Patent Application
20170028266
1. Field of the invention
To enable accurate passing and shooting, the surface of a lacrosse ball requires tactile grip. With continued use, the ball surface becomes smooth, or polished, losing its characteristic grip and is commonly referred to as a “greaser.” As a consequence, the ball is difficult to control when passing or shooting. Typically such polished balls are discarded and replaced with new balls at expense to players, coaches, and teams. It is desirable to have a means to easily resurface the ball and restore the characteristic grip. Such means of resurfacing should be inexpensive, easy to execute, and widely available to lacrosse players, coaches, and teams.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The popularity of the sport of lacrosse has lagged that of other well know sports such as baseball, football, basketball, and soccer. Only in recent years has lacrosse witnessed a significant increase in popularity. As such, there are very limited examples of prior art describing inventions directed toward lacrosse ball resurfacing. There are numerous inventions designed for resurfacing other types of sport and game balls, including, but not limited to golf, bowling, and billiard balls. Notable examples include bowling ball resurfacing devices described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,932,111 and 7,892,073. In U.S. Pat. No. 8,922,111, by Tessmar et al., the described device consists of a sack lined with an abrasive surface that resurfaces the ball when the user manually shakes the sack. In U.S. Pat. No. 7,892,073, by Smania et al., the described device is a cup-shaped tool comprised of an inner abrasive surface that is placed in contact with the bowling ball. A power drill is coupled to the opposite side of the device and is used to spin the abrasive surface and recondition the bowling ball. Golf ball deburring and cleaning devices have been described, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,961,264, 8,469,773, 8,177,605, and 8,113,919. A billiard ball cleaning device has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,550,882. These devices are tailored to the specific needs of golf and billiard balls and are motorized devices of complicated design and construction.
In regards to lacrosse ball specific resurfacing devices, the prior art contains four US patent applications. In application US 2012/0058715, Roze, describes a hand held device with a concave end lined with an abrasive surface. The device is designed to resurface a single lacrosse ball at a time and the device is completely manual in use. As such, a user will become fatigued if attempting to resurface multiple balls in a single session. Patent applications US 2014/0038495, US 2014/0273769, and US 2014/0349553 describe devices capable of resurfacing multiple lacrosse balls simultaneously, but are more complicated in design and construction than the manual device described by Roze above.
The object of the current invention is to provide a simplistic device that is economical to construct and easy to use. Since many children, as young as four in age, play lacrosse, the device described here is designed to be easy for a child to use under the supervision of an adult. The device will enable lacrosse players of all ages to maintain the surface of their lacrosse balls in excellent condition in an economic manner.
The object of the present invention is to provide a device for resurfacing lacrosse balls. In one preferred embodiment, the device is comprised of a rectangular prism shaped chamber that is lined with an abrasive surface, such as sand paper. The chamber is surrounded on the exterior by cushioned material. A plurality of lacrosse balls can be placed inside the chamber. In one preferred embodiment the dimensions of the invention are such that it can easily fit inside a typical modern clothes dryer, along with clothes. Through the course of a clothes drying cycle, the resurfacing device will tumble numerous times. Through countless random collisional interactions with the abrasive surface, the lacrosse ball is scratched such that the balls are resurfaced, restoring the desired characteristic grip. The device is designed to be inexpensive to construct, easy to use, and harmless to clothes dryers. By utilizing the device while simultaneously drying clothes, the device consumes minimal energy and has low environmental impact. It is a feature of the invention that clothes dryer is not the only means of tumbling the device. The device can be shaken manually.
In one preferred embodiment, the present invention 10 is comprised of a six-sided rectangular prism shaped chamber. Referring now to
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The description above is considered illustrative of only the principles of the invention. To those skilled in the are, numerous modifications will be obvious to conceive. It is therefore not the intent of this patent to limit the scope of the invention to only the exact description included here. All reasonable or obvious modifications and extensions are within the scope of the invention.
