly of zinc-dusted steel. The base sheet 12 has a grooved surface of a plurality of parallel, equispaced, rectangular section grooves typified by that designated 13 which are preferably formed between the opposed side edges of a plurality of thin, flat, metallic strip members typified by the one labelled 14. However, the grooves may also he formed, if desired, by cold-rolling, stamping, pressing or by similar sheet metal-working techniques. The preferred method of manufacturing the grooved hase sheet is by thermal, adhesive bonding of a plurality of cut strips of the same thin sheet metal as the base sheet. The thin metal strips when bonded to the base sheet form supporting surfaces which enable flat undersurface of magnetic indicia 15 to he slidably moved along the display hoard. In a preferred method of manufacturing, the base sheet with laminated thin steel strips, a sheet of zinc-coated steel of thickness 0.45mm is guillotined into a plurality of parallel sided strips of equal width of 7.5mm. One surface of each metal strip is then coated with a solvent-activated adhesive by placing a solvent-activated, doublesided adhesive strip onto one surface of the metal strip and then activating the adhesive by passing the adhesive-coated strip through an MEK solvent application station to obtain suitable tackiness and then a plurality of such adhesive coated strips are placed in a metal former frame comprising a plurality of vertically equidistantly and parallel spaced metal separatorrstrips, under which has been placed a pre-cut metal base sheet of lateral dimensions equal to a display board. The adhesive coated strips are placed with the adhesive surface downward and are then pressed onto the metal base sheet at, a pitch distance of 1cm and 2mm groove spacing to partly adhere the metal indicia supporting strips to the metal base sheet and the strip coated base sheet is then removed from the former.

The particle-board display board backing sheet is placed in a 50 tonne press and a thin double-sided adhesive sheet is placed over the backing sheet, the metal base/strip sandwich sheet is then placed in the press over the backing sheet and the whole structure is laminated into an integral unit by thermal pressure bonding.

If desired, the metal-surfaced display board may be coated with a suitable background colour such as black paint with an enamel finish to facilitate cleaning.

As shown more clearly in Figure 3, the magnetic indicia of the above embodiment is preferably in the form of a rectangular-shaped, flat magnetic indicia carrier bar 16 manufactured from a suitable synthetic plastics or resin material such as the polyamide NYLON which has been impregnated with powdered magnetic material such as ferrite. The carrier bar has a flat front surface 17, a flat rear surface 18, an indicia supporting ledge 19 projecting forwardly from the lower edge and extending for a short distance from the front surface and a track aligning or running rib 20 projecting rearwardly from the lower edge and extending for a short distance from the rear surface of the carrier bar. The rear surface ribs 20 is adapted to slidably fit within the groove 13 of the display board metal base sheet 12 and enables the carrier bar [or separate rear rib-bearing] indicia members] to be aligned on the display board. The front surface of the magnetic indicia carrying bar is adapted to carry various forms of "stick on" indicia characters provided with a coating of contact-adhesive. The indicia characters are preferahly in the form of pre-cut square patches of pvc such as that denoted by reference numeral 21 printed, with colours or characters such as the "K" shown in Figure 3 and pre-coated with pvc contact adhesive and knife-cut into a matrix on a paper sheet. The character "patches" can be aligned by means of the front ledge on the bar. The magnetic carrier bar incorporates magnetic material, but for the purposes of the present invention where a large amount of closely spaced indicia material is to he used requiring close horizontal spacing of carrier bars in juxtaposition, it has been found that the bars tend to repel each other out of alignment on a display board and it then becomes necessary to magnetize pre-formed bars with "face to face" rather than "end to end" polarity. This is indicated by the directional arrows for N and S on Figure 3 of the drawings. It has also been found that when bars are closely placed in juxtaposition on the metal-faced display board, it is preferable that magnetic carrier bars placed alongside each other on the display board are magnetized with reverse "face to face" polarity with respect to each other and when this is done a synergistic attractive force results with respect to the display board. Suitable apparatus for magnetizing the bars comprises a direct current electro-magnet, wherein the bar is instantly and permantely magnetized and passed through a magnetizing field in a direction transverse to normal polarizing alignment.

Figure 5 shows an alternative embodiment, suitable for large indicia, instead of using a separate magnetic indicia carrier bar, large magnetic indicia such as letters and numbers, exemplified by "I" may be provided with a transverse or horizontal rib or ribs 22 projecting from the rear surface thereof for aligning the letters or numbers along the grooves of the metal base sheet on the display board and also to counteract accidental displacement or slipping of indicia from correct alignment on the board by vibration, bumping and the like. The rib 22 can, if desired be shaped to fit into a complementary rib rolled or pressed into a single sheet of metal as the base sheet.

The display indicia pieces or carrier bars can be picked off the board or wiped off as desired and can be re-arranged or replaced at will.

Instead of slots, the base board can have ribs projecting as tracks and the indicia can have grooves instead of ribs or ledges.

A suitable solvent-activated adhesive bonding material for heat laminating the display board components together is No. 583 nameplate dry-film bonding tape or sheet manufactured by the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. and comprising a mixture of synthetic elastomers and thermoplastic and thermosetting resins.

Claims

Claims :

1. A manual display board system for charts, instant signs and the like which has a background display board (10) having a display surface constructed of magnetically attractive sheet material (12) on a backing board (11), the display surface being adapted to receive and to hold magnetic display indicia (15), placed on the display surface of the display board, characterized in that the magnetically attractive display surface of the display hoard (10) is profiled with regularly spaced, parallel guide tracks (13), the magnetic display indicia (15), (16) being provided along the rear surface thereof with transverse track engaging means (20), (22) which enable the indicia (15), (21) or magnetic indicia carrier (16) to be aligned and slidably moved along and moved from the guide track (13) of the display board and counteracts accidental misalignment of the indicia by vibrations and the like.

2. A manual display board system for charts, instant signs and the like according to claim 1 wherein the display board surface is profiled with grooves (13) and the rear surface of the display indicia is provided with a transverse rib (20) to slide in the groove of the board (10).

3. A manual display board system for charts, instant signs and the like as claimed in claim 1 or 2 wherein the display board surface comprises thin steel strips (14) laminated to a base sheet

(12) of thin steel sheet, the strips being parallel to each other and spaced apart at a distance sufficient to form a groove (13) along the entire width of the display board for a rib (20) projecting from the rear or display board engaging surface of large indicia (15) or a magnetic display indicia carrier for small indicia (21), adapted to be placed upon the board (10) and aligned on the grooved track (13).

4. A manual display board system as claimed in any one of claims 1, 2 or 3 wherein nonmagnetic "stick-on" display indicia (21) is adapted to be placed and carried on a flat elongate, rectangular carrier bar (16) containing magnetic or magnetized material, the magnetic carrier bar having a longitudinal guide rib (20) projecting from the rear surface thereof, the rib (20) being adapted to be slidably placed in the grooved guide track (13) of the magnetically attractive display surface of the display hoard (10) to aliga the indicia on the board (10).

5. A manual display board system as claimed in claim 4 wherein the magnetic display indicia carrier bar (16), are provided with a flat or front indicia carrier surface (17) having an indicia alignment ledge (19) for aligning nonmagnetic "stick-on" display squares (21) on the bar.

6. A manual display board system as claimed in claim 4 or 5 wherein the magnetic indicia carrier bars (16) are magnetized with front to rear surface or rear to front surface N S, SN polarity.

7. A manual display board system as claimed in claim 6 wherein alternate bars (16) have reversed ITS or SB polarity of flat magnetic adhesion surfaces (17), (18) to counteract repulsion and for synergistic magnetic adhesion of the bars (16) to the strips (14) of the display board (10) when the magnetic carrier bars (16) are placed side by side in close parallel proximity.

8. A manual display board system as claimed in claim 1 or 2 wherein the magnetic display indicia comprises letters and numbers (15) with a transverse rib (22) projecting from the rear surface thereof for slidable engagement along the parallel grooves (13) extending transversely across the display hoard.