Cleaning device

Sept. 14, 1965 j. w. romaine 3,205,518

CLEANING DEVICE

Filed June 5, 1963

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ATTORNEY

3,205,518

Patented Sept. 14, 1965

United States Patent Office

3,205,518 CLEANING DEVICE

John W. Romaine, 2500 Toledo Road, Elkhart, Ind. Filed June 5, 1963, Ser. No. 285,692

Claims. (Cl. 15—104.165)

This invention relates to a device for the cleaning of tubular chambers such as are to be found in musical instruments, medical instruments, guns, pipes of various kinds, and the like. Particularly the invention relates to a device for cleaning tubular chambers which comprises a drawing cable, a plastic fastening means, and a loop for holding a cleaning swab. More particularly the invention relates to a bore cleaning device which comprises a flexible cable coated or covered with a resilient plastic to which is affixed a loop for holding a particularly shaped swab or cleaning pad.

Devices for cleaning the interior of tubular chambers such as gun bores, sound chambers, slide chambers, mouthpieces, etc., for musical instruments such as trombones, flutes, oboes, and the like, have long been known. Usually such devices consist of a rod with a slot in one end for insertion of a patch; a string or chain or other flexible device for feeding through the tubular chamber after which a patch or cleaning rag is affixed and pulled through the chamber. All of the devices in present use present one or more disadvantages to the user with its undesirable features. For instance, the familiar guncleaning rod is rather inflexible, and is not adaptable to the cleaning of tubular chambers which have other than a straight conformation and often becomes lodged on breech shoulders when inserted into gun bores. The string so often used has limitations of strength and is difficult to put through a chamber of small dimension. The wire or chain sometimes used has often been discarded because of its abrasiveness when used in connection with fine metal surfaces, particularly such as those found in musical instruments. Too, the bore cleaning devices of the prior art are normally adapted to be used with a square patch of cloth or other absorbent material, and a patch of such shape may either wad and bulge and be difficult to draw through the bore, or it will fall into a streamer shape and only a small portion of the material will come into contact with the walls of the bore or tubular chamber.

The present invention has as its object a bore cleaning device which has none of the limitations or disadvantages of those just described. The device of the inventive concept comprises a covered flexible drawing cable which has sufficient flexibility so that it may follow the conformation of a tubular chamber into which it is inserted, and yet which is of sufficient resistence to bend, or stiffness so that it may be puhsed through a torturous path, even one of small diameter, has sufficient strength to resist breakage during use, which is covered with a resilient plastic material so as to avoid any damage to metal surfaces, which is tipped with a flexible leading end to avoid lodging, and which uses a swab or cleaning pad which is of such design as to avoid problems of wadding or bulging of prior art swabs.

The invention will be more clearly explained by reference to the following drawings.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a view of the drawing cable showing a swab loop on the lower end and a flexible tip on the top end thereof;

FIG. 2 is a top plan view of the swab portion of the device, showing the characteristic double-circular “butterfly” or “dumbbell” design;

FIG. 3 represents a side elevation of the swab of 1 FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a fragmentary view of the drawing cable of FIG. 1 showing the details of the construction thereof;

FIG. 5 is an elevation of one end of the drawing cable showing the swab of FIG. 2 positioned in the swab loop;

FIG. 6 is a view showing the drawing cable in a tubular 5 chamber to be cleaned and with a swab in the swab loop in doubled position just prior to entry into the tubular chamber;

FIG. 7 is a view of a swab in position in a swab loop being pulled through a tubular chamber by the drawing IQ cable; and

FIG. 8 is a cross-section of the drawing cable taken along the line 8—8 of FIG. 1, and showing the fastening device for fastening the swab loops to the drawing cable.

Turning now to the drawings, numeral 2 represents a length of a drawing cable of the invention which is terminated at the bottom end by swab loop 4 and at the top end by flexible tip 5. Loop 4 is attached to the drawing cable by means of plastic fastener 6.

The drawing cable comprises a flexible cable central portion, 8, which is completely surrounded, or covered, by a plastic sheath 10, as shown in detail in FIG. 4. The central portion of the drawing cable, as shown at 8, may be constructed of any flexible material which has the de25 sired tensile strength and is sufficiently supple so as to be bent to the desired curvature and yet which has sufficient rigidity or resistance to bending as to allow it to be inserted at one end of a tubular shape and follow any convolution of the walls when pushed at a point which is re30 moved from the leading end. It has been found that twisted wire cable made by twisting two or more strands of steel wire to a cable that is approximately to of an inch in diameter is operable in the inventive concept and is utilized in the preferred embodiment. It will 35 be understood, however, that other types of flexible cable, such as woven steel wire cable, twisted copper cable, and the like may be used.

The flexible cable chosen is covered with a resilient flexible plastic coating or sheath. This plastic sheath may 40 be of any of the commonly known materials such as polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl acetate, polyvinyl butyrate, polyacrylic materials, and the like, and the cable is preferably coated by dipping into a bath of molten plastic and allowed to dry or hard45 en. The plastic material chosen must be of sufficient flexibility so as to not crack or flake off with the distortion of the cable, and must be of a sufficient degree of abrasion resistance or toughness to resist wear or chipping when drawn across sharp metallic edges. It has been 5θ found that a most desirable plastic material for the cable sheath is polyvinyl chloride, and this material is used in the preferred embodiment.

Swab loop 4 is fashioned of a material which is preferably a reinforced plastic strip of high tensile strength. 55 Woven or web material such as a flat piece of single weave cloth which has been coated with a plastic material such as polyvinyl chloride or the like may be used. Plastic fastening means 6 is preferably a plastic tube which has an inside diameter which is slightly smaller than the 00 outside diameter of plastic sheath 10 of drawing cable 2. Swab loop 4 and drawing cable 2 may be fastened together by plastic fastener 6 in a variety of manners. One such is to swell the plastic fastener by means of a suitable solvent, insert drawing cable 2 into one end of fastener 65 6 and the ends of swab loop 4 into the other and then allow fastener 6 to shrink to its normal size as the solvent evaporates. When plastic fastener 6 is prepared from polyvinyl chloride tubing, methyl ethyl ketone is a suitable solvent to use in the shrink fitting operation. In an0 other embodiment of the invention swab loops 4 are inserted in the lower end of tubular plastic fastener 6, permanently sealed therein by heat so that the loop becomes

3,205,518 an integral portion thereof, and the upper end of the tubular plastic fastening means is inserted over the plastic sheath of the drawing cable and heat is applied so that the plastic of the fastener and the sheath melts or fuses together and becomes an integral part of each other, 5 thus making plastic sheath, the fastener and the swab loops, in effect, one piece.

On the forward or leading end of drawing cable 2 there is fitted a flexible tip 5. This tip which is fitted on the forward end of cable 2 as described in connection jq with swab loop fastening means 6, is preferably of polyvinyl chloride although any of the above described polymeric plastic materials may be used. Flexible tip 5 plays a very important part in the operation of the device of the invention. When fed into a tubular chamber which 15 has projection shoulders, joints that are seamed, etc., the flexible tip 5 makes first contact, flexes, or bends under slight additional pressure and moves the forward end of cable 2 away from the projection, shoulder or crack, and avoids any stoppage or damage which might 20 result if the end of cable 2 were to make contact. Being flexible, but resilient, the flexible tip 5 continues to bend with the forward progress of the end of cable 2 through the tubular chamber until it finally slips off the obstruction, straightens out and continues its function. 25

There is inserted in swab loops 4 a swab which is in the form of a circular butterfly or dumbbell as shown at 12. In use, this swab is doubled about the loop to form, in effect, two circular swabs as shown in FIG. 6. The design of this is critical for best results, for such 30 a swab rolls or folds uniformly when performing its function in a tubular chamber such as the bore of a gun, a pipe, or the chamber of a musical instrument. This rolled or folded circle has been found to present the most uniform swabbing action of any known shapes 35 with the least wadding or bulging and the most actual swabbing or wiping surface. FIG. 7 shows the folded or rolled conformation which swab 12 adopts when in use.

The swab 12 may be constructed of a soft felt or a soft woven cloth but is preferably made of foamed poly- 40 urethane (ester). The swab may be moistened with a cleaning aid or a lubricant as desired prior to use. For musical instruments, a deodorizer and/or a disinfectant may also be used.

To summarize briefly, this invention relates to a clean- 45 ing device for tubular chambers such as are to be found in medical instruments such as catheters, syringes, and the like, musical instruments such as brasses and woodwinds exemplified by trombones, cornets, saxophones, clarinets, flutes and oboes, firearms such as pistols, shot- 50 guns and rifles, pipes of all kinds and many industrial tools. The invention comprises a plastic covered drawing cable fitted on the leading end thereof with a plastic flexible tip and on the trailing end thereof with a loop for holding a swab and a swab of a unique dumbbell design so that when doubled about the swab loop a substantially circular swab results. Preferably, the drawing cable is of zinc coated steel wire and the plastic coating, the flexible tip and the swab loop as well as the plastic fastening device for attaching the swab loop to the drawing cable is of polyvinyl chloride. The dumbbell shaped swab is preferably of a polyurethane foam.