Patent Application
20210108663
The invention relates to nails and similar fasteners formed in integral series but easily separable. More specifically, the invention relates to attributes of belts of nails suitable for dispensing through a nail-feeding device that improves the overall workflow for the user.
Power nailing devices are known in the art. These use compressed air, gas, electrical energy or manual effort to set and drive a series of nails quickly. The nails are delivered from a magazine or other supply such as a coil of parallel nails connected by one or more wires welded to the nail shafts (a “nail strap” or “coil nails”).
When a tool's supply of nails is exhausted, it must be replenished so that work can proceed. Fastener supplies are often heavy and bulky, so it is inconvenient to carry extras around a job site. But returning from a work area to a supply depot to obtain a refill interrupts a workflow and may force workers following the nailer's progress to wait as well. When several workers are “banging nails” on a project, interruptions to reload nail guns may significantly impact the work crew's efficiency.
Furthermore, running a tool completely out of fasteners may result in the worker “dry firing” the tool, which can damage the tool, the material being fastened, or both.
In this environment, a mechanism for alerting the worker that the tool will soon run out of fasteners, and/or that the last fastener in the magazine has been placed, may facilitate the operation of a more-efficient supply chain at the worksite. For example, when a worker's tool is running low on fasteners, an assistant “runner” may be dispatched to retrieve a refill, which can be brought back to the worker timely and loaded into the nail gun with reduced idle time and impact on other workers.
In a fastening tool that uses consumable supplies sequentially from a magazine or other store of such fasteners, a visible characteristic of some of the fasteners is manipulated so that the worker using the tool can be informed of the approximate number of fasteners remaining in the tool. The visible characteristic may be a color of the fastener, a shape or another characteristic of the fastener, which is apparent to the user after a fastener is set. In a basic embodiment, the last fastener (or the last few fasteners) delivered from a supply are provided with a different-color surface. For example, the last few nails in a coil-nail strap may have colored heads (i.e., heads that are a different color from nails that are set earlier from the same strap). When the worker observes these visibly-different nails being dispensed, she can prepare for running out of nails by requesting that a refill strap be brought from stores thereof.
Embodiments of the invention alter a standard, prior-art fastener supply for a fastening tool such as a power nailer or stapler in a way that alerts the user of the tool when the number of fasteners remaining in the tool runs low. A straightforward way of accomplishing this alerting function is to alter a visible characteristic of the last fastener (or the last few fasteners) in a refill in a way that is apparent to the user after that fastener (or those fasteners) have been placed.
Element 100 shows the last five nails in a coil (101-105). Nails 130 (and all the earlier-dispensed nails in the coil, which would lie to the left of the portion of the coil shown here) have a first visual appearance after driving into a workpiece. This visual appearance is represented by the uncolored nail heads. After nails 130 (and earlier-dispensed nails) are set, nails 140 are set. These have a second visual appearance after driving, indicated by the shaded nail heads. The user of the tool can distinguish nail heads 130 from nail heads 140, and is thus alerted that the nail coil is almost exhausted. The final nail in the coil, 150, has yet a third visual appearance, indicated by the black nail head. After this nail is driven, the tool is empty and the user should not attempt to fire it again.
An embodiment can function with any fastening tool that places fasteners taken sequentially from a store, cache, unit, magazine or other supply of fasteners. A tool that places fasteners taken randomly from a hopper or the like is not suitable. Fasteners implementing an embodiment of the invention must have at least two visually-different appearances within one magazine of functionally-equivalent fasteners, and fasteners dispensed earlier from the magazine should have a first uniform appearance, which changes to the second uniform appearance at a predetermined point in the magazine (i.e., fastener appearance should not change from the first appearance to the second appearance and back to the first appearance within a single magazine).
An embodiment may include two or more different fastener appearances, and the number of fasteners of each different appearance may vary. Preferably, the very last fastener in the magazine will be visually distinguishable from all other fasteners in the magazine, but an embodiment will function acceptably if the last few fasteners (e.g., the last five or ten fasteners) in the magazine are all visually identical.
Finally,
In this embodiment, the last staples to be dispensed from strip 500 (indicated at 510) have a corrugated or wavy back portion, which is visually distinguishable from the smooth backs of earlier-dispensed staples. Again, when the user observes these corrugated-back staples being set, she knows that the stapler is almost empty.
It is appreciated that colored fasteners (and fasteners having similar visually-distinguishable characteristics) are known in the art. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0260496 by Parmann describes nails for a pneumatic or electrical power nailer where each nail has a colored head. But Parmann's nails are all the same color—the purpose of the colored head is to assist in visually locating the nail after installation, for example for purposes of inspection. The color may also communicate the nail type or size, so that an inspector can confirm that the proper nail has been used in each location.
Embodiments of the present invention use different colors (or other different, visually-distinguishable characteristics) on fasteners that are otherwise the same. Here, the different visual characteristic communicates useful information to the worker when the fastener is being placed.
The applications of the present invention have been described largely by reference to specific examples and in terms of particular means of achieving visual distinguishability in fasteners such as nails and staples. However, those of skill in the art will recognize that the benefits of an embodiment can also be produced by fastener modifications that are visually distinguishable for other reasons than shape, color or texture. Such variations and implementations are understood to be captured according to the following claims.
