Wire Box Or Crate

Abstract

This invention relates to a wire box or a crate made of wires welded to one another in which to place flower pots, whereby the frame of the upper and base surface consists of four wires running perpendicular to one another, the base and upper surface being parallel to one another at a distance practically equal to the height of the flower pots to be placed therein.

Description

Wire boxes or crates for the transportation, storage, etc. of all sorts of goods are universally known. This invention aims at producing a special type of wire box, which is particularly suited for the placing in it of flower pots filled with vegetable earth and sand or bulbs, whereby these boxes with the flower ports placed in them can be stacked on top of one another very compactly and solidly, and whereby the sprouting and growth of the young plants or flowers is able to take place in the most favorable conditions.

For this, the invention proposes a wire box of the type mentioned in the beginning, with the upper surface of the box divided evenly by welded wires placed two by two at a short distance from one another, so that the upper surface is divided into a number of squares, whereby the side of each square is equal or practically equal to the diameter of the upper surface of the flower pots to be placed therein, and by two single outer wires, whereby the distance between these outer wires and the border wires parallel to them and located nearest to them is equal or almost equal to half the side of the squares formed, the base surface of the box being provided with pairs of cross-wires, at regular distance from one another and practically level with the center of the squares formed in the upper surface, the distance between two cross-wires belonging to each other being smaller than the diameter of the base surface of the pots to be supported and the distance between the two cross-wires located next to each other of pairs of cross-wires adjoining each other is smaller than the diameter of the upper surface of the pots to be supported.

By seeing to it that when stacking the boxes according to the invention on top of one another the boxes following one another are moved around in turn over an angle of 180.degree. in relation to one another, or, in other words, by ensuring that for each set of successive boxes the two single outer wires do not lie under each other, the great advantage is obtained for each set of two successive boxes or layers in that the flower pots in the bottom box or layer are located at the level of the space between four pots lying next to one another in the layer above, or this means that the flower pots and the box of the upper layer form no obstacle to the sprouting and growth of the young plants or flowers in the layer located underneath.

Another important advantage is that when transporting or shifting a stack of wire boxes placed on top of one another according to the invention, the pots placed therein remain very firmly in their place. Even if a stack of boxes, i.e., 30 or more, is placed in a very tilting position, all the pots will remain in place very correctly due to the clamping action between the wires in the upper surface of a box with the wires of the base surface of a box placed above, because the distance between the two cross-wires located next to each other of pairs of cross-wires located next to each other is smaller than the diameter of the upper plane of the pots placed therein.

Another important advantage of the boxes according to the invention is that, notwithstanding the compact stacking of these boxes, the spaces present between the pots are big because the space taken up by the box material is very small, and due to the crossed stacking of the pots in the successive layers. This is of great importance because these flower pots are subjected during the cultivation period to sprayings, are placed in greenhouses with regulated temperature, etc., whereby all the plants and flowers are able to sprout and grow to the same extent.

A further important advantage of such boxes is their long service life compared with the wooden boxes so far known, which easily rot as they are subjected to heavily rotting factors such as humidity, some artificial fertilizers, etc.

Therefore, a primary object of this invention is to provide a wire crate for flower pots and the like which overcomes the disadvantages of prior art crates.

Another object of this invention is to provide a wire crate which is stackable.

A further object of this invention is to provide a stackable wire crate so constructed that when two of said crates are stacked so that one is turned 180.degree. with respect to the other, the flower pots in the upper crate will not be directly above the pots in the lower crates.

Yet another object of this invention is to provide a crate for flower pots which will have a long service life compared to prior art crates when used under conditions of plant propagation.

These and other objects and advantages of this invention will become more apparent when considered in light of the following description, claims, and appended drawings.

The invention will be explained more in detail in the following description with the help of the relevant drawings in which:

FIG. 1a: a wire crate according to the invention in perspective,

FIG. 1b: two wire crates placed on top of each other, and

FIG. 2: in top view two wire crates placed on top of each other, whereby certain parts of the crates on both sides of line I I' have been omitted so as to make the figure clearer.

The wire crate 1 shown in FIG. 1 according to the invention consists completely of wires welded to one another. The frame of upper surface 2 and base surface 3 consists of four wires running perpendicular to one another, i.e., cross-wires 4 and longitudinal wires 5. Upper surface 2 and base surface 3 are located parallel to each other at a distance equal or almost equal to the height of the flower pots 6 to be placed therein. These planes 2 and 3 are spaced preferably at a smaller distance from each other than the height of the flower pots 6 to be placed therein (see FIG. 1b). Upper surface 2 and base surface 3 are connected to each other by U-shaped braces 7. Upper surface 8 of these braces 7 is bent round over an angle of 90.degree. so that this part of braces 7 runs almost parallel to the base and upper surface. The legs of braces 7 are connected to one another by means of a supporting wire 9, which runs parallel to the upper surface 2 and is located above this upper surface 2 and below the upper portion 8 of the braces 7. These supporting wires 9 form the actual supporting surface for the crate to be placed thereupon. The angular points are reinforced by means of upright wires 10 between supporting wire 9 and the angular point of the frame of the base surface. Upright wires 11 are mounted at some points along the periphery of the crate between the base and upper surface.

The upper surface 2 of the crate 1 is evenly divided into a number of squares 12 having a side length S by wires 13 mounted perpendicular to each other, two by two at a short distance from each other. The side of each square 12 is equal or almost equal to the diameter of the upper surface of the pots 6 to be placed in the crate 1. With the crate shown in FIG. 1b, the diameter of the upper surface of the pots 6 placed in the crate 1 is somewhat bigger than the side of the squares 12 in the upper surface 2. The upper surface 2 is also provided with two single outer wires 14; whereby the distance between these outer wires 14 and the nearest border wires 4, 5 of the frame 2, located parallel to these wires 14, is equal or practically equal to half the side of the squares 12 formed.

The base surface 3 of the crate 1 is provided with pairs of cross-wires 15 located at regular intervals from each other. These pairs of cross-wires 15 are situated under the center of the squares 12 formed in the upper surface 2 (see FIG. 2), or in other words, distances d.sub.1 and d.sub.2 in the top view between wires 13 and 15 for any column of squares 12 are practically equal to one another. The distance between two cross-wires 15 belonging to each other is smaller than the diameter of the base surface of the pots 6, so that these pots 6 are supported when in use by those wires 15 (see FIG. 1b). The distance between the two cross-wires 15 lying next to each other is smaller than the diameter of the upper surface of pots 6 to be supported. The base surface 3 of the crate 1 is consolidated or reinforced by means of two longitudinal wires 16. These longitudinal wires 16 are situated under the center of the squares 12 formed in the upper surface 2 (see FIG. 2), or in other words, the distance D.sub.1 and D.sub.2 in the top view between the wires 13 and 16 for any row of squares 12 are practically equal to each other.

In FIG. 2, for the sake of clarity, with a set of two crates placed on top of each other and turned over an angle of 180.degree. in relation to each other, certain parts to the left and right of line I I' have been left out. For the upper wire crate 1 only the upper surface of the right portion is shown, while for the bottom wire crate 1' the left portion is shown in full and for the right portion only the base plane (dotted line) is shown. It can be seen clearly from this FIG. 2 that the pots 6 (dotted line) of the bottom layer are located under the point of intersection of wires 13 in the upper surface of the top layer.

It is obvious that many variants are possible within the framework of the invention. Thus, instead of the two by two wires 13 placed at a short distance from each other in the upper surface 2 single wires 13 can also be used. However, with some types of flower pots this can result in less easy stacking. It is also possible to replace the pairs of cross-wires 15 in base surface 3 by single cross-wires 15. Here again this will lead usually to less efficient stacking with most kinds of flower pots.

While this invention has been described, it will be understood that it is capable of further modification, and this application is intended to cover any variations, uses and/or adaptations of the invention following in general, the principle of the invention and including such departures from the present disclosure as come within known or customary practice in the art to which the invention pertains, and as may be applied to the essential features hereinbefore set forth, as fall within the scope of the invention or the limits of the appended claims.

Claims

What we claim is:

1. A stackable wire crate for flower pots and the like comprising:

a. an upper frame member and a lower frame member,

b. said upper frame member having two ends and two sides,

c. said upper frame member having a first series of spaced parallel wire means secured thereto,

d. said upper frame members having a second series of spaced parallel wire means secured thereto and transverse to said first series,

e. said first series forming with said second series a plurality of openings of a first uniform size and a plurality of openings of a smaller size,

f. said openings of said smaller size forming with each other only two intersecting rows along an adjacent end and side of said upper frame member,

g. said openings of said first uniform size forming with each other a plurality of intersecting rows and one opening of any row of said first size openings being adjacent one of said openings of said smaller size,

h. whereby when one of said crates is rotated 180.degree. with respect to another of said crates and stacked on said other of said crates, none of said openings of said first size in said one of said crates will be directly above the openings of said first size in said other of said crates.

2. A wire crate as in claim 1 and wherein:

a. said lower frame member includes support means beneath each of said openings of said first size for supporting flower pots or the like in said openings,

b. said support means includes a plurality of wire elements extending between said sides so that one of said wire elements is positioned below the centers of each of said openings of said first size in each superjacent row of said openings.

3. A wire crate as in claim 1 and including:

a. support means comprising a plurality of pairs of wire elements extending between said sides so that each of said pairs of wire elements is positioned below the centers of each of said first size square openings in each superjacent row of said first size square openings.

4. A wire crate as in claim 1 and including:

a. a corner bracket member at each corner of said frame and extending from said lower frame member to above said upper frame member for positioning said one of said crates when stacked upon said other of said crates.

5. A wire crate as in claim 4 and including:

a. means associated with said corner bracket member for supporting said one of said crates in vertically spaced relationship with respect to said other of said crates.

6. A wire crate as in claim 1 and wherein:

a. said first series of said wire means includes a plurality of spaced parallel pairs of wires.

7. A wire crate as in claim 1 and wherein:

a. said second series of spaced parallel wire means includes a plurality of spaced parallel pairs of wires.

8. A wire crate as in claim 1 and wherein:

a. said first and second series of spaced parallel wire means each includes a plurality of spaced parallel pairs of wires.

9. A wire crate as in claim 8 and wherein:

a. each wire in each of said pairs of wires is spaced slightly from the other wire in said pair.

10. A wire crate as in claim 3 and wherein:

a. said lower frame member includes wire reinforcing means extending transversely to said wire elements.

11. A wire crate as in claim 1 and including:

a. wire reinforcing means connecting said upper and lower frame members.