U.S. patent number 3,886,508 [Application Number 05/469,405] was granted by the patent office on 1975-05-27 for magnetic tool holder.
This patent grant is currently assigned to S. A. Manufacture d'Armes et Cycles de Chatellerault. Invention is credited to Georges Louis Lavrard.
United States Patent |
3,886,508 |
Lavrard |
May 27, 1975 |
Magnetic tool holder
Abstract
A garment carries a flexible sheet on which rod magnets are
arranged in spacedly parallel relationship to define a supporting
area longer and wider than 2 inches. Notches in the magnet surfaces
assist in preventing movement of magnetically attracted ferrous
tools. The sheet may be mounted on any part of a garment remote
from the hands, and held to the body of the wearer by loops which
extend about the trunk of the wearer, one or more limbs, and/or the
neck of the wearer.
Inventors: |
Lavrard; Georges Louis
(Chatellerault, FR) |
Assignee: |
S. A. Manufacture d'Armes et Cycles
de Chatellerault (Chatellerault, FR)
|
Family
ID: |
9119458 |
Appl.
No.: |
05/469,405 |
Filed: |
May 13, 1974 |
Foreign Application Priority Data
|
|
|
|
|
May 15, 1973 [FR] |
|
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73.17835 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
335/285; 2/94;
224/183 |
Current CPC
Class: |
A45F
5/00 (20130101); A41D 13/0012 (20130101) |
Current International
Class: |
A41D
13/00 (20060101); A45F 5/00 (20060101); H01t
007/20 () |
Field of
Search: |
;335/285,303,306
;2/94,96,102 ;248/26A |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Primary Examiner: Harris; G.
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Berman; Hans
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. A tool holder comprising:
a. a support having a face;
b. a group of permanent magnets on said face,
1. each magnet being not farther than 2 inches from another magnet
of said group,
2. said magnets jointly defining an accessible engagement surface
having dimensions of length and width greater than 2 inches
parallel to said face; and
c. fastening means for fastening said support to a portion of an
adult human body remote from the hands of said body.
2. A tool holder as set forth in claim 1, wherein said fastening
means include a garment, respective portions of said garment
defining a plurality of openings positioned and dimensioned for
simultaneously receiving therein the trunk and a limb of said body
respectively.
3. A tool holder as set forth in claim 2, wherein a portion of said
garment defines an additional opening positioned and dimensioned
for receiving the neck of said body while said trunk and said limb
are received in respective openings defined by said garment.
4. A tool holder as set forth in claim 2, wherein each of said
magnets is formed with a plurality of transverse grooves open in a
direction away from said face.
5. A tool holder as set forth in claim 2, wherein said magnets are
rod magnets elongated in a direction approximately parallel to said
face and spacedly juxtaposed transversely to said direction.
6. A tool holder as set forth in claim 5, wherein each of said
magnets is formed with a plurality of transverse grooves open in a
direction away from said face, each recess being aligned with a
groove in a juxtaposed magnet transversely to the direction of
magnet elongation.
7. A tool holder as set forth in claim 2, wherein said support
includes a flexible sheet member secured to said garment.
8. A tool holder as set forth in claim 7, further comprising
releasable means securing said sheet member to said garment.
9. A tool holder as set forth in claim 1, wherein said fastening
means define an opening positioned and dimensioned for receiving a
portion of said body.
10. A tool holder as set forth in claim 1, wherein each magnet is
spaced not farther than one inch from another magnet of said group.
Description
This invention relates to tool holders for linemen, roofers, and
others who need to work where supporting surfaces for tools are not
readily available, and particularly to a magnetic tool support.
While it has been proposed to provide workers with gloves or
thimbles carrying magnets to hold nails or small tools to the hand
of the wearer, tools while not being used and not finding a resting
place elsewhere in the work area have been carried in pockets of a
work garment or retained in loop-shaped straps. This arrangement is
unsatisfactory in that it is relatively time-consuming to insert a
tool into a pocket or the loop of a strap, and equally inconvenient
to withdraw the tool. Pockets or loop-shaped straps also are useful
only for tools of a narrow range of sizes. Tools which exceed a
certain dimension cannot be inserted in a given pocket or loop, and
tools smaller than the greatest dimension of a loop are not
retained.
It has now been found that the shortcomings of known tool holders
arranged to be fastened to a portion of an adult body can be
avoided by providing a face of a support with a group of magnets of
which each is not farther than two inches from another magnet of
the group, and which jointly define an accessible engagement
surface having dimensions of length and width parallel to the face
of the support which are greater than 2 inches.
A ferrous tool is readily secured to the magnetic tool holder of
the invention by merely moving it close to the magnets, and may be
withdrawn from the tool holder in a similarly simple manner.
Contrary to the inherent mode of operation of pockets and straps,
the magnets need not be approached by the tool in any specific
direction. The tools magnetically retained may not be dropped
accidentally in the manner always possible with pockets or straps
if the workman bends low so that the opening of the pocket or strap
faces downward.
Other objects, additional features, and many of the attendant
advantages of this invention will readily become apparent from the
following detailed description of preferred embodiments when
considered with the appended drawing in which:
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a first tool holder of the
invention; and
FIG. 2 similarly shows another tool holder of the invention
together with portions of the wearer's body.
Referring initially to FIG. 1, there is seen a sleeveless vest 1
essentially consisting of a wide belt 2, an integral front panel 3
extending upward from the belt 2 in the normal operating position
illustrated in FIG. 1, and two shoulder straps 4 integral with the
front panel. The straps 4 have free ends, not shown, which are
fixedly fastened to the belt 2 behind the panel 3 so as to define
with the front panel 3 and the belt 2 two arm holes 5 and an
opening 6 through which the neck of the wearer normally passes. The
vest 1 may consist of denim or similar strong fabric.
Four buttons 7 releasably secure a flexible support sheet 10 of
doeskin on the front face of the panel 3. The sheet 10 is about 5
inches long in a horizontal direction and 4 inches wide in a
vertical direction, and six vertically elongated rod magnets 8 are
firmly fastened to the sheet 10 by an epoxy resin adhesive in a
known manner not specifically illustrated. The magnets are
uniformly spaced from each other in a transverse direction so that
no magnet is more than 1 inch from another magnet of the group of
six magnets 8. The magnets 8 are each formed with five transverse
notches or grooves 9 uniformly spaced apart less than 1 inch.
Altogether, the magnets 8 define an accessible engagement surface
whose dimensions are only slightly smaller than those of the
support sheet 10.
A pocket 11 sewn to the front panel 3 is merely representative of
other conventional receptacles which the vest 1 may carry in
addition to the magnetic tool retaining device of the
invention.
Quite heavy, ferrous hand tools, and more than one tool, may be
carried on the grouped magnets 8 while not being used, yet are
accessible immediately. Tools having an approximately flat surface
automatically orient themselves in such a manner that their flat
surface is adjacent the maximum possible number of magnet poles.
Tools having arcuate surfaces make better than point contact with
the magnets because of the notches 9 and because of the flexibility
of the sheet 10. The magnets, at least to some extent, wrap
themselves about the arcuate tool surface. The notched surfaces of
the magnets 8 provide more frictional contact than would smooth
surfaces, thereby reducing the tendency of an attached tool to turn
or slip.
The modified tool holder of the invention shown in FIG. 2 includes
a belt 12 fastened about the trunk of the wearer by means of a
buckle 13. Two flaps 14 integral with the belt 12 depend from the
belt on either side of the buckle 13 so as to be normally located
on the front face of the wearer's thighs. Each flap 14 is held in
position by a buckled strap 15 passing through an integral loop 16
in the bottom end of the associated flap 14 and circling the
wearer's leg.
Each flap 14 carries a support sheet 17 which is fixedly cemented
to the associated flap, and itself carries five vertically
elongated, transversely spaced, adhesively secured bar magnets 18
provided with longitudinally spaced, transverse notches 19 as
described in more detail with reference to FIG. 1. The flaps 14 and
support sheets 17 follow the contour of the wearer's leg so that
one of the six magnets 18 on the left flap 14 is concealed in the
view of FIG. 2. The belt 12, the flaps 14, and the sheets 18 may
consist of fabric, flexible leather, or soft plastic, and it will
be appreciated that the exact nature of the materials of
construction employed in the supporting structure is not
critical.
While the arrays of magnets 18 in the tool holder illustrated in
FIG. 2 are smaller in length and width than the one shown in FIG.
1, they still each define an accessible engagement surface whose
length and width parallel to the face of the sheet 17 is much
greater than 2 inches, thereby providing adequate holding strength
for a relatively heavy hand tool, even a small, electrically
operated tool.
The magnets 18 cannot wrap themselves about a cylindrically arcuate
surface of a retained tool, but such a surface has been found to
orient itself automatically in such a manner that it is engaged by
longitudinal edges of two transversely adjacent magnets if the tool
does not orient itself along the aligned notches 19 of two or more
magnets, as has also been observed, particularly with screw drivers
and like devices.
The tool holder shown in FIG. 2 is normally worn over the pants of
the wearer, out of direct contact with his body. It is unnecessary,
therefore, to launder or otherwise clean the belt 12 and the flaps
14 during their normal life time. The vest 1 shown in FIG. 1 may be
laundered in any desired manner after unbuttoning the support sheet
10 with its magnets 8. Fasteners other than buttons 7 may be
employed for releasably fastening the sheet 10 to the panel 3
without change in function.
The vest and belt illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2 respectively are
merely illustrative of the garments suitable for fastening a magnet
supporting sheet to the body of a user of this magnetic tool
support. The sheets 10, 17 may themselves be integral parts of a
garment, although the illustrated arrangement has been found more
practical.
For certain types of tools, the notches 9, 19 may be arranged and
dimensioned differently than shown so as to constitute a pattern of
knurls on the magnet surfaces, and other types of recesses open in
a direction away from the face of the magnet support will readily
be resorted to to meet specific conditions.
Obviously, other modifications and variations of the present
invention are possible in the light of the above teachings. It is,
therefore, to be understood that, within the scope of the appended
claims, the invention may be practiced otherwise than as
specifically described.
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