Patent Grant
10974542
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The invention pertains to glitter framed poster boards for which the poster boards appear to have a frame in their peripheral regions that is covered by glitter.
Poster boards are relatively lightweight and made of thick, fairly stiff cardboard composed of layers of paper or paper pulp compressed together and typically used to support displays. The cardboard may be either paperboard, corrugated fiberboard and/or cardstock.
Currently, poster boards having a dimension of 22″×28″ that have glitter frame are made by using a traditional application, namely, a silk screen application, by which glitter chips fall randomly onto the board mixed with adhesive and apply the glitter chips onto frame of the board. For very fine glitter chips, such as 2/125″ or smaller, the use of this silk screen application results in production of a glitter framed poster board having some shedding of the glitter chips, but tolerable from a commercial standpoint as the quantity of shedding is sufficiently low that it will not cause a mess at retail stores. However, for large glitter chips (so-called medium chips or perhaps “Big chips” of 1/24″), the use of the silk screen application results in the production of a glitter framed poster board having much more shedding of the glitter chips than is the case for much smaller glitter chips would cause a mess at retail stores. Such a mess might well bring untoward attention to the mess by the purchasing public. Further, the chips are too big to be applied 100% onto the frame of the board without damaging the white center of the poster board should heat and pressure be applied.
The following table provides conventional glitter chip sizes as set forth from an online article at polishandpigments.blogspot.com/2010/10/glitter-size-explanation.html.
The present inventor recognized that there is a desire to apply larger glitter chips to form peripheral frames for poster boards and thereby yield a more sparkly effect of the glitter chips than can be achieved from smaller glitter chips. Nevertheless, the present inventor had concerns about the use of the traditional silk screen application for larger particle size glitter, because of tendency for such larger glitter chips to shed significantly more than is the case for smaller glitter chips that are glued to form a frame for a poster board. This is due in part because not of the glue underneath the larger glitter chips cover the full underside surface of the larger glitter chips.
Indeed, the glitter chips at the edge of the poser board overlap the board and thus lack glue underneath and they will have to be cut to avoid extending past the edge. This leaves glitter chips at the edge of the poster board that are not rounded but edged and are more ready to fall off since they have been disturbed from their glue bed. Those which fall immediately from the cutting need to be replaced by hand, which is expensive. Those that do not fall immediately, but when used, are more apt to hurt someone, because they are sharp. In any case, glitter chips from other parts of the board also shed and this would create a mess. Although glitter chips that are both 1/125 and 1/24″ are commonly used without hazard warnings, the product still would cause a mess at retail stores and wherever used.
In an effort to devise a technique that eliminated the problems associated with excessive shedding of the larger size glitter chips, the present inventor went through about 5 or 6 trials to find a better way. Eventually, the present inventor produced samples of 1/24″ ‘Big Chip” glitter that did not shed but covered a non-paper square web about 7″×8″ (it seemed like a rubberized latex paper or laminated multi layered web on which the 1/24″ glitter lay). With those samples, a suppler was able to reproduce the process and then cut from the resulting web strips to affix to the poster board to provide a frame with larger size glitter chips whose chips did not shed as much as was the case when the traditional silk screen application was used with the larger size glitter chips to provide the frame. Indeed, the amount of shedding of the larger size glitter chips by using the technique devised by the inventor approximated the amount of shedding of smaller size glitter chips using the traditional silk screen application and was therefore much less than when the larger size glitter chips used the traditional silk screen application.
Nevertheless, one could see that the glitter chips were affixed by lamination of a web onto the board, because the strips showed their ends where the other strip from the adjacent side continued. One of the present inventors suggested that, rather than cutting the strips square at their end, cut them at a 45 degrees angle to hide the intersection of the strips. This product thus was completed by September 2020. That is, about 18 months from its start and about 8 months to correct t5e shedding issue.
A full sheet no shedding glitter paper/tape has been available on the market for years. For instance, a glitter film role under the trade name d-c-Fix® Glittery Pink was cut and its backing paper peeled off to reveal a sticky surface that was adhered to a picture frame. The steps involved are described online at dcfixbrand.com/glittery-picture-frame-diy/.
According to the online site LEARTS at kastyles.co/4-ways-to-protect-glitter-from-shedding-on-craft-projects/, there are four ways to protect glitter from shedding. The four ways involve applying to the glitter any of the following: clear gloss spray paint, clear gloss spray lacquer, gloss modge podge, and clear nail polish. According to the online site favecrafts at favecrafts.com/Techniques/How-to-Seal-Glitter, glitter on paper can be sealed against shedding by using a spray sealer or a decoupage medium.
The invention concerns the use of glitter 1/24″ as opposed to glitter 2/125″ on a posterboard. There was no problem with 2/125″ glitter sticking to the posterboard. The issue is with 1/24″ glitter, which the present invention was used for to produce a resulting glitter that yields a much more reflective and refractive poster board product.
In accordance with the present invention, the inventive method is to first make a full sheet (22″×28″) of glitter paper by securely applying appropriately sized glitter chips to paper without shedding, such as to coated one side (C1S) paper, via a conventional ceramic coating machine. The paper with the glitter chips is then cut into strips of a desired dimension for the frame and their ends are cut to form triangular patterns so that each strip connects almost seamlessly with adjacent strips. The strips are then laminated onto a conventional poster board—a conventional hot stamping process under high pressure may be used to effectuate this. The end result is a posterboard having a glitter frame on its surface and the whole posterboard looks about identical as the one made by the traditional method, except that the glitter appears more sparkly.
The present invention involves a method of assembly whose steps are:
The method of assembly in accordance with the invention solves the excessive shedding problem that otherwise arises for large glitter chips that are deposited upon a poster board via the silk screen application. The assembly method of the invention uses C1S paper so that the glitter strips optically appear to be on top of the poster board. There is little glitter chip shedding during transit or when the boards were rubbed. The way the paper is applied with triangular shapes at their corners of the frame renders it less evident that the glitter was applied using paper or tape, probably due to the change in direction at the diagonal from the horizontal edge of the frame that the eye has a tendency to follow when looking at the frame.
The conventional silk screen application deposited the glitter onto a bed of glue on the poster board in the border area. For larger size glitter, some would partially extend past the edge of the poster board and thus would need to be cut and smoothed. However, the glitter chips could not be pressed and heated into the board, because the white area in the center of the poster board could not be damaged, which would be commercially unacceptable. In contrast, the way of the present invention is that the glitter is deposited onto a bed of glue that is over the full sheet of C1S paper and the glitter is then pressed down and heated so it securely attaches the sheet. The full sheet is cut into strips, which are laminated onto a poster board by arranging the strips relative to each other to form a rectangular frame.
For a better understanding of the present invention, reference is made to the following description and accompanying drawings, while the scope of the invention is set forth in the appended claims. The patent or application file contains at least one drawing executed in color. Copies of this patent with color drawings will be provided by the Office upon request and payment of the necessary fee.
Turning to the drawings,
The second station is a depositing glitter chip station 32 for depositing glitter chips onto the coated side of the C1S paper.
The third station is a decorative lamination formation station 34 where a decorative lamination is formed after heat and pressure are applied by a hot press or heated roller to press the glitter chips into the adhesive on the coated side of the C1S paper. The adhesive responds to the pressure and heat to strengthen its bond between the glitter chips and the C1S paper. The applied heat and pressure that is acceptable for achieving such desired results is at a temperature of at least 400 degrees Fahrenheit under a pressure of at least 8500 pounds for at least three seconds. One can expect the adhesive to take on a uniform thickness over the C1S paper as a result. Any excess glitter chips that were deposited by were not adhered are then vacuumed away with any conventional vacuum source.
The fourth station is a decorative lamination cutting station 36 where the decorative lamination is cut into strips whose ends have triangular patterns. Preferably, there is no plastic covering the glitter chips so they can be touched directly. The adhered glitter chips have an uneven upper surface texture (e.g., non-smooth) across the length of the strips, but not sharp.
The fifth station is a further lamination station 38 where the strips are arranged to form a rectangular frame shape and adhered to peripheral regions of a conventional poster board with glue. Unlike the first-fourth stations that are carried out with machine operation, the further lamination that is performed at the fifth station may be manually performed. That is, the posterboard is glued on the edges by hand, and then the decorative laminated strips are applied by hand onto the glue on the posterboard. One might also expect that the thickness of the glue is thicker than that of the adhesive in the decorative lamination because only the adhesive in the decorative lamination is subjected to heat and pressure from a hot stamping press or heated roller.
There is no reason for there to be any glitter chip shedding at the further lamination station 38 where the further lamination takes place, because the glitter chips have already been adhered onto the C1S paper that has been cut into strips. If there is any shedding subsequently because of how the glitter framed poster board is handled, the overall amount of such shedding is relatively small and cannot be considered to create a mess. Indeed, the overall amount of shedding of the glitter chips that become present in the central region of the poster board is independent of the size of the glitter in accordance with the invention, unlike the case when silk screening is used to apply the glitter chips to glue on the poster board since in that case there is much more shedding of larger size glitter chips (0.42 inches or larger) than there is shedding of smaller size glitter chips (smaller than 0.42 inches).
In accordance with the invention, there is less of a reason to cover the glitter chips at the further lamination station 38 with a coating of clear gloss spray paint, clear gloss spray lacquer, gloss modge podge, clear nail polish, spray sealant or decoupage medium. The reason is because shedding of the glitter chips that occurs during handling appears to be independent of the size of the glitter chips and amounts to a relatively small quantity.
A comparison test was undertaken by the supplier of the framed poster boards from Oct. 31, 2020 to Nov. 1, 2020 that determined over a 24 hour time period that there was in effect no difference in the amount of shedding that occurred when using the method of application according to the present invention as between the use of relatively small glitter chips and the use of relatively large glitter chips (both small and large size glitter chips had between 0-10 glitter chips shedding). However, for the conventional silk screen application, the results show there is a difference in the amount of shedding of the glitter chips depending on the size of the glitter chips. For smaller glitter chips, the amount of shedding was 50-100 smaller glitter chips shed when using the conventional silk screen application. However, for larger glitter chips, the amount of shedding was at least twice to four times as much as for the smaller glitter chips, i.e., between 100 and 200 larger glitter chips shed when using the conventional silk screen application. Thus, one can conclude that the amount of glitter shedding that occurs using the conventional silk screen application is dependent upon the size of the glitter chips. Not so with the method of application according to the present invention—the amount of glitter chip shedding is independent of the glitter chip size and is considerably much less than with the silk screen application by a factor of at least five.
While there may be some shedding of the glitter chips during handling of the glitter framed poster board subsequently, the amount of shedding is independent of the size of the glitter chips. That is, the amount of shedding is at a commercially acceptable level that would not be considered to be messy in contrast to the shedding of larger size glitter chips (0.042 inches or larger) in a glitter framed poster board applied via silk screening. With silk screening, the larger size glitter chips shed to a much greater extent than the smaller size glitter chips after the glitter chips have been deposited onto glue on the poster board to form a frame.
While the foregoing description and drawings represent the preferred embodiments of the present invention, it will be understood that various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
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