Channel Clip For T-bars

Abstract

A channel clip for suspending a ceiling-supporting T-bar from a horizontal channel comprising a shank portion having a pair of hooks at its lower end for resiliently gripping the T-bar and having at its upper end projecting transverse portions adapted to hook about the flanges of a channel.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention is in the field of channel clips for suspending ceiling-supporting T-bars from horizontal channels.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART

One of the most common suspension systems of the prior art has involved a vertically extending rod having a T-bar gripping section attached to its lower end, the T-bar gripping section being resilient with two side portions diverging outwardly and downwardly from a connecting portion and with inturned parts of the side portions gripping under edges of the T-bar. However, that type had required tabs struck out of the diverging portions and extending inwardly for engaging the upper sides of the side edges of the T-bar to prevent the side edges from moving upwardly by spreading apart their resilient divergent side portions. There has been a die cost to the operation of tracking out these tabs and each cost is extremely important in the competitive marketing of so inexpensive and simple a product.

To eliminate these struckout tabs would permit the upward movement of a side of the T-bar, as will cause a ceiling supported by the T-bar to bow upwardly.

Another product of the prior art has been a channel clip, the lower portion of which is disposed substantially in a vertical plane with a vertical slot for providing two legs with recesses receiving the edges of the T-bar, but having the disadvantage that one of the legs must be twisted or bent into place on the T-bar. This has the disadvantage of distorting the mild steel of the T-bar and changing the ideal dimensions of the T-bar. In addition, it has a more major disadvantage of high labor cost because this bending and twisting of a leg to put it in place must all be done at labor cost by men standing on a scaffold where the work is slow and costly.

The upper end of one prior art T-bar has a channel-gripping portion, a lower transverse part of which must be bent into place around the terminal edge of the lower flange of a channel. This bending is done at high labor cost, also, by men who must work on a scaffold or ladder.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A channel clip for suspending a ceiling-supporting T-bar from a horizontal channel comprising an elongated upright shank portion with two opposed hook portions resiliently biased toward each other for tightly engaging edges of the T-bar, the hook portions each having upper outer parts disposed so nearly horizontal as to firmly resist a twisting of the T-bar to substantially prevent a twisting T-bar from spreading the hook portions apart so as to prevent a ceiling supported by the T-bar from distorting and bowing upwardly, the upper outer portions of the hook top section not being tabs punched from the surrounding metal and bent inwardly, as creates die costs, but instead being continuous parts of the surrounding metal so that top and bottom surfaces of the hook top sections in the area of the twist-resisting portions are smooth, whereby twist-resisting portions are formed by bending the entire area of each hook top section at the twist-resisting portion, at least one of the hook top sections being resilient so as to be spread apart during attachment.

A shank having a channel attachment portion having an upwardly extending channel attachment portion section disposable along one side of the vertical web of a horizontally elongated supporting channel, the channel attachment portion further having upper and lower spaced transverse sections extending outwardly from a same side thereof and having tip portions formed for extending across the terminal edges of the channel flanges, the channel attachment portions being resilient so that the transverse sections can spread apart to facilitate emplacement of the channel attachment portion on the channel without the necessity for bending the ends of the transverse sections, as has produced high labor cost in the prior art. One of the tips of one of the transverse portions being substantially a hook so as to engage both upper and lower sides of its flange.

The shank, the T-bar gripping portions, and the channel gripping portion, all being formed of the same single piece of material for economy of manufacture, the material being thin sheet metal.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the channel clip of this invention shown gripping a channel shown in dotted lines and a T-bar also shown in dotted lines and partially in full line.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken substantially along the line 2--2 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a side elevation of the channel clip in the position in which it is placed on a channel immediately prior to snapping it in place about the channel.

FIG. 4 is a frontal elevation of the channel clip as it would be seen if viewed from the exact front as would be somewhat as seen from the right-hand side in FIG. 1, the lower portion only being shown in FIG. 4.

FIG. 5 is a view similar to FIG. 3 but showing a modification of the invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The channel clip of this invention is generally indicated at 10 and is for supporting a ceiling-supporting T-bar, which latter is indicated in dotted lines at 12 in FIG. 1.

The channel clip 10 has an elongated upright shank portion generally indicated at 14, two opposed hook portions generally indicated at 20 disposed in positions spaced from each other along a substantially horizontal line disposed in the plane of an upper horizontal portion 28 of the T-bar 12.

The hook portions 20 each have an upwardly extending outer section 30, and each have a lower section 40 attached to the upwardly extending outer section 30 respectively and extending away from the respective upwardly extending outer section 30 generally in the direction of the other hook portion 20.

The hook portions 20 each have a top section 34 attached to the respective upwardly extending outer section 30.

Each hook top section 34 extends away from the respective upwardly extending outer section 30 generally toward a line extending along the elongation of the shank portion 14 and, therefore, approximately vertical.

The upwardly extending outer sections 30 of the hooks 20 each have an open space therebetween, as seen at 50, for receiving the upper part 28 of the T-bar 12.

The lower hook sections 40 have inner ends substantially spaced for receiving the intermediate part of the T-bar, which latter is represented by the upper portion 28 of the T-bar 12 at places intermediate the ends of the T-bar.

A channel attachment portion is generally indicated at 70 and is connected to the upper end of the shank portion 14 for attaching the clip 10 to a horizontal channel member generally indicated at 80 and shown in dotted lines, the channel 80 having an upper flange 82, a vertical web 84, and a lower flange 88, the flanges 82 and 88 extending outwardly from a same side of the web 84. The channel attachment portion 70 has an upwardly extending section 90 disposable against the outer side of the web 84 and further has upper and lower spaced transverse sections generally indicated at 100 and 110 extending from and having inner ends attached to a same side of the upwardly extending section 90 and generally extending substantially horizontally.

The transverse sections 100 and 110 each have a tip portion generally indicated at 120 and 130 respectively on the respective outer end of each and extending away from main portions 138 and 140 of the transverse sections respectively with each tip extending in a direction toward the opposite transverse section so as to extend across the respective terminal edge of one of the horizontal flanges of the channel.

The upper part of the upwardly extending portion 90, the main portion 138, and the top portion 120 together form a hook means.

The channel attachment portion generally indicated at 70 is resilient so that the transverse sections 100 and 110 can spread apart to facilitate emplacement of the channel attachment portion on the channel 80 with application being made as shown in FIG. 3 in which attachment to the channel has barely begun and in which it can be seen that further bending is the way by which the thin resilient channel attachment portion can bend around and adapt itself until it has fully gripped the channel, as shown in FIG. 1.

It is preferred that the lower end of one of the tip portions, and preferably the lower tip portion 130 have a terminal end 150 which extends at least partially horizontally back toward the upwardly extending portion 90 for good grip on its channel flange on both the top and bottom sides thereof.

As best seen in FIG. 2, the lower transverse section can be punched out of the material of the upright section 90 in manufacture so as to leave an opening 170 in the upright section 90, making it possible to form the lower transverse section 110 integrally with the upright section 90 and, in fact, integrally and in one piece with the entire remainder of the clip since the entire clip can be made of thin gauge material having resilience.

Each hook top section 34 is bowed inwardly at 200 both on its upper and lower sides since it is formed of thin sheet metal, whereby the bottom of each hook top section 34 is convex and the top concave, the down-bending being sufficient as to dispose the down-bent midpart 200 sufficiently close to the lower sections 40 of the hooks respectively as to substantially prevent excessive movement of a side edge of the T-bar upwardly because of a flexing of the clip, whereby excessive twisting of the T-bar is prevented, and the ceiling, not shown, which it supports, thereby does not bow upwardly.

Consequently, portion 200 of each hook top section can be called a twist-resisting portion 200. These twist-resisting portions 200 are disposed so nearly horizontal as to firmly resist such a twisting of the T-bar as would cause substantial distortion and up-bowing of a ceiling, not shown, that would be attached to the T-bar.

It is important that the twist-resisting portion be formed continuous with the adjacent parts of the hook top section rather than being formed by punched-out tabs from the hook top section, as introduces die costs. And so the structure can be defined as saying that the upper and lower surfaces of those portions of the hook top section which are in the area of the twist-resisting portions 200 are substantially smooth as would be a description that would not apply to the sharply outbent tabs of the prior art.

As best seen in FIG. 2, the lower end of the shank 14 is substantially of a U-shape having side portions 260 which are parallel to one another, and as the side portions 260 approach the center of the shank they become farther spaced apart with the connecting portion 270 becoming an arc of greater and greater size until by the time the upper end of the shank portion 14 is reached, the shank portion 14 has become flat and joins the lower edge of the upwardly extending portion 90 along a straight line 300.

Referring to FIG. 5, the modification of the channel attachment portion 70 is there shown in which the second or lower transverse section 110 is purposely absent and in which the upper or first transverse section 100 has a special tip portion 120' which, instead of extending downwardly in a vertical direction, extends instead partially downwardly and partially inwardly toward the upwardly extending section 90 and forms an angle of at least 30.degree. with respect to the horizontal and with respect to the first or upper transverse section 100. It can be seen in FIG. 5 that the transverse section 100 and the special tip portion 120' form a hook means.

Claims

I claim:

1. A channel clip for suspending a ceiling-supporting T-bar from a horizontal channel comprising: an elongated upright shank portion, two opposed hook portions disposed in positions spaced from each other along substantially a horizontal line for receiving a substantially horizontal T-bar therebetween, said hook portions each having an upwardly extending outer section, said hook portions each having a lower section attached to its upwardly extending outer section and extending away from the respective upwardly extending section generally in the direction of the other hook portion, said hook portions each having a top section attached to the respective upwardly extending outer section, each hook top section extending away from the respective upwardly extending outer section in a direction inwardly generally toward an upright line extending along the elongation of said shank portion and in a direction transversely of said shank portion, means attaching inner ends of each hook top section firmly together and to said shank portion, said hook upwardly extending outer sections each having an open space therebetween for receiving the upper part of said T-bar, said lower hook sections having inner ends substantially spaced for receiving the upper part of said T-bar, at least one of said hook top sections being resilient and adapted to be bent into an open position for spreading across the top of said T-bar upper part and receiving said T-bar upper part between said hooks during attachment and when released assuming a gripping position with said hook portions more closely together than in said open position for the gripping of said T-bar upper part between said hook portions, a channel attachment portion comprising a hook means connected to the upper end of said shank portion for attaching said clip to a horizontal channel member.

2. The clip of claim 1 further comprising said channel attachment portion having an upwardly extending section disposable alongside of a vertical web of a horizontally elongated supporting channel, said channel attachment portion having a first transverse section disposed transversely to said upwardly extending section and said first transverse section having one end connected to said upwardly extending section.

3. The clip of claim 1 in which said means attaching said hook top section inner ends together is formed of one piece of material with said hooks and said shank.

4. The combination of claim 1 in further combination with: said hook top sections being bowed downwardly on their inward sides sufficiently closely to the lower sections of said hooks respectively as to substantially prevent excessive movement of a side edge of said T-bar upwardly so as to prevent excessive twisting of said T-bar.

5. The combination of claim 1 in which said channel attachment portion has an upwardly extending section disposable along one side of the vertical web of a horizontally elongated supporting channel, said channel attachment portion further having upper and lower spaced transverse sections extending from and having inner ends attached to a same side of said upwardly extending section and generally extending substantially horizontally, said transverse sections each having a tip portion on the outer end thereof and extending away from the respective transverse section in a direction towards the other transverse section so as to extend across the terminal edge of a respective one of the horizontal flanges of said channel, said channel attachment portion being resilient so that said transverse sections can spread apart to facilitate emplacement of said channel attachment portion on said channel.

6. The combination of claim 5 in which the lower one of said tip portions has a terminal end which extends at least partially horizontally back toward said upwardly extending portion for good grip on its channel flange.

7. The combination of claim 1 in which the outer parts of said hook top sections each have twist-resisting portions forming continuous parts thereof which are disposed so nearly horizontal as to firmly resist such a twisting of said T-bar as would allow a ceiling supported by said T-bar to distort and bow upward, the upper and lower surfaces of those portions of said hook top sections which are in the area of said twist-resisting portions being substantially smooth.

8. The clip of claim 1 in which all described parts thereof are substantially formed of a single piece of material.

9. The combination of claim 1 in which said shank portion is substantially U-shaped at its lower end and is substantially flat at its upper end.

10. The combination of claim 1 in which said channel attachment portion has an upwardly extending section disposable alongside of a vertical web of a horizontally elongated supporting channel, said channel attachment portion having a first transverse section disposed transversely to said upwardly extending section and said first transverse section having one end connected to said upwardly extending section, said transverse section having a tip portion on its outer end and extending away from the respective transverse section a direction downwardly and inwardly toward said upwardly extending section.

11. The combination of claim 10 in which said tip portion of said first transverse section is disposed at an angle of approximately 30.degree. with respect to the horizontal.

12. The combination of claim 10 in which central parts of said hooks as seen in top plan view are disposed offset from the transverse section side of said upwardly extending section for distributing the downward force of said first transverse portion substantially more evenly.