Oven Door Mounting

Abstract

A mounting for the door of a cooking oven, being of the kind hinged along its lower edge and preferably internally provided with counter-weighting springs, in which the door is hinged on a carriage so that when the door is fully opened and hence substantially horizontal it may be slid into a space under the oven cooking chamber floor so as to provide easy access to the interior of that chamber.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to "hinge-down" oven doors; that is, those that are horizontally hinged along or near their bottom edges at or near the floor level of the oven doorway which gives access to the oven cooking compartment.

Such doors are relatively heavy, and many expedients have been proposed to facilitate their use. It has long been customary to provide oven doors with loading springs which counter-balance, or substantially counterbalance, their weight; and, when closed, influence them to remain closed. More recently it has been proposed to render such doors bodily removable from the oven doorway.

These prior expedients are considerably advantageous; counterbalancing being obviously so. Total or bodily removability is also important in facilitating access to the oven interior when it is to be cleaned; but removability of the oven door has not proven to be practical in providing easy access to the oven interior during ordinary cooking use, because it involves lifting the door putting it aside (while attention is given to the cooking operation) and then putting it back on the oven front.

Thus, even where total removability is provided, an access problem remains due to the horizontal projection of the oven door into the kitchen space; and this is particularly inconvenient in the case of "elevated" ovens in which the cooking compartment floor level is about waist-high. In that case it means that the cook has to lean across the open door to gain access to the oven interior, or work at arms' length in performing basting or like operations, or in placing matters in, or removing them from, the oven compartment.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The object of this invention is to overcome the indicated disability in a very simple way, by the provision of hinge-down oven door mounting means preferably incorporating conventional spring counterbalancing means and, if desired, providing for total removability of the door while permitting the open door to be easily stowed under the oven cooking compartment, to give unobstructed access to that compartment without bodily disconnection of the door from the oven structure.

The invention provides:

Hinge-down oven door mounting means comprising:

A. A STRUCTURE UNDER THE OVEN COMPARTMENT FLOOR PROVIDING A FRONTALLY OPEN SPACE ABLE FREELY TO RECEIVE THE OVEN DOOR HORIZONTALLY WITHIN IT WHEN THAT DOOR IS PRESENTED AND ADVANCED EDGEWISE RELATIVE THERETO;

B. SUBSTANTIALLY HORIZONTAL RUNWAY ELEMENTS FIXED TO THE SIDES OF SAID STRUCTURE AND EXTENDING AWAY FROM THE FRONT OF THE OVEN TOWARDS THE BACK THEREOF;

C. A CARRIAGE MEMBER FREELY MOVABLE ALONG SAID RUNWAY ELEMENTS; AND

D. HINGE LUGS MOUNTED ON THE FRONT OF SAID CARRIAGE MEMBER TO WHICH THE OVEN DOOR IS PIVOTED BY A LOWER PORTION THEREOF.

The mentioned structure under the oven compartment floor may consist in no more than the ordinary frame or support members which constitute a substantially conventional part of the oven structure as a whole, and if desired, where the oven is of the kind standing on legs, the oven door, when retracted or stowed away, simply passes between the legs to the open space under the oven floor. In the preferred embodiment, preference however, the front wall or facing panel of the oven has an opening in it just below the oven compartment doorway. The dimensions of this opening are such that when the rear edge of the open and substantially horizontal door is presented to it and advanced through it, the opening is large enough to admit the door freely but preferably only just large enough as is compatible with providing mechanical clearance for the advancing door.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

An example of the invention is illustrated in the drawings herewith.

FIG. 1 is a plan of an oven door, in its closed position, a carriage on which it is pivoted and runway elements for the carriage.

FIG. 2 is a side elevation taken in the direction of line 2--2 in FIG. 1 showing, in full lines, the door in closed position and, in dotted lines, the door partly opened.

FIG. 3 illustrates, on a larger scale, that part of FIG. 2 within circle 3.

FIG. 4 is a plan taken on line 4--4 in FIG. 3

FIG. 5 is a partly sectioned side elevation taken on line 5--5 in FIG. 4.

FIG. 6 illustrates a portion of the structure shown in FIG. 5, but on a larger scale and in somewhat more detail.

FIGS. 7 and 8 are sectional details respectively taken on lines 7--7 and 8--8 in FIG. 6.

FIG. 9 is a sectional detail taken on line 9--9 in FIG. 4.

DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring to the drawings the two runway elements are preferably C sectioned channels 10 secured, by their webs, to the under-floor structure by riveting, bolting, spot-welding or otherwise, with the flanges of each directed towards those of the other. These runway channels are preferably horizontal with front ends respectively aligned with the ends of the mentioned opening in the front wall or facing panel of the oven. Although the runway channels are preferably horizontal they may be slightly angled downhill from their front ends to provide a gravity loading which urges the mentioned carriage to resume or remain in its retracted position.

The carriage consists of a plate-like frame or body 11 having flanges 12 at its ends. These flanges carry stub axles 13 for rollers 14 able to run freely in the runways 10. The carriage has two hinge lugs 15 mounted on it to project forwardly through the mentioned opening of the oven front (not shown). These lugs project through slots in the back face or panel 16 of the oven door 17, and inside the door structure the door is pivoted to the lugs 15 by rivet-like hinge pins 18 or the like. This pivot mounting of the door is preferably by way of conventional hinge strips 19 which form part of or are fixed relative to the door frame structure. Such hinge strips extend for almost the full length of the door sides and at their radially outermost ends they have holes to receive (respectively) the hooked outer ends 20 of a pair of door counterbalance tension springs 21. The inner ends of the springs are similarly anchored at 22, to the carriage hinge lugs 15. The counter-balance spring arrangement is a conventional one in that the springs are strong enough (when the door is in closed position as shown) to hold the door closed, but not strong enough (when the door is fully opened as indicated by broken lines 23 in FIG. 6) to lift or turn it from fully open position.

The door hinge strips have in-bent inner end portions 24 able to enter bottom-opening slots 25 in the hinge lugs 15 to provide an obstructive limit for the full open position of the door so to ensure that when the door is to be retracted under the cooking chamber it will be properly positioned to pass through the oven front opening without interference.

The door is used in the ordinary way for normal opening and closing movements thereof. When it is to be retracted it is fully opened and then simply pushed through the oven front opening as far as may be necessary to provide convenient access to the oven interior.

The runways for the carriage are furnished with stop lugs 26 (FIG. 1) and 27 (FIG. 3) to limit the extent to which the carriage is movable along the runways.

The carriage is preferably also provided with restraining leaf springs 28, fixed to the carriage by brackets 29, able to ride resiliently over humps 30 fixed on the runways. Springs 28 and humps 30 are provided to restrain the carriage from over-free or unintentional retraction movement when for example, the fully open door is required for use as a shelf upon which a cooking dish or the like may be rested.

A further restraint against over-free movement of the door may be provided; in this instance, against slamming of the door into its upright closed position against the oven chamber front face. This further restraint consists in lugs 31, on the hinge strips 19, which, as the door closely approaches closed position, ride frictionally on to the upper ends 32 of strut-lugs 33 pivoted, at 34, on the hinge lugs 15. The extent to which the strut-lugs are free to move pivotally relative to the hinge-lugs 15 is very limited, because the upper ends 32 extend over the hinge-lugs 15 (see FIG. 8) but it is sufficient, when the door is almost closed, for the lugs 33 to strut firmly against lugs 31 and so prevent or reduce closure of the door in a slamming manner.

In the illustrated embodiment of the invention, the oven door is bodily removable from the carriage and hence from the oven structure as a whole. This is carried out by making the hinge lugs 15 separable from the carriage instead of being fixedly secured thereto as may be the case if desired. To this end the carriage has front socket members 35 fixed to it, able to receive and hold the hinge lugs 15 (pivoted to hinge strips in the oven door as previously described).

Each of the socket members consists of a back-plate 36, by which the member is fixed to the carriage, an upright front flange 37 and an oblique keeper flange 38. Flange 37 has an open-top slot 39 in it, through which a shank portion 40 of hinge bracket 15 freely extends to abut against the underside of flange 38. The free end of shank portion 40 has a small step 41 able to "click" under the lowermost end of flange 38 as best shown in FIG. 5. Hinge bracket 15 has a tail-piece 42 which abuts against the front face of flange 37. The keeper flanges 38 and the front flanges 37, thus constitute sockets into which the hinge lug shank portions 40 may be readily descended and then become fixedly restrained against disconnection except by an obliquely directed raising movement due to intentional upward lifting of the door assembly, in its entirety, from its closed or nearly closed position.

Claims

I claim:

1. Oven door mounting means comprising:

a structure under the oven compartment floor providing a frontally open space able freely to receive the oven door horizontally within it when that door is presented and advanced edgewise relative thereto;

substantially horizontal runway elements fixed to the sides of said structure and extending away from the front of the oven towards the back thereof;

carriage members freely movable along said runway elements;

hinge lugs mounted on the front of said carriage member to which the oven door is pivoted by a lower portion thereof;

a pair of socket members fixed on said carriage and each incorporating an upright frontal flange having an open-top slot in it, and an oblique keeper flange;

shank portions on said hinge lugs respectively able to extend through said slots to engage under said keeper flanges;

and means detachably connecting said shank portions to said keeper flanges whereby the door can be bodily removed from said carriages.

2. Hinge-down oven door mounting means according to claim 1 wherein said runway elements are down-tilted towards the back ends thereof thereby gravitationally to influence said carriage to move towards said back ends.

3. Hinge-down oven door mounting means according to claim 1 wherein said carriage includes a pair of leaf springs respectively able to ride over obstructive humps on said runways.

4. Hinge-down oven door mounting means according to claim 1 including a step in each of said shank portions able to engage under the lowermost edge of the keeper flange associated therewith.