Dispensing container for roll material

Dec. 20, 1960 _M nagy 2,965,331

DISPENSING CONTAINER FOR ROLL MATERIAL

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DISPENSING CONTAINER FOR ROLL MATERIAL

Filed June 12, 1959 _? ~_e . _t „

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2,965,331

Patented Dec. 20, I960

United States Patent Office

2,965,331

DISPENSING CONTAINER FOR ROLL MATERIAL

Michael Nagy, 1714 Blaine St., Findlay, Ohio

Filed June 12,1959, Ser. No. 820,056

Claims. (CI. 242—138)

This invention relates to an improved portable dispensing container for flexible roll material.

The primary object of the invention is to provide a more practical, compact and efficient device of the character indicated which protectively and fully encloses a roll to be dispensed, and which is easy and convenient to carry to and operate at the location of a job, and which, when not in use, can be stored by itself, or with other similar devices, in a relatively small space, and which, when in use lies flat upon any convenient surface at the site of a job.

Another object of the invention is to provide a device of the character indicated above which positively holds a roll of material therein in original orderly condition, so as to prevent tangling, kinking and uneven dispensing thereof, even as the roll is diminished in cross section by the dispensing of material therefrom, and which has positively and constantly acting braking means while acts on a roll so as to restrain and control the dispensing of material from the roll and thereby prevent vagrant dispensing of material and over-rotation of a roll in the device.

A further object of the invention is to provide, in a device of the character indicated above, a turntable or reel which is readily removable and replaceable in the device, and which can assume the form of either a prewound reel form, a receiver for a pre-wound roll, or as a reel upon which material can be wound to form a roll thereon.

A still further object of the invention is to provide a device of the character indicated above wherein the braking means is spring-pressed into contact with and acts as retaining and shape-holding means for a roll in the container, and which follows the roll and maintains braking and retaining contact therewith as the cross section of the roll is diminished by the dispensing of material therefrom.

Other important objects and advantageous features of the invention will be apparent from the following description and the accompanying drawings, wherein, for purposes of illustration only, a specific form of the invention is set forth in detail.

In the drawings:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a device of the invention with its lid closed;

Figure 2 is a view similar to Figure 1, showing the lid open and a roll of material in place in the device;

Figure 3 is an enlarged exploded perspective view of the device;

Figure 4 is an enlarged vertical transverse section taken on the line 4—4 of Figure 1; and

Figure 5 is a horizontal section taken on the line 5—5 of Figure 4.

Referring in detail to the drawings, wherein like numerals designate like parts throughout the several views, the illustrated device, generally designated 10, comprises a flat horizontal core 12, which can be of any convenient shape, but is here shown as being rectangular and sub2 stantially square. The case 12 has a bottom wall 14, side walls 16 and 18, a front wall 20, and a back wall 22, the top of the case being open and the walls in the upper ends terminating in a beaded top edge 24. Suit5 ably hinged on the exterior of the back wall 22, as indicated at 26, is the back flange 28 of a flat, shallow, panshaped lid 30, which telescopes onto the casing 12. An external latch keeper 32 is secured on the front flange 34 of the lid, for releasable engagement by an external 10 latch 36 secured on the casing front wall 20. A carrying bail handle 38 extends lengthwise of and is secured at its ends on the casing front wall 20. A material guiding tube 40 is fixed on and extends forwardly from the casing front wall 20, near an end thereof, and surrounds 15 a material dispensing opening 42 provided in the front wall 20.

As seen in Figure 4, a flat anti-friction bearing 44,. substantially smaller in diameter than the casing 12, is centered upon the casing bottom wall 14, and can com20 prise lower and upper race plates 46 and 48, confining ball bearings 50 therebetween. A mounting bolt 52 extends upwardly through the bottom wall 14, with its: head 54 countersunk in the underside of the bottom wall, and with its shank 56 extending upwardly through: 25 center holes 58 and 60 in the race plates 46 and 48, respectively, and above the upper race plate 48. Thelower race plate 46 rests upon the bottom wall 14, and: the upper race plate 48 is free to turn relative thereto· and to the bolt shank 56.

Resting removably and freely upon the upper raceplate 48 is a turntable or reel assembly 62 which comprises a flat circular base plate 64, slightly smaller in: diameter than the interior of the casing 12 and having a pheripheral edge 66 which is spaced from the walls 35 of the casing. The base plate 64 has a center journal hole 68 receiving the bolt shank 56. The assembly 62 further comprises an upstanding axial cup 70 having a bottom wall 72 suitably fixed on the upper surface of the base plate 64, as by weldings 74, and has a circular 40 side wall 76 which terminates at its open upper end in a pair of circumferentially spaced, arcuate, radially inwardly directed retaining lips 78. Suitably fixed upon the cup bottom wall 72, with its threaded bore 80 registered with a hole 82 in the bottom wall 72 and with 45 the base plate hole 68, is a nut 84, into which the upper end of the bolt shank 56 is threaded, for securing the assembly 62 in place.

Fixed on the casing walls, on a level above the base plate 64, are laterally inwardly declining stops 86, whose 50 lower ends 88 extend spacedly over the base plate 64 at its peripheral edge, and which serve to prevent the assembly 62 from being warped out of place by strains of operation of the device, and to prevent the assembly 62 from falling out of the casing when the bolt 52 has 05 been removed by screwing the bolt downwardly out of the nut 84. The assembly 62 must be tilted and maneuvered to disengage it from under the stops 86 when it is desired to remove the assembly from the casing 12.

The assembly 62 further comprises an upstanding cir⁶⁰ cular concentric wall 90, spaced inwardly from the peripheral edge 66 of and suitably fixed, as indicated at 92, to the upper surface of the base plate 64. The circular wall 90 serves as a roll or reel core, is shorter than the cup 70, and terminates at its upper edge in an out05 turned bead 94, which is spaced below the upper edge of the cup 70.

Disposed freely within the casing 12 above, and in cooperative relation wtih the reel assembly 62, is a combined braking and retaining assembly 96. The assembly 96 70 comprises a flat annular top plate 98, of substantially the diameter of the base plate 64 and having a peripheral edge 100 which is spaced from the casing walls at sub*

2,985,331 staritially the same distance as the peripheral edge 66 of the base plate 64. The top plate 98 is centrally depressed so as to define a cylindrical cup-shaped hub 102, which is composed of a side wall 104 and a bottom wall 106. The side wall 104 is only slightly smaller in diameter than and arranged to rotate and slide loosely within the circular wall 90 of the reel assembly 62, and is of height no greater than that of the circular wall 90. The bottom wall 106 has a beaded central circular journal opening 108 to loosely receive the cup 70, whereby the assembly 96 can turn freely relative to and in bearing relationship to the reel assembly 62.

A flat spring retaining disc 110, slightly larger in diameter than the cup 70, has on its underside circumferentially spaced spring tongues 112 to be engaged between and under the lips 78 on the upper end of the cup 70, so as to secure the disc 110 removably on the upper end of the cup. A downwardly flaring helical expansion spring 114 surrounds the cup 70 and is compressed between the projecting edge of the disc 110 and the hub bottom wall 106, so that the top plate 98 is freed yieldably downwardly, so as to compress between itself and the reel assembly base plate 64, around the outside of the circular wall 90, a roll R of flexible linear material, such as wire, cord, tape or the like, having a strand 116 led tangentially and straight out of the casing 12 from a side of the roll, through the guide tube.

The spring 114 is of sufficient tension to cause the top plate 98 to maintain compressive and frictional contact wtih the upper side of the roll R, such that as the roll is depleted throughout dispensing of material therefrom, by pulling the strand 116 as needed through the guide 40, the roll R is maintained in original orderly condition and vagrant loosening of the roll is braked and undesired unwinding of material is positively braked and prevented.

The compressive effect of the spring 114 is sufficient to flatten and spread the roll R so that the periphery or outer side of the roll bears frictionally against parts of the casing walls, with the desirable result that vagrant rotation of the reel assembly and accompanying vagrant unwinding of the roll R is braked.

In order to gain access to the reel assembly 62 for replacing or winding a roll R thereon, it is necessary merely to remove the spring retaining disc 110, by suitably rotating the same relative to the cup, and then lifting the assembly 96, along with the spring 114 out of the casing 12. In the case where the reel assembly 62 is in the form of a pre-wound form, the same can then be bodily replaced in the casing 12, simply by screwing out the bolt 52.

It is to be noted that sufficient space in the casing 12 above the assembly 96 can be provided, for the reception and carrying of such as hand tools, without unduly enlarging the thickness of the casing. The flatness of the casing 12 enables it to be laid flat upon and to have wide and stable bearing upon any convenient surface at the work site, and that this flatness and thinness makes for space-saving storage of the device, and compact stacking of a number of the devices.

Although there has been shown and described herein a preferred form of the invention, it is to be understood that the invention is not necessarily confined thereto, and that any change or changes in the structure of and in the relative arrangements of components thereof are contemplated as being within the scope of the invention as defined by the claims apended hereto.