The present disclosure relates to a corner cap that covers a gap formed at the corner of a panel (e.g., a door panel) during the fabrication process, and particularly, the disclosed corner cap may be integrated into the exposed corner seams or gaps of various appliances (e.g., a dishwasher door, oven door, microwave door, toaster door, etc.) formed from a sheet panel.
Sheet panels, such as sheet metal panels, are used extensively in manufacturing appliances and furniture. Typically, a door formed from sheet panels has a double panel construction including an outer door panel (also known as a door frame) and a parallel inner door panel. This is particularly popular for cooking appliances, for example, most oven range doors are formed by sheet metal panel fabrications. Such appliances require that the doors be of desired thickness, and to accomplish this, the outer door panel or the door frame usually has its top, bottom, and side edges bent perpendicularly inwardly to engage the inner door panel. This inner door panel forms the inner side of the range door and is spaced a substantial distance from the door frame. Accordingly, an open seam slit or a corner gap may result at each corner of the bent edge flanges of the door frame. Inasmuch as these kitchen appliances are constantly being used by consumers in daily life, it is not aesthetically pleasing. Additionally, sometimes the door may not close properly because the edges of the corner gap are seldom flush with each other and are usually coarse and uneven, leading to improper engagements between the door corner and the engaging surface.
One of the difficult problems during the manufacturing of various composite sheet panel structures, such as the conventional range doors, is how to deal with the corner gaps as described here. While welding is one of the most popular solutions for closing/adjoining the gap, the welding involves special difficulties. For example, welding is not cost-efficient as the weld area must be polished. Further, when a more expensive and higher grade of materials or coatings are applied to guard against corrosion, welding may not be a viable option. For example, welding is not suitable for some stainless steel finishes (e.g., black stainless steel). Due to these difficulties, some manufacturers may simply attempt to close the gap as much as possible during the fabrication process without further treatments. However, the gap remaining at the door corner may tend to grow larger over time, leading to aesthetic degradation and other problems.
Therefore, there is a need to develop a manner and/or apparatus for treating the door corner gaps.
The present disclosure is directed to an apparatus that covers a corner gap of a door with a flexible or rigid panel part secured over the corner gap without compromising the aesthetic design of the door. Various fastening features (e.g., snaps or spring clips, pin and slots, swaged/flared pins, bendable tabs, etc.) may be provided to permit the cap to be secured to the door corner surface firmly without risk of looseness or displacement, while further easing the installation process. The corner cap can be installed and/or removed by the manufacturers or consumers efficiently and easily, providing ability to replace due to damages and/or per consumer preferences. The corner cap is also in a durable form and has a pleasing appearance. Further, the cost of the disclosed corner cap is low because the material used can be any commonly available material such as metal, plastic, etc., and the manufacturing can be a standard process.
In some embodiments, a door formed from sheet panels may comprise a door frame and a corner cap. The door frame may have a first face opposite a second face and at least one perimeter edge adjoining the first face to the second face around the perimeter. The at least one perimeter edge may have at least one flange turning from the first face toward the second face to form a first edge and a second edge, and a corner gap may be formed by the first edge and the second edge at a corner of the door frame. The corner cap may have a first surface and a second surface, and the second surface may have one or more extensions projecting downwardly therefrom for securing the corner cap on the first edge and/or the second edge of the door frame by abutting the second surface to the first edge and/or the second edge to cover the corner gap.
In some embodiments, a range door formed from sheet panels may comprise a door frame having a four-sided shape and a corner cap. The door frame may have flanges turning rearwardly along its marginal edges to form at least two edges. A corner gap may be formed by the at least two edge at a corner of said door frame. The corner cap may have at least two surfaces, one surface of the at least two surfaces may have extensions projecting downwardly therefrom for securing the corner cap on one edge of the at least two edges of the door frame by abutting the one surface to the one edge to cover the corner gap.
In some other embodiments, a corner cap may be configured to cover a corner gap formed by at least one edge at a corner of a door frame of a door formed from sheet panels. The corner cap may comprise a first surface and a second surface, and the second surface may have one or more extensions projecting downwardly therefrom for securing the corner cap on the at least one edge of the door frame by abutting the second surface to the at least one edge to cover the corner gap.
In still some further embodiments, a door formed from sheet panels may comprise a door frame and a corner cap. The door frame may have a first face opposite a second face and at least one perimeter edge adjoining the first face to the second face around the perimeter. The at least one perimeter edge may have at least one flange turning from the first face toward the second face to form a first edge and a second edge, and a corner gap may be formed by the first edge and the second edge at a corner of the door frame. The corner cap may have a first surface and a second surface and be affixed to the first edge and/or the second edge to cover the corner gap.
This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter. All of the above-outlined features are to be understood as exemplary only, and many more features and objectives of the various embodiments may be gleaned from the disclosure herein. Therefore, no limiting interpretation of this summary is to be understood without further review of the entire specification, claims, and drawings included herewith. A more extensive presentation of features, details, utilities, and advantages of the present disclosure is provided in the following written description of various embodiments of the disclosure, illustrated in the accompanying drawings, and defined in the appended claims.
In the drawings, like reference characters generally refer to the same parts throughout the different views. Also, the drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead generally being placed upon illustrating the principles of the disclosure.
The disclosure relates to an add-on assembly, a corner cap, for door frame structures of appliances such as stoves or ranges, such as gas ranges, electric ranges, and the like, and the disclosure consists of certain improvements in the form and construction of the range door frame. It is to be understood that a corner cap for covering the door corner gap is not limited in its application to the details of construction and the arrangement of components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The described embodiments are capable of other configurations and of being practiced or of being carried out in various ways, for example, the disclosed corner cap may also be used on the furniture doors formed from sheet panels with corner gaps. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology used herein is for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting. The use of “including,” “comprising,” or “having” and variations thereof is meant to encompass the items listed thereafter and equivalents thereof, as well as additional items. Unless limited otherwise, the terms “connected,” “coupled,” and “mounted,” and variations thereof herein, are used broadly and encompass direct and indirect connections, couplings, and mountings. In addition, the terms “connected” and “coupled” and variations thereof are not restricted to direct physical or mechanical connections or couplings.
The embodiments discussed hereinafter will focus on the implementation of the hereinafter-described techniques and apparatuses within a residential cooking appliance, such as a cooking appliance used in single-family or multi-family dwellings, or in other similar applications. It will be appreciated that the herein-described techniques and apparatuses may also be used in connection with other types of cooking appliances in some embodiments. For example, the herein-described techniques may be used in commercial applications. Moreover, the herein-described techniques may be used in connection with various cooking appliance door configurations. Implementation of the herein-described techniques within a gas and/or electric range door, slide-in oven door, freestanding oven door, wall oven door, etc. Moreover, the herein-described apparatus and techniques may be used in connection with other home appliance doors, such as, for example, a dishwasher appliance door.
Turning now to the drawings, wherein like numbers denote like parts throughout the several views,
The door 50 may at least partially define the one or more cooking compartment opening into the cooking compartment 22 and be positionable between an opened position and a closed position. In some embodiments, the door 50 is disposed to be rotatable about a horizontal axis to open and close the cooking compartment 22. In some embodiments, the door 50 may be formed by sheet panels and include a first panel or a door frame 52 and a second panel or internal door panel (not visible in the figures), which form a front external panel and a rear internal panel, respectively. The door frame 52 and the internal door panel form a double wall construction for the door 50 with the two panels substantially parallel to each other. It should be understood that the door 50 may be in a four-sided shape in some embodiments as shown here, while the door 50 may also be in any other suitable shapes/configurations, such as oval, round, etc.
In some embodiments as shown in
In some embodiments as shown in
As shown in
In some embodiments as shown in
In some other embodiments, the extensions may be slightly hollowed pins that can be mechanically flared on an end opposing from the second surface 104 of the corner cap 100. For example, as shown in
In some embodiments, as best seen in
In some embodiments as shown in
In some embodiments, besides all the affixing manners as described previously, the corner cap 100 may be affixed to the first edge 60 and/or the second edge 62 of the door frame 52 by abutting the second surface 104 to the first edge 60 and/or the second edge 62 by various adhesives to cover the gap 80. For example, as shown in
In different embodiments, the corner cap 100 may be formed from various materials and applied with various coatings, which may compliment the mounting required and the overall door appearances. For example, the corner cover 100 may be formed from metal (e.g., black steel metal), plastic, or suitable laminate materials to fit the appearance of the door 50. In some embodiments, metal may be preferred as the temperature during the fabrication process of the door frame may be too high for other materials.
In summary, the corner cap 100 may be inserted and coupled to the gap 80 to cover the gap 80 thereby preventing sharp cut surfaces of the cutaway portions from being exposed to the outside, and the corner cap 100 may be formed in any suitable shapes/configurations and sizes corresponding to the gap 80. The corner cap 100 may be mounted to cover the door corner gap 80 with the various mounting options (e.g., screw on, snap on, swaged/flared pins, bendable tabs, etc.), providing the manufacturers or consumers with the ability of easy installation and/or replacement for appearances and damages. In some situations, the corner cover 100 may be removed to access the interior of the door 50 for installing or servicing certain mechanical or electrical components inside (e.g., LED lights, cameras, sensors, etc.). The cover 100 may be positioned at different locations of the door frame 52 to cover the gap 80 at different locations as desired. It should be understood that the disclosed apparatus is not limited to sheet panel doors and may also be used to cover gaps formed in other similar structures. The concept could apply to any product that requires a cosmetic or functional cover applied over a mounting base portion of a given product. It should be understood that the figures only illustrate a representative corner of a door as an embodiment of the disclosure. While only one corner of the door is shown, it should be understood that each of the corners may be constructed in like manner.
In general, it should be understood that some features described above do not constitute limitations of the present disclosure, but rather have only been described for the sake of completeness. Instead, the present disclosure is particularly directed to a range door corner configuration along with a corner gap cap. It should also be understood that the corner cap 100 may be a variety of constructions, shapes, sizes, quantities, and positions but still accomplish the same intent. In various embodiments, the corner cap 100 may be configured to be placed above the sheet panel, being flat with the sheet panel, and/or underneath the metal panel. The corner cap 100 depicted in the accompanying figures may include additional components and that some of the components described in those figures may be removed and/or modified without departing from scopes of the elements disclosed herein. The elements depicted in the figures may not be drawn to scale and thus, the elements may have different sizes and/or configurations other than as shown in the figures.
While several inventive embodiments have been described and illustrated herein, those of ordinary skill in the art will readily envision a variety of other means and/or structures for performing the function and/or obtaining the results and/or one or more of the advantages described herein, and each of such variations and/or modifications is deemed to be within the scope of the inventive embodiments described herein. More generally, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that all parameters, dimensions, materials, and configurations described herein are meant to be exemplary and that the actual parameters, dimensions, materials, and/or configurations will depend upon the specific application or applications for which the inventive teachings is/are used. Those skilled in the art will recognize, or be able to ascertain using no more than routine experimentation, many equivalents to the specific inventive embodiments described herein. It is, therefore, to be understood that the foregoing embodiments are presented by way of example only and that, within the scope of the appended claims and equivalents thereto, inventive embodiments may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described and claimed. Inventive embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to each individual feature, system, article, material, kit, and/or method described herein. In addition, any combination of two or more such features, systems, articles, materials, kits, and/or methods, if such features, systems, articles, materials, kits, and/or methods are not mutually inconsistent, is included within the inventive scope of the present disclosure.
All definitions, as defined and used herein, should be understood to control over dictionary definitions, definitions in documents incorporated by reference, and/or ordinary meanings of the defined terms.
The indefinite articles “a” and “an,” as used herein in the specification and in the claims, unless clearly indicated to the contrary, should be understood to mean “at least one.”
The phrase “and/or,” as used herein in the specification and in the claims, should be understood to mean “either or both” of the elements so conjoined, i.e., elements that are conjunctively present in some cases and disjunctively present in other cases. Multiple elements listed with “and/or” should be construed in the same fashion, i.e., “one or more” of the elements so conjoined. Other elements may optionally be present other than the elements specifically identified by the “and/or” clause, whether related or unrelated to those elements specifically identified. Thus, as a non-limiting example, a reference to “A and/or B”, when used in conjunction with open-ended language such as “comprising” can refer, in one embodiment, to A only (optionally including elements other than B); in another embodiment, to B only (optionally including elements other than A); in yet another embodiment, to both A and B (optionally including other elements); etc.
As used herein in the specification and in the claims, “or” should be understood to have the same meaning as “and/or” as defined above. For example, when separating items in a list, “or” or “and/or” shall be interpreted as being inclusive, i.e., the inclusion of at least one, but also including more than one, of a number or list of elements, and, optionally, additional unlisted items. Only terms clearly indicated to the contrary, such as “only one of” or “exactly one of,” or, when used in the claims, “consisting of,” will refer to the inclusion of exactly one element of a number or list of elements. In general, the term “or” as used herein shall only be interpreted as indicating exclusive alternatives (i.e. “one or the other but not both”) when preceded by terms of exclusivity, such as “either,” “one of,” “only one of,” or “exactly one of.” “Consisting essentially of,” when used in the claims, shall have its ordinary meaning as used in the field of patent law.
As used herein in the specification and in the claims, the phrase “at least one,” in reference to a list of one or more elements, should be understood to mean at least one element selected from any one or more of the elements in the list of elements, but not necessarily including at least one of each and every element specifically listed within the list of elements and not excluding any combinations of elements in the list of elements. This definition also allows that elements may optionally be present other than the elements specifically identified within the list of elements to which the phrase “at least one” refers, whether related or unrelated to those elements specifically identified. Thus, as a non-limiting example, “at least one of A and B” (or, equivalently, “at least one of A or B,” or, equivalently “at least one of A and/or B”) can refer, in one embodiment, to at least one, optionally including more than one, A, with no B present (and optionally including elements other than B); in another embodiment, to at least one, optionally including more than one, B, with no A present (and optionally including elements other than A); in yet another embodiment, to at least one, optionally including more than one, A, and at least one, optionally including more than one, B (and optionally including other elements); etc.
It should also be understood that, unless clearly indicated to the contrary, in any methods claimed herein that include more than one step or act, the order of the steps or acts of the method is not necessarily limited to the order in which the steps or acts of the method are recited.
In the claims, as well as in the specification above, all transitional phrases such as “comprising,” “including,” “carrying,” “having,” “containing,” “involving,” “holding,” “composed of,” and the like are to be understood to be open-ended, i.e., to mean including but not limited to. Only the transitional phrases “consisting of” and “consisting essentially of” shall be closed or semi-closed transitional phrases, respectively, as set forth in the United States Patent Office Manual of Patent Examining Procedures, Section 2111.03. It should be understood that certain expressions and reference signs used in the claims pursuant to Rule 6.2(b) of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (“PCT”) do not limit the scope.