Patent Application
20240149399
Not applicable.
Not Applicable.
The present invention relates to a modified honing brush having one or more bristles and one or a plurality of reusable plate(s) or support guide(s) having varying thicknesses with varying holes or voids located in the plates or support guides. The reusable plate(s) or support guide(s) are attached to or placed in juxtaposition to the base of one or more bristles or tufts of bristles of the honing brush. These plate(s) or support guide(s) stiffen the bristles and make the brushes' bristles effective length shorter.
The background art discloses honing brushes that are useful for a variety of applications including to improve the surface finish of, for example but not limited to a cutting tool, or a bore of a cylinder. Honing brushes are generally known to have abrasive bristles or bristles made of flexible filaments, for example, nylon.
One use of a honing brush is as a surface finishing tool. The honing brush is applied to a work surface to reduce the rough peaks of a work surfaces micro-structure. Typically, a small amount of material is removed from a work pieces surface. The work piece may be for example, but not limited to, a cutting edge of a cutting insert. For example, but not limited to, a honing brush application of from ten to fifty strokes or revolutions upon a surface of a work piece may remove for example but not limited to 0.0001 inch of material from the surface of the work piece. The bristles of a honing brush may be made of, for example but not limited to, abrasive material such as aluminum oxide or silicon carbide, and have a bristle shaft length from about 5 to 30 millimeters, or from about 5 inches to 15 inches, and have a grit ranging from about 80 to 320 to up to and including 1000, and a bristle stem diameter of from greater than or equal to about 0.01 inch, and in certain instances from about 0.1 inch to about 0.3 inch.
Another known use of a honing brush is as a deburring tool, or for edge blending.
It is well known that use of a honing brush causes wear of the bristles of the honing brush. Honing brush performance changes as the bristles of the brushes wear over time and the bristles become shorter. Longer bristled brushes have been tested, but are often not stiff enough at the initial length. Having inadequate stiffness is problematic in the use of a honing brush.
This invention addresses the above disadvantages of the background art by incorporating one or more reusable plates or guides to a honing brush.
A modified honing brush is provided having one or more bristles and one or a plurality of reusable plates or guides (i.e. support guides) having varying thicknesses with varying holes or voids located in the plates or guides. These reusable plate(s) or guide(s) are attached to or placed in juxtaposition to the base of one or more bristles or the base of tufts of bristles of the honing brush. These plate(s) or guide(s) stiffen the bristles and make the brushes bristle effective length shorter. As the bristles of the honing brush of the present invention wear in operation upon a work piece, the reusable plates or guides are independently removable in sequence to keep the effective bristle brushing length constant overtime. The present invention enhances the useful life of a honing brush. The modified honing brush of this invention having the reusable and removable plate(s) or guide(s) is a novel feature of this invention.
These and other embodiments of this invention shall be described in more detail herein and in the drawings that show certain embodiments of this invention.
While various embodiments of this invention are illustrated in the drawings, the particular embodiments shown should not be construed to limit the claims. Various modifications and changes may be made without departing from the scope of the invention.
Referring to
Brushes wear over time and become shorter and stiffer.
Referring to
The removable plate(s) or guides(s) of this invention may be made of a metallic material, a non-metallic material, a plastic material, such as for example but not limited to an ABS plastic (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene thermoplastic polymer), a polyurethane thermoplastic polymer, or other thermoplastic polymer blends, such as for example but not limited to, a methyl methacrylate ABS, or any flexible material.
In certain embodiments of this invention the plate(s) are planar, and in certain other embodiments of this invention the plate(s) are conical. In certain embodiments of this invention, a single plate or support guide has a vertical thickness (height) of from about 1 millimeter to about 4 millimeters. The plates may be stacked one plate upon each other in any number of plates, such as for example, stacking of two or more plates upon each other.
Referring to
The modified honing brush of this invention has a bristle that is made of an abrasive material or coated with an abrasive material, a non-metallic material, a plastic material, a polyurethane material, or a flexible material.
In certain embodiments of this invention, the modified honing brush has bristles arranged in a homogenous array or arranged in one or more concentric circles, attached and positioned on or partially within said brush hub.
In certain embodiments of this invention, the modified honing brush (10) has a plurality of bristles (14) that are formed in a tufted bristle arrangement. Preferably, the honing brush (10) of this invention has a brush hub (12) has a plurality of tufted bristle (17) arrangements. The modified honing brush (10) has one or more of the tufted bristle (17) arrangements that are independently fitted through one or more of said holes (28) or voids (28) of said first plate (20).
Referring to
Referring to
Thus, those persons of ordinary skill in the art will understand that
In certain embodiments of this invention, and referring to
Table 1 shows how the theoretical deflection of a bristle changes as the length changes. The honing brush of the present invention having the plate(s) or support guide(s) positioned around the base of the bristle positioned on the brush hub shortens the “working length” of the bristle without changing the overall length. The plate(s) or support guide(s) may be removed as the bristle length shortens (wears from use).
There is at least one bristle in a tuft. In most brushes, there are multiple bristles per tuft.
In certain embodiments of this invention, as shown in
As used herein, “including,” “containing” and like terms are understood in the context of this application to be synonymous with “comprising” and are therefore open-ended and do not exclude the presence of additional undescribed or unrecited elements, materials, phases or method steps. As used herein, “consisting of” is understood in the context of this application to exclude the presence of any unspecified element, material, phase or method step. As used herein, “consisting essentially of” is understood in the context of this application to include the specified elements, materials, phases, or method steps, where applicable, and to also include any unspecified elements, materials, phases, or method steps that do not materially affect the basic or novel characteristics of the invention.
For purposes of the description above, it is to be understood that the invention may assume various alternative variations and step sequences except where expressly specified to the contrary. Moreover, all numbers expressing, for example, quantities of ingredients used in the specification and claims, are to be understood as being modified in all instances by the term “about”. Accordingly, unless indicated to the contrary, the numerical parameters set forth are approximations that may vary depending upon the desired properties to be obtained by the present invention. At the very least, and not as an attempt to limit the application of the doctrine of equivalents, each numerical parameter should at least be construed in light of the number of reported significant digits and by applying ordinary rounding techniques.
It should be understood that any numerical range recited herein is intended to include all sub-ranges subsumed therein. For example, a range of “1 to 10” is intended to include all sub-ranges between (and including) the recited minimum value of 1 and the recited maximum value of 10, that is, having a minimum value equal to or greater than 1 and a maximum value of equal to or less than 10.
In this application, the use of the singular includes the plural and plural encompasses singular, unless specifically stated otherwise. In addition, in this application, the use of “or” means “and/or” unless specifically stated otherwise, even though “and/or” may be explicitly used in certain instances. In this application, the articles “a”, “an”, and “the” include plural referents unless expressly and unequivocally limited to one referent.
Whereas particular embodiments of this invention have been described above for purposes of illustration, it will be evident to those skilled in the art that numerous variations of the details of the present invention may be made without departing from the invention as defined in the appended claims.
