Patent Application
20150210425
The present invention relates generally to pallets, and more particularly to a half pallet having deck boards connected to stringers with wooden dowels.
Pallets of various types are known in the art. Pallets of the stringer design are constructed of wood and include parallel stringers to which transverse deck boards are then nailed or otherwise secured with metal fastener devices to form the pallet. Pallets of the block design have wooden blocks at the corner and central locations to support the load. Pallets need to have sufficient strength to withstand the weight of objects loaded thereon and other impact forces to which the pallets are subjected when objects are loaded onto them and when the pallets are moved, as by a fork-lift truck or the like.
In many pallets, pallets are most often damaged at their lead boards. As a fork lift or other mechanism is brought to engage a pallet, the tines of the fork lift will often impact the lead board of the pallet with significant force. This shearing force may disengage the lead board or otherwise damage it, yielding a worn or damaged pallet that may not work as well and may be dangerous to users and merchandise.
Also, as pallets are used, they can become worn and weakened, causing some of the stringers or deck boards to break or become at least partially detached, rendering the pallet inoperable or in a dangerous condition. The use of nails or other metal fastener devices can also render pallets dangerous. Many times, the damage to a pallet occurs where the metal nail goes into the wood. The use of metal fasteners can cause splitting in the stringers or deck boards. Further faults include product damage or personal injury caused by exposed fasteners and inadequate joint stiffeners.
In an effort to save money and resources, the undamaged portions of worn or damaged pallets are often salvaged and reused in making recycled pallets, used as fuel or sawdust, or put to other uses. Those in the art have employed many methods in their attempts to salvage worn-out pallets by stripping or otherwise disassembling the stringers and deck boards from each other. However, many of these methods require costly machinery or a great deal of time and effort and put workers at significant safety risk. Nails and other metallic fasteners are often a great hindrance in efforts to disassemble pallets. The presence of, for example, nails prevents the use of standard saws or similar devices, which do not effectively cut through nails. Devices that are able to disassemble worn-out pallets that include nails face other disadvantages. First, they are often large, unwieldy and expensive. Second, often times the nails remain in the stringers or deck boards after disassembly. In order to reuse the boards in optimal condition, the nails need be removed, requiring additional time with attendant increased cost and expense.
It is also attractive to retail stores to use half pallets to allow the pallets to be used within the stores in the aisles to distribute product directly from the pallets to the shelves. This procedure increase efficiency and reduces the time spent in distribution. However, half pallets present problems in maintenance of the proper sizing of the notches or openings for the fork tines of forklifts or hand jacks, while simultaneously maintaining the strength and durability of the overall pallet. Because a nail or screw cannot be driven too close to the edge of a stringer without splitting the stringer, there is a minimum thickness of the stringer that can be used. If the stringer is thicker than this minimum allowance, the opening for the fork tines is not wide enough and thus the pallet becomes unusable.
A half pallet is generally 24 inches by 40 inches although it can be smaller as larger. The openings, or notches, allowing for entry of the fork times must be at least 21 inches from end to end. If the stringers or blocks are too thick or otherwise are positioned to reduce the notch to less than 21 inches, then the utility of the half pallet is greatly reduced.
It is therefore a primary benefit of the subject invention to have a half pallet that is all or substantially all wood, and provides for openings of at least 21 inches wide.
It is a further benefit of the subject invention to increase strength while reducing weight with an all wood or substantially all wood half pallets through the use of a dowel in a bore parallel with the grain of the wood stringer or block.
Another benefit of the present invention is to provide a half pallet that can be easily assembled through the use of wooden dowels that facilitate attachment of transverse deck boards to parallel stringers or blocks in a quick and efficient manner.
Another benefit of the present invention is to provide a half pallet that works properly. The dowels provide for a connection that is sufficiently strong to resist standard shear and other forces.
Another benefit of the present invention is that the edge and end distance of the vertical dowel fasteners in the pallet assembly can be different than typical steel fasteners which require more edge or end distances.
Another benefit of the present invention is that the intersection of all wood to wood joints can be glued with either a chemical or mechanical type adhesive.
Another benefit of the present invention is to provide a half pallet that can be more easily disassembled. In the preferred embodiment the dowels are made of wood; therefore, the pallet can be more readily stripped or broken down using standard wood-cutting saws. This allows for an increased number of customers for used or worn pallets, because those customers have no need for specialty equipment to grind up nails.
In carrying out one embodiment of the invention, a half pallet is made predominately of wood, generally Southern yellow pine, oak or a combination thereof. The half pallet of the subject invention comprises a plurality of wood deck boards, stringers, and blocks. Each wooden stringer comprises four elongated longitudinal surfaces and two end surfaces. A selected longitudinal surface is designated as a mounting surface and has a plurality of bores formed therein so that the longitudinal axes of the bores are generally normal to the mounting surface. The size and shape of the bores can range from a depth completely through the deck boards and stringers to a smaller depth sufficient to receive a portion of a dowel.
The deck boards can be connected to the stringers by a plurality of wooden dowels. The dowels may be completely cylindrical or it may have a first and second portion, comprising at least two contiguous dowel sections having different cross-sectional size, which can mate with a corresponding configuration of the bore, thereby connecting the stringer to the deck board. Adhesive is used to augment that connection. The second end of the deck board can be similarly connected to a second stringer so that the deck board is transverse to the wooden stringers. A pallet can be formed by so connecting a plurality of deck boards to the stringers. In lieu of some of the stringers, blocks can be utilized for a block pallet.
The substantially all wood half pallet of the subject invention has a plurality of wooden pallet upper and lower stringers, deck boards and blocks positioned to form a half pallet, the deck boards being parallel to one another, the upper stringers being spaced, and parallel to one another in a horizontal plane, and transverse to and adjacent the deck boards on an upper surface, and adjacent a block on an opposite surface for forming a 24″×40″ rectangular shape. Each block is positioned with its grain substantially perpendicular to the horizontal plane of the stringers, with the edges of the deck boards and the upper and lower stringers being in the same vertical plane. The deck boards have a mounting surface and a top surface; the half pallet has through openings on each side to allow for the insertion of pallet forks from any side. The deck boards have pilot holes extending substantially perpendicular to the mounting surface through the deck boards and into adjacent stringers and blocks, the pilot hole being completely through the deck board, and spaced from zero to about 3/16 inch to ½ inch away from the edge of the stringers, blocks and the deck boards. Additionally, the dowels may be positioned with no space between them. i.e., adjacent one another and touching. Adhesive is disposed on the mounting surfaces and in the pilot holes and a plurality of wooden dowels disposed in the pilot holes such that the top surface of the pallet deck boards and the top surface of the dowels are substantially co-planar, wherein the dowels connect the deck boards, stringers and blocks through a cinching action on at least the deck boards.
The pallet of the subject invention also may include a plurality of deck boards, each deck board including a longitudinal mounting surface having a plurality of vertical bores formed therethrough, a plurality of deck boards, upper and lower stringers, and blocks, each having a plurality of substantially vertical openings, each of the vertical openings corresponding to a vertical bore. Each of the vertical openings and vertical bores are from 3/16 to ½ inch from an edge of a stringer, block and deck board. The deck boards are spaced and parallel. The stringers are spaced and transverse to the deck boards, with the deck boards vertically adjacent the upper stringers. The blocks are between the upper and lower stringers, and have a vertical grain parallel with the vertical bores. A plurality of wooden dowels are inserted through the vertical bores of the deck boards through to the plurality of respective vertical openings such that the deck boards stringers and blocks are connected together in a predetermined orientation to form a half pallet, whereby the half pallet has openings sufficiently large to permit entry of fork lift tines on each of the four sides of the half pallet.
The features of the present invention which are believed to be novel are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. The drawings may not be to scale. The invention may best be understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in the several figures of which like reference numerals identify like elements, and in which:
While the present invention is susceptible of embodiments of various forms, there is shown in the drawings, and will hereinafter be described some exemplary and non-limiting embodiments, with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered an exemplification of the invention. It is not intended to limit the invention to the specific embodiments listed.
In general terms, one embodiment of the invention comprises the combination of wooden dowels and adhesive to connect stringers, deck boards and blocks to form a half pallet.
Referring to
Each stringer 14, 15 has a plurality of predrilled bores 31 defined therein. The terms bore and opening are herein used synonymously.
Referring to
As shown in more detail in
As shown in
In a preferred embodiment, the half pallet described herein consists essentially of wood and adhesive. In the most preferred embodiment, the pallet consists of wood and adhesive. The use of a wooden dowel 50 with wooden stringers 14, 15, and deck boards 10 and blocks 16 and 17, along with adhesive, can, through construction, create a half pallet that is lightweight and yet exceeds industry requirements for static strength, stiffness, and resistance to rough handling.
Further, the pallet described herein can be substantially lighter and stronger than standard half pallets that employ nails or other metal fasteners. First, the use of wooden dowels inserted into bores or openings instead of nails creates less weight. The weight of the dowel 50 being inserted is offset by the amount of wood drilled out of the deck boards 10 and stringers 30. With the use of nails, there is no offset. With the use of a large number of nails in typical pallets (sometimes over one hundred for a used pallet), this weight difference can become substantial. Second, the pallet described herein can be made with kiln dried wood, which is lighter than wet or green wood. Typical pallets are made of wet or green wood because hammering in nails in dry wood can cause damage to the wood, such as checking, and result in a damaged or weakened pallet. Through the use of the dowel 50, the pallet described herein can be constructed of wood that is kiln dried. Preferably, the wood is less than 15% moisture and more preferably between 9 and 12% moisture. The pallet described herein can be substantially lighter than typical pallets, about 28 lbs, where other commercial half-pallets are 38 lbs or more. Being lighter, the half pallets of the subject invention are less likely to cause injury to workers during transport, and also yield substantial savings in fuel economy during transport.
In a second embodiment, the half pallet of the subject invention has an additional 2 or 3 stringers 18 added as a bottom support (see
The present invention is not limited to the particular details of the method depicted and other modifications and applications are contemplated. Certain other changes may be made in the above-described method without departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention herein involved. For example, the present method may be utilized with other styles of pallets, which have different formations of stringers, panel boards, or like members. It is intended, therefore, that the subject matter in the above depiction shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.
