Patent Grant
7798337
This invention relates generally to the funeral service industry, and more particularly to a display system facilitating the selection by a customer of funerary products in, for example, a funeral home selection room.
Funeral home casket selection rooms have evolved as those in the industry have attempted to better meet the funeral customers' needs. The “traditional” presentation of product in a funeral home selection room was to simply place each casket on a bier and open the head end cap or lid of the casket to permit viewing inside the casket. As many caskets as possible were displayed in a selection room in order to maximize the number of product choices for the customer. Unfortunately, such a “traditional” presentation results in what has been referred to as a “sea of caskets” visual effect, which can be both distressing or alarming and confusing to the customer.
Advances in the design of funeral home selection rooms have taken the form of providing a plurality of alcove structures, either of a “modular” construction or of a “stick built” construction, in the funeral home selection room. Each alcove structure includes a vertical back wall and a pair of vertical, spaced apart wing walls cooperating with the back wall to form an alcove. A soffit may span the upper front edges of the wing walls, and lighting, for example track lighting, may be incorporated into the soffit. A two-tier casket rack is located within the alcove, the lower tier of the casket rack being a roll out rack permitting the lower casket to be rolled out from under the upper casket and the casket lid opened for display of the lower casket. Tasteful signage and the like is mounted on the back wall above the caskets. Such a construction, which is the subject of the assignee's prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,405,017 and 5,524,394, both hereby incorporated by reference herein, increases the number of caskets which can be displayed in a funeral home selection room, as well as greatly improves the “look and feel” of the casket presentations, thereby reducing the clutter and confusion of the so-called “sea of caskets” effect and providing a feeling of comfort to the families.
New construction and renovation costs being what they are, there is an ever-increasing need to increase the product density displayable in the funeral home selection room, without sacrificing comfort, convenience and look and feel of the casket display systems of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,405,017 and 5,524,394. To that end, the assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 6,681,510, hereby incorporated by reference herein, discloses and claims a Display For A Casket Selection And/Or Viewing Room. That patent discloses the display of a plurality of casket portions along with a plurality of casket information modules. Each information module corresponds to one of the casket portions displayed and houses an insert displaying samples of the various features of the particular casket, for example, a portion of the cap panel, a photo of the casket, a fabric swatch of the casket fabric, etc. To access and view the casket samples displayed on the insert, a door to the module is opened, and the insert is slid out of the module.
By way of further advances, the assignee's U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0000926 A1, hereby incorporated by reference herein, discloses and claims a Display For A Casket Selection Room. That application discloses a display for a casket selection room comprising a wall, a plurality of casket portions displayed on the wall, and a plurality of casket information modules displayed on the wall. Each information module corresponds to one of the casket portions and includes a photo of the casket, a portion of a cap panel of the casket and/or a fabric swatch of the casket. The photo, portion of the cap panel and/or fabric swatch are visible to the customer without opening the information module. The casket selection display of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0000926 A1 thereby provides further advantages above and beyond the casket selection display disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,681,510, for example obviating the need to open a door of the casket information module and remove the casket information insert in order to be able to view the same.
A problem associated with displaying casket corner portions arises when attempting to mount the casket corner portion to a display. Since the casket corner portions being displayed are literally cut from full size caskets, it is desirable to conceal the cut edges from view when mounted. However, cutting the casket corner portions from full size caskets results in a high degree of flexibility of the cut casket corner portions. Therefore, simply abutting the cut edges of the casket portion against walls of the display does not always insure that the cut edges will remain biased against the display walls so as to conceal the cut edges of the casket portion, due to the flexibility of the cut corner portion. This is especially problematic when working with sheet metal caskets and corner portions thereof for display.
Accordingly, It is desirable to provide further improvements in the area of partial casket display and selection.
A display for displaying casket portions comprises a back wall, at least one wing wall, a shelf, a casket corner section having two cut sides at substantially a right angle to one another and having a bottom, a side panel attached to one of the cut sides of the casket corner section, a bottom panel attached to the bottom of the casket corner section, and at least one dowel pin on the back wall. The casket corner section is supported on the shelf, the side panel is positioned between the wing wall and the dowel pin, and the other cut side faces the back wall. The dowel pin is spaced from the wing wall by an amount such that an outwardly facing surface of the side panel is snugged against an inwardly facing surface of the wing wall.
The bottom of the casket corner section can be attached to the bottom panel with screws. The casket corner section can have blocks attached to an interior thereof and the side panel can be attached to the blocks with screws. The blocks can be glued to the interior of the casket corner section. The side panel and bottom panel can be attached to one another with screws. The shelf can include at least one dowel pin thereon, and the bottom panel can include a locating hole therein which accepts the dowel pin on the shelf. The back wall, wing wall, and shelf can be attached to one another. The casket corner section can be fabricated from wood or sheet metal. The display can include a pair of wing walls, the shelf spanning between the pair of wing walls. The back wall can include a pair of vertically spaced dowel pins thereon. The shelf can include a pair of spaced dowel pins thereon and the bottom panel can include a pair of locating holes therein which accept the dowel pins on the shelf.
In another aspect, a display for displaying casket portions comprises a back wall, at least one wing wall, a shelf, a casket corner section having two cut sides at substantially a right angle to one another and having a bottom, a side panel attached to one of the cut sides of the casket corner section, a bottom panel attached to the bottom of the casket corner section, and at least one locator on the back wall. The casket corner section is supported on the shelf, the side panel is positioned between the wing wall and the locator, and the other of the cut sides faces the back wall. The locator is spaced from the wing wall by an amount such that an outwardly facing surface of the side panel is snugged against an inwardly facing surface of the wing wall.
The back wall can have a pair of vertically spaced locators thereon. The locators can be pins, for example dowel pins.
In yet another aspect, a display for displaying casket portions comprises a back wall, a pair of wing walls, a pair of vertically spaced shelves, two casket corner sections, each casket corner section having two cut sides at substantially a right angle to one another and having a bottom, a side panel attached to one of the cut sides of each casket corner section, a bottom panel attached to the bottom of each casket corner section, and two pairs of vertically spaced pins on the back wall, one pair of pins being located above an upper one of the pair of shelves and the other pair of pins being located above a lower one of the pair of shelves and below the upper shelf. One casket corner section is supported on each shelf. Each side panel is positioned between one of the wing walls and a respective pair of pins, and each of the other of the cut sides faces the back wall. The pins are spaced from the wing wall by an amount such that an outwardly facing surface of each side panel is snugged against an inwardly facing surface of the wing wall.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent during the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings herein, in which:
Referring first to
Referring to all the Figs., each casket portion 12 is a corner section of a casket to be displayed having two cut sides 30, 32 at substantially a right angle to one another, and a bottom 34. A side panel 40, fabricated of, for example, wood, is attached to cut side 30. For example, the casket corner section 12 can have blocks 42, 44, for example wooden blocks 42, 44, attached to an interior thereof by, for example, glue. Fasteners 46, for example screws, can be used to attach side panel 40 to the blocks 42, 44. A bottom panel 50, fabricated of, for example, wood, is attached to the bottom 34 of casket corner section 12 with fasteners 52, for example screws. The lid portion 60 of the casket corner section 12 can be secured to the shell portion 62 of the casket corner section 12 with one or more fasteners, for example screws 64. For rigidity, the side panel 40 and bottom panel 50 can be attached to one another with screws 66 (
At least one 70, and preferably a vertically spaced pair 70, 72, of locators, for example, pins, for example dowel pins, are in and/or on the back wall 14. When the casket corner section 12 is placed onto shelf 20 and supported thereon, the rear edge 74 of side panel 40 is positioned between the wing wall 16 and the pins 70, 72. The other cut side 32 of the casket corner section 12 faces the back wall 14. The pins 70, 72 are spaced from the wing wall 16 by an amount such that an outwardly facing surface 80 of the side panel 40 is snugged against an inwardly facing surface 82 of the wing wall 16. In this way, the normally flexible casket corner section 12 is rigidified, and no unsightly gaps appear between the casket corner section 12 and the wing wall 16. The distance of the pins 70, 72 from the wing wall 16 is determined by the thickness of the side panel 40; the distance should be such as to allow the side panel 40 to easily slip between the wing wall 16 and the pins 70, 72, but not so great as to allow the side panel to lean or otherwise flex away from the side wall 16 so as to create an unsightly gap therebetween. In any event, the weight of the casket corner section 12 is carried by the shelf 20 and not by the wing wall 16. Stated differently, in the absence of the shelf 20, the combination of pins 70, 72 and wing wall 16 could not bear the weight of the casket corner section 12; the casket corner section 12 would simply drop downwardly and fall from the display 10. Thus, the casket corner section 12 is not, and cannot be said to be, secured by its side surface onto the wing wall 16 (or back wall 14, for that matter).
As best shown in
Any or all of the back wall 14, wing walls 16, 18, and shelves 20, 22 can be attached to one another to rigidify the display 10.
The casket corner sections 12 can be fabricated of wood or sheet metal.
The embodiments shown and described are merely for illustrative purposes only. The drawings and the description are not intended to limit in any way the scope of the claims. Those skilled in the art will appreciate various changes, modifications, and alternative embodiments. For example, structure other than dowel pins, or pins, can be used to locate the side panel against the wing wall, such as angle brackets, studs, screws, bolts, nails, etc. All such changes, modifications and embodiments are deemed to be embraced by the claims. Accordingly, the scope of the right to exclude shall be limited only by the following claims and their equivalents.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| 20090014396 A1 | Jan 2009 | US |
