Patent Application
20210323133
Example embodiments generally relate to hand tools and, in particular, relate to a hammer that is structured to provide improved handle balance.
Hand tools are commonly used across all aspects of industry and in the homes of consumers. Hand tools are employed for multiple applications including, for example, tightening, component joining, and/or the like. For some joining applications, a hammer, and particularly a hammer and nails, may be used. However, hammers are used in many other contexts as well, and are a tool that has been in use by humans for many thousands of years.
The history of hammers, like so many other tools, is a tale of continuous improvement as better materials and ways of employing those materials have advanced. From stone hammer heads with bone or wooden handles, to the replacement of the stone with stronger and stronger metals, hammers evolved significantly. Later, to improve durability, the entire hammer (i.e., the head and the handle, began to be made from metallic materials. However, in spite of the great improvement in durability, the weight of such devices and the cost in terms of relatively expensive metallic materials demanded yet further improvement.
Modern hammers are often made with combinations of materials that are meant to balance the cost and durability. However, even these modern hammers can suffer from rigid design criteria that favor one user, but not others. For example, one user may find the handle balance in a particular hammer to feel comfortable and natural, while another user may find the exact same hammer to feel awkward in his/her hand. Unfortunately, for conventional hammers, customization of a single hammer for satisfactory employment by multiple different users is simply not practical.
In an example embodiment, a hand tool may be provided. The hand tool may include a head, a handle and one or more instances of an adjustable weight. The head may include a bell and a face for delivering an impact. The handle may be operably coupled to the head and extend linearly away from the head along an axis. The handle may include a grip portion and a beam. The beam may extend from the head to the grip portion. The adjustable weight may be configured to be dynamically positioned on the beam at various positions along or relative to the axis.
In another example embodiment, a hand tool may be provided. The hand tool may include a head, a handle and one or more instances of an adjustable weight. The head may include a bell and a face for delivering an impact. The handle may be operably coupled to the head and extend linearly away from the head along an axis. The adjustable weight may be positionable on the head and/or the handle at a selected one of a plurality of different locations relative to the axis such that the hand tool is configurable to adjust both a striking power and a swinging balance of the hand tool.
Having thus described some example embodiments in general terms, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, and wherein:
Some example embodiments now will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which some, but not all example embodiments are shown. Indeed, the examples described and pictured herein should not be construed as being limiting as to the scope, applicability or configuration of the present disclosure. Rather, these example embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will satisfy applicable legal requirements. Like reference numerals refer to like elements throughout. Furthermore, as used herein, the term “or” is to be interpreted as a logical operator that results in true whenever one or more of its operands are true. As used herein, operable coupling should be understood to relate to direct or indirect connection that, in either case, enables functional interconnection of components that are operably coupled to each other.
As indicated above, some example embodiments may relate to the provision of a hand tool (e.g., a hammer) with an improved design that provides for the introduction of re-configurability into design of the hammer, particularly in relation to achieving handle balance. In this regard, for example, dynamically adjustable or repositionable weights may be provided for selective insertion into a beam portion (or simply, the “beam”) of the handle, which may extend from the eye portion of the head to the grip portion. In some cases, the grip portion may also include balance weights that can be selectively added, and/or balance weights could be added to the head of the hammer. In any case, the ability to dynamically configure the hammer may be provided so that any user can adjust the handle balance of the hammer and find a comfortable fit tailored to his/her preferences.
The head 120 may include a number of parts such as, for example, a face 122, which forms the striking surface of the hammer 100, and which is disposed at a distal end of a bell 124 of the head 120. A neck or throat 126 may connect the bell 124 to the remainder of the head 120. Opposite the face 122 (and therefore at a rear end of the head 120), the head 120 may further include a claw 130. The bell 124 may be separated from the claw 130 by an eye portion 132. The lateral side of the head 120 (i.e., between the claw 130 and the bell 124, and above the eye portion 140) may be referred to as a cheek. The eye portion 140 may correspond to the eye that typically received the handle when the handle was made of a separate component or material from the head 120. However, as noted above, in this case the metallic base of the hammer 100 is a single unitary piece, so the eye portion 132 simply correlates to the location of the eye on a conventional multi-piece hammer, but does not necessarily function as such.
The claw 130 may include two laterally extending claw members 134 having a nail slot 136 formed therebetween. The head of a nail can be placed in the nail slot 136 and the claw members 134 may engage the head such that when the hammer 100 is pivoted about the eye portion 132, leverage is placed on the nail to remove the nail from the medium into which it had been driven. The claw 130 may have other uses as well, often related to prying. It should also be appreciated that the claw 130 may be replaced by a peen in some cases, and thus the particular design of the head 120 may be different in some cases without impacting other aspects of example embodiments.
The handle 140 may include a grip portion 142 and a beam portion (or beam 144). The beam 144 may extend from the eye portion 132 (at a proximal end of the beam 144) to the grip portion 142 (at a distal end of the beam 144). Thus, a proximal end of the grip portion 142 may be attached to a distal end of the beam 144, and a distal end of the grip portion 142 may extend away from the eye portion 132 and the beam 144 in alignment with the beam 144. The grip portion 142 and the beam 144 may therefore have a longitudinal centerline (or axis 146) that is common and extends away from the eye portion 132.
In some cases, both the grip portion 142 and the beam 144 may be substantially rectangular metallic plate portions, and only the grip portion 142 may include additional molded or fitted material (i.e., forming the grip) disposed over the metallic plate portions. In some cases, portions of the head 120 such as the bell 124, the cheeks, the claw 130 and the eye portion 132 may be polished, and remaining visible portions of the head 120 and the beam 144 may be coated or painted.
In an example embodiment, at least the beam 144 (and in some cases both the beam 144 and the grip portion 142) may include one or more axial passageways 150. The axial passageways 150 of this example are formed as longitudinally extending slots that are parallel to (and extend along) the axis 146. In this example, there are five distinct axial passageways 150 that are each formed as longitudinally extending slots. However, it may alternatively be possible to include fewer or more axial passageways 150 in some embodiments. Thus, for example, the axial passageways 150 could be replaced by one longitudinally extending slot extending from the proximal end of the beam 144 to the distal end of the grip portion 142. Alternatively, a single longitudinally extending slot could be provided in each of the beam 144 and the grip portion 142. As yet another alternative, the a large number of small axial passageways (including circular or other shaped axial passageways) could be formed in the beam 144 (and/or the grip portion 142). In any case, the axial passageways 150 may define an opening through the beam 144 in a direction substantially perpendicular to the axis 146. Thus, to the extent a width of the beam 144 and/or grip portion 142 is wider than a thickness thereof, it should be appreciated that opposing faces of the beam 144 and/or grip portion 142 that have a wider dimension (i.e., the width dimension) may lie substantially parallel to each other and the axial passageways 150 may pass through these opposing faces in a direction substantially perpendicular thereto.
Although the axial passageways 150 may remain empty, some example embodiments may at least partially fill the axial passageways 150 with foam, rubber or another insulating or dampening material. However, in some cases, even such insulating or dampening material may have a slot 152 formed therein. In this example, the slot 152 extends in substantial alignment with the axis 146, but no such alignments is necessarily required. The insulating or dampening material may be provided for aesthetic reasons, or to reduce sound and/or vibration generated in the handle 140 when the hammer 100 is in use.
As shown in
It should also be appreciated that other fixing means for attaching the adjustable weight 160 to the beam 144 could be used in alternative embodiments. Moreover, while the depicted example allows infinite adjustment of the location of the adjustable weight 160 along the length of the beam 144, other examples could include a number of specific locations along the beam 144 at which affixing could occur. In those examples, although adjustability and dynamic repositioning of the selected location of the adjustable weight 160 is still possible, the adjustability may be limited to discrete locations instead of being infinitely adjustable.
Different users will naturally grasp the hammer 100 at different parts of the grip portion 142. Moreover, different users may have different hand sizes, and different techniques for delivering a strike using the hammer 100. Accordingly, the swing balance experienced by each user could be slightly different. By changing the selected location at which the adjustable weight 160 is attached to the beam 144, the swing balance of the hammer 100 can be adjusted.
As can be appreciated from
In this regard, as also shown in
The fixed retainers 260 may represent depressions or orifices formed in the material forming the grip of the handle 140 along the grip portion 142. The depressions or orifices may enable the adjustable weight 160 to be attached to the grip portion 142 at these locations in a manner similar to that described above. In the example of
The application of weight could also be applied to the head 120 in some cases. In such examples, the location may be fixed (e.g., a specific location within the head 120), but the amount of weight could be altered. This type of balance adjustment could also be performed in a number of different ways. For example, as shown in
Alternatively, after the removable plug is removed (as shown in
Accordingly, as can be appreciated from the examples above, in addition to providing options for providing swinging balance for the hammer 100 by moving the locations at which weights are distributed along the axis 146, the striking power of the hammer 100 can also be adjusted by putting more or less weight in the head 120 of the hammer 100. Thus, for example, a hand tool of an example embodiment may include a head, a handle and one or more instances of an adjustable weight. The head may include a bell and a face for delivering an impact. The handle may be operably coupled to the head and extend linearly away from the head along an axis. The adjustable weight may be positionable on the head and/or the handle at a selected one of a plurality of different locations relative to the axis such that the hand tool is configurable to adjust both a striking power and a swinging balance of the hand tool.
The hand tool may include a number of modifications, augmentations, or optional additions, some of which are described herein. The modifications, augmentations or optional additions may be added in any desirable combination. For example, handle may include a grip portion and a beam. The beam may extend from the head to the grip portion. The adjustable weight may be configured to be affixed on the beam at the selected one of the plurality of different locations along the axis. In an example embodiment, the beam may include an axial passageway defining an opening through the beam in a direction substantially perpendicular to the axis, and the adjustable weight may be configured to pass through the axial passageway. In some cases, the adjustable weight may be fixable at an infinite number of positions along the axis within the axial passageway. In an example embodiment, the adjustable weight may be fixable at a plurality of discrete positions along the axis within the axial passageway. In some cases, the grip portion may include one or more fixed retainers, and the adjustable weight may be further configured to be fixable in at least one of the one or more fixed retainers. In an example embodiment, the head of the hand tool may be further configured to have an adjustable weight. In some cases, the head of the hand tool may include a recess formed in a cheek of the head, and the hand tool may further include a removable plug configured to be disposed in the recess. In an example embodiment, the removable plug may be one of a plurality of different removable plugs, each of which has a different weight, and a striking power of the hand tool may be adjustable based on which one of the different weights is selected for insertion in the recess as the removable plug. In some cases, the removable plug may be configured to be removed to enable one or more weighted slugs to be disposed in the recess to adjust a striking power of the hand tool.
Many modifications and other embodiments of the inventions set forth herein will come to mind to one skilled in the art to which these inventions pertain having the benefit of the teachings presented in the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings. Therefore, it is to be understood that the inventions are not to be limited to the specific embodiments disclosed and that modifications and other embodiments are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. Moreover, although the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings describe exemplary embodiments in the context of certain exemplary combinations of elements and/or functions, it should be appreciated that different combinations of elements and/or functions may be provided by alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims. In this regard, for example, different combinations of elements and/or functions than those explicitly described above are also contemplated as may be set forth in some of the appended claims. In cases where advantages, benefits or solutions to problems are described herein, it should be appreciated that such advantages, benefits and/or solutions may be applicable to some example embodiments, but not necessarily all example embodiments. Thus, any advantages, benefits or solutions described herein should not be thought of as being critical, required or essential to all embodiments or to that which is claimed herein. Although specific terms are employed herein, they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63013200 | Apr 2020 | US |
