Patent Application
20070062969
Disposable toweling for home use has been widely sold in the form of rolls of perforated toweling, commonly referred to as kitchen roll towel. While roll toweling is extremely economical and easily manufactured, dispensers for kitchen roll towel are usually distinctly utilitarian and lacking in aesthetic appeal, even if made of relatively high-cost materials such as stainless steel, brass or wood. Further, such dispensers are normally either mounted to a wall or provided with a heavy base to provide the resistance required to enable the user to separate a towel from the remainder of the roll with a single hand without tipping. This invention is directed to a toweling system comprising a dispenser and folded toweling therefor which needs neither to be fixed to a wall nor to incorporate a heavy base but rather may be easily placed in any of a wide variety of postures while retaining the ability for the user to single-handedly obtain a single towel.
The dispenser of the present toweling system comprises a generally prismatic housing having resilient protuberate peripheral plinths formed at opposed ends thereof. A hinged cambered access panel having an interiorly projecting (downwardly projecting when the access panel is uppermost) incurvate lip is rotatable between a closed position and an open position providing access to the interior, the incurvate lip being located away from the hinge and being at least partially overlapped by a cambered panel having an access concavity formed therein, the interiorly projecting incurvate lip being inwardly spaced from the panel with a biconvex lenticulate slot therebetween defining an opening through which toweling may be removed. Preferably, the concavity is formed along an edge on a minor lateral face of said prism closely adjacent to said interiorly projecting incurvate lip, while a spring engaging a backing plate is provided to urge a stack of toweling between the cambered panel and backing plate within said housing toward the slot. In more preferred embodiments, four exterior panels forming the lateral faces of the prismatic housing camber outwardly while the interiorly projecting incurvate lip bows inwardly so that, when viewed in section, the slot defined between the downwardly projecting incurvate lip and the outwardly cambered panel adjacent thereto presents a biconvex lenticulate shape being wider near its center than at either of its outward termini when viewed in section.
FIGS. 8 is a perspective illustrating the dispenser in an opened configuration with a spring pressing against a backing plate and urging a stack of toweling toward the outwardly cambered minor lateral panel.
In
Accordingly, it can be appreciated that dispenser 100 can be disposed in a wide variety of postures on an available horizontal surface according to the user's space available, aesthetic urges or whims, yet stably rest upon resilient protuberate peripheral plinths 26 without incurring marring contact between the supporting surface and either of end panels 22 or 24 or any of the outwardly cambered lateral panels 34, 36, 38, or 40. Thus, the dispenser may be stably placed for dispensing upwardly, forwardly or sideways with either hand depending upon the posture chosen by the user while avoiding contact which might mar either the surface upon which the dispenser rests or any of the panels of the dispensers.
As illustrated in
Preferably, interiorly projecting incurvate lip 46 is spaced inwardly by a distance “δ” from outwardly cambered minor lateral panel 40 of from about 0.5 to about 1 in., most preferably 730 mils, along the center line of dispenser 100 while interiorly projecting incurvate lip 46 projects below outwardly cambered access panel 38 by a distance “S” of approximately 1.5″ to 1.75″, most preferably 1.63″ below. Preferably, if slot 47 has a width of 10.5′, incurvate lip 46 is only very gently curved, having a radius of curvature lying in the horizontal plane of approximately 45″. Inasmuch as incurvate lip 46 is curved inwardly while minor lateral panel 40 is cambered outwardly, dispensing aperture 45 when viewed in plan view has a generally biconvex lenticulate shape.
We have found that it is particularly beneficial to dispensing if concavity 42 in cambered minor lateral panel 40 has a shape closely conforming to that shown in
Plinths 26 may be formed from thermoplastic elastomers, thermoplastic olefins, thermoplastic vulcanizates, silicone rubber, or polyurethane. Typically, we prefer that plinths 26 have a hardness of between 15 and 90 as measured on the Shore Q scale. The degree polymerization of plinths 26 should be controlled such that the polymer is non-marking. The remainder of the body of dispenser 100 may be formed by injection molding, thermoforming or any other convenient method. Preferably, the panels will be injection molding from ABS copolymer—poly(acrylonitrile, butadiene, styrene), polystyrene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride or any other convenient engineering resin.
Toweling for the present dispenser system preferably comprises two-ply through air dried product in the Z-fold configuration with the overall unfolded sheet size being 9¼″ by 11″ with a folded sheet size of 9¼″ by 3⅝″. Owing to the vagaries of sheet stacking, a 60 count stack of 31lb. toweling will typically have a gross size of 9¼″×3¾″×4¼″. Such toweling is far more easily dispensed single-handedly when the dispensing aperture is configured as described above using the preferred dimensions. Such toweling will preferably have a caliper of between 160 and 210 mils/8 sheets measured under a load of 540 g. The CD wet tensile is preferably at least about 440 g/3″ measured by the Finch cup method for ease in dispensing with wet hands.
