WO2002056732A1

WO2002056732A1 - Furniture/object support

Info

Publication number: WO2002056732A1
Application number: PCT/NL2002/000036
Authority: WO
Inventors: Wouter Van Diermen
Original assignee: Wouter Van Diermen
Priority date: 2001-01-18
Filing date: 2002-01-18
Publication date: 2002-07-25
Also published as: NL1017140C2; NL1017140A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a support or spacer device for underneath or behind an object such as a piece of furniture or painting. The device has a contact surface for making contact with the background supporting the object, with the feature that the support or spacer is covered with protrusions whose size and shape can be adapted according to its intended use. The support as depicted in the attached drawing concems a furniture castor application, which can be applied either in addition to or independently of contemporary state of the art techniques. The support pictured in this version has a large, hexagonal plane, upon which protrusions are mounted in a triangular matrix pattern. The accompanying mounting spike also forms part of the complete support construction, and the support can also have a sticking strip mounted on it to optimise ease of use. The support depicted is intended to be an addition to the well-known furniture castor, with a principal difference being that the support is equipped with protrusions which penetrate the pile of a carpet with the advantage that when so used the support leaves practically no imprint behind on the carpet.

Description

FURNITURE / OBJECT SUPPORT

This invention relates to a support for under an object, such as for example a piece of furniture or painting, having a contact surface equipped with protrussions which make contact with the background on which the object rest.

Such a support is commonly known. In particular, so-called furniture castors can be fixed to one or more legs of a piece of furniture. It has been noticed that, with current techniques, a number of disadvantages are associated with such supports. These include:

1. Existing constructions all have a large horizontal contact surface, which leaves an ugly and indelible impression on the carpet or background.

2. Existing constructions all have a large horizontal contact surface, which leads to an unstable distribution of the load, as a result of which standing objects, mostly furniture, for example chairs, tables and suchlike, become unstable.

3. Existing constructions all have a large and often smooth horizontal, flat or rounded contact surface, both of which provide little sideways stability. This can lead to objects sliding away, resulting in dangerous situations such as for example an office chair unexpectedly moving away during use.

4. Existing constructions all have a large and usually thin horizontal contact surface, which cannot resist the usually high pressure from the object being supported and consequently become distrorted, twisted or quickly worm, leading to unnecessarily frequent replacement, representing a costly and needless investment.

5. Existing constructions often have a flexible structure, which requires increased strengthening or stiffening by addition of more material, clearly leading to wastage of material and money. This often gives rise to inflated consumer prices . 6. Existing constructions often have little durability and therefore form an increased burden on the environment.

7. Existing constructions are often made of rubber, and leave negative marks on the background surface, in the form of ugly lines. The raw material is natural rubber, hich is extracted from rubber trees using a labour-intensive process, making it an expensive material. Rubber compounds can also dry out and lead to the negative side effect of decomposition of the rubber molecules . 8. Existing constructions are often made of compressed felt, which has the unavoidable and inconvenient negative characteristics of fast wear, uneven wear, collection of dirt and dust, and ugly ragged edges.

9. Existing constructions are often of a dull and boring colour, which are not in tune with modern tastes and interiors. Consumers experience these colours as ugly.

10. Existing constructions often have mixed rubber composition, which becomes pale and dries out in the sun, leading to earlier replacement and consequently an unnecessary waste of material, energy and money.

11. Existing constructions are often made of a hard compound to compensate for the low load-bearing strength, leading to frequent cracking and wastage of raw material, energy and money. 12. Existing wheel constructions often have a smooth, curved contact surface, which is very dangerous due to an increased risk of an object slipping and very inconvenient due to the object shifting unexpectedly.

13. Due to their weak and unstable composition, existing constructions often look crude and ugly, which consumers find ugly and which limits applications for them.

14. Existing constructions are often put on the market in crude versions with the disadvantage that they offer low resilience and can absorb practically no shocks or vibrations. 15. Existing constructions often have a large plane which makes direct contact with the supporting surface, shielding it from sunlight and other influences, and giving rise to the disadvantage of a change of colour with respect to the uncovered surface.

A support as mentioned in the first part of claim 1 is known from FR-2119716.

Complicated, material, time and money-wasting methods such as glue, screws or pins are proposed for fixing that support to the object.

The intent with this invention is to provide an improved support, with which the disadvantages described above can at least be mitigated.

To achieve this the support conforming to this invention is characterized in that the contact surface includes a hole to accommodate a mounting spike for the support.

The advantage of the support conforming to this invention is that simple mounting of the support on the object is possible without cumbersome drilling into the support itself. The diameter of the hole is preferably equal to that of the mounting spike.

A strip of double-sided tape can also be attached to the support. Without using additional glue, one side of the tape can thus be fixed to the underside of the object and the other directly to the support.

A subsequent version of the support conforming to this invention has is characterized in that the protrusions are evenly distributed over the contact surface.

The support conforming to this invention is intended to be fixed underneath or behind an object, such as a piece of furniture, painting or floor mat. The support has a contact surface which makes contact with the background, upon or against which the object rests. This contact surface has protrusions which distribute the weight in such a way that the load is only applied at small points, giving the advantage that no visible imprint is left behind. The protrusions also absorb vibrations and noises from for, example, washing machines or clothes dryers and resist any associated tendency for the object to move. The protrusions can be implemented in various ways. An additional advantage is that the support conforming to this invention allows simple replacement of existing furniture supports or coasters and can also be supplied along with new object. The disadvantages mentioned above form the additional advantages and favourable effects of the invention.

Distributing the protrusions evenly over the contact surface also gives the favourable effect that the contact load generated by the object "s weight is evenly distributed over the contact surface.

Tapered protrusions simplify the potentially highly-automated production of the invention and lead to greater sideways stability. In particular this results in fast extracion from a mould and reduced consumption of raw material.

Protrusions implemented as teeth, serrations, or notches can bear heavier loads .

Synthetic material is preferred as the raw material and for integral manufacturing due to its low cost price, good processibility and high (mechanical) stiffness and stability.

Polythene, polyethylene, polypropylene or similar materials are preferable for en vironmental reasons since they are reusable and/or degradable.

Rubber is not recommended because it weakens over time and is not colour fast or wear resistant enough. If the contact surface is curved, the support could also be used as wheels for objects such as tables, desks, office chairs / wheels . These would thus not move unexpectedly on smooth/hard surfaces such as wood or tiles.

The invention is described in greater detail below, according to a single bacic design, together with the additional advantages, and making use of the attached drawing containing the same reference numbers .

Figure 1 shows a schematic view of the device according to the invention, in which, for the sake of clarity, certain parts of the ground and carpet are omitted;

Figure 2 shows a perspective side-view of figure 1; Figure 3 shows a schematic view of figure 1 from below; Figure 4 shows a schematic view of figure 1 from above.

The support as shown in figure 1-4 contains, as in figure 1-1, a flat plane for fixing it to the end of an object, such as a piece of furniture or painting (not shown) . There are various ways of fixing the support to an object. Figure 2.1 shows that the support has a flat, stiff plane, of any desired size.

Figure 4.1 shows that the support has a round, stiff plane, which can be made in various shapes and thicknesses, to ensur the correct distribution of the supported object " s weight.

Figure 3.6 shows that the support contains a hexagonal surface, over which the appropriately shaped protrusions are distributed. These can be teeth or in the form of truncated cones. The distribution can be different to that shown. One or more mounting spikes, screws, nails or double-sided tape can be supplied along with the supports to fix them to the object. The length and breadth of the protrusions can be the same or different, depending, for example, on the pile of the carpet on which the protrusions rest or the structure of the ground surface. The device as shown in figure 4.6 a flat, stiff plane, equipped with double-sided tape, the topside of which can be attached to the underside of the piece of furniture to be supported, or any other object, and which should be stickable over preferably three-quarters of its surface area to ensure good adhesion to the object to be supported.

The support as shown in figure 2.7 contains a hole with a diameter equal to that of the accompanying mounting spike, according to figure B, so that the mounting spike can be mounted easily without having to drill into the support itself. The support as shown in figure 1.4 is built out of a single, solid piece of stiff, but resilient material, with the same structure as previously described. The mounting spike can also be equipped with an integrated retaining ring. The purpose of the mounting spike is to enable optional mounting of the entire construction to the underside of the piece of furniture or other object without using a mounting strip.

The protrusions on the support as shown in figure 3.4 are arranged in a triangular pattern across the contact surface in such a way that practically no pressure difference can arise between individual protrusions during use. It should be noted that the construction is fixed in a vertical line under the object to be supported, leading to positive absorption of the downward pressure.

The support as shown in figure 2.7 has a pre-drilled hole to enable simple and effective mounting of the mounting spike described, according to the end-user's wishes. In practice the support has proven to be very suitable for supporting heavy loads and resulting imprints have been reduced on average by more than 95%.

Claims

1. A support for under an object, such as for example a piece of furniture or painting, having a contact surface equipped with protrusions which make contact with the background on which the object rests, characterized in that the contact surface is also equipped with a hole for insertion of a mounting spike for the support.

2. The support according to claim 1, characterized in that the hole's diameter is equal to that of the mounting spike mentioned.

3. The support according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the support is equipped with double-sided tape.

4. The support according to one of the claims 1 - 3, characterized in that the protrusions are evenly distributed over the contact surface.

5. The support according to claims 1 - 4, characterized in that the protrusions taper to a point.

6. The support according to one of the claims 1 - 5, characterized in that the protrustions are made in the form of teeth.

7. The support according to one of the claims 1 - 6, characterized in that the support, including the protrusions, is mate out of synthetic material.

8. The support according to one of the claims 1 - 7, characterized in that the support is made entirely out of one and the same synthetic material.

9. The support according to one of the claims 1 - 8, characterized in that the support is made out of non-toxic material.

10. The support according to one of the claims 1 - 9, characterized in that the synthetic material contains polythene, polyethylene, polypropylene or similar.

11. The support according to claim 10 characterized in that the synthetic material does not contain rubber.

12. The support according to one of the claims 1 - 10, characterized in that the support is mate of a previously determined colour, which is added to the synthetic material.

13. The support according to one of the claims 1 - 12, characterized in that the coloured dye used is thoroughly mixed with the synthetic material itself.

14. he support according to the claims 1 - 13, characterized in that the support is hard wearing.

15. he support according to the claims 1 - 14, characterized in tath the contact surface can be rotated and can therefore be curved or bent.

16. The support according to the claims 1 - 15, characterized in tath the support can be manufactured in a U- shape .

17. The support according to the claims 1 - 16, characterized in tath the support is made in a virtually flat shape .

18. The support according to the claims 1 - 17, characterized in tath the support is made in a more robust shape such that the protrusions may be made in various different shapes.

19. The support according to the claims 1 - 18, characterized in that the support can be manufactured to variable dimensions.

20. The support according to the claims 1 - 19, characterized in that the synthetic support is static- electricity-free.

21. The support according to the claims 1 - 20, characterized in that the support is made to be shock, vibration and impact absorbent.

22. The support according to the claims 1 - 21, characterized in that the support is made from a material with a low friction coefficient.

23. The support according to the claims 1 - 22, characterized in that when used on for example a carpet, the protrusions used give good sideways stability.

24. The support according to the claims 1 - 23, characterized in that the support is made from a stiff, but at the same time flexible, resilient material.

25. The support according to the claims 1 - 24, characterized in that the support is made from a material which allows little or no conduction of sound.

26. he support according to the claims 1 - 25, characterized in that its shape and the way the protrusions grip each other allow the creation of stable, stackable constructions.

27. The support according to the claims 1 - 26, characterized in that the support is made from an alloy other than that described above, for example stainless steel or iron or any other metal or synthetic material.

28. The support according to claim 27, characterized in that such a support, with a composition other than that described in conclusions 1 - 24, has a wider range of applications .

29. he support according to the claims 1 - 28, characterized in that the shape of the protrusions lets through sufficient light and dirt (for example smoke or other deposits, or colour loss) such that virtually no marks are left behind on the background by the object supported (e.g. a painting) .

30. The support according to the claims 1 - 29, characterized in that the support can be made in other shapes or with other dimensions not described here.

31. n object equipped with one or more supports or constructions integrated into the object itself according to one or the preceding conclusions.