Patent Grant
8556034
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for catching paint drips and paint scrapings. More particularly, its objective is to provide a more user-friendly and efficient attachment device to catch paint drips and flakes.
To avoid the mess of wet paint hitting the home tiles or driveway pavement, painters typically use a drop cloth or a plurality of drop cloths to prevent paint from staining furniture, carpets, tiles, pavement, etc. But drop cloths have a limit when trying to prevent wet paint from dripping or paint chips from falling into one's garden or flowerbed. Another popular item amateur or even professional painters use to prevent such paint stains are paint drip buckets, lids, or pans. These said items cover a less desirable area of space, making them inefficient and, many times, counterproductive for the painter. It is an object of the present invention to introduce a ladder accessory which allows the painter to efficiently catch paint chips and drips, thereby easily preventing potential stains and paint particles from falling on relevant surfaces, and using the accessory as a means to trap and easily transport scrapings to a wastebasket.
All illustrations of the drawings are for the purpose of describing selected versions of the present invention and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.
As can be seen in
The trough 12 is a long receptacle that is positioned underneath the area being painted. The trough 12 comprises a spine rod 13, a left hinge 14, a right hinge 15, a front frame 16, a back frame 17, and a fabric 18. The front frame 16 is the structure that delineates the front part of the trough 12, and the back frame 17 is the structure that delineates the back part of the trough 12. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the front frame 16 and the back frame 17 are staple shaped. The bottom left corner of the front frame 16 is jointly connected to the bottom left corner of the back frame 17 by the left hinge 14. Similarly, the bottom right corner of the front frame 16 is jointly connected to the bottom right corner of the back frame 17 by the right hinge 15. The left hinge 14 and the right hinge 15 allow the front frame 16 and the right frame to rotate about an axis containing both the left hinge 14 and the right hinge 15. The left hinge 14 and the right hinge 15 allows the front frame 16 and the back frame 17 to rotate away from each to make the trough 12 larger or allows the front frame 16 and the back frame 17 to rotate towards each other to make the trough 12 smaller, or to close the trough 12 entirely, to trap the contents of the trough 12. The spine rod 13 is positioned along the axis containing both the left hinge 14 and the right hinge 15 and is connected in between the left hinge 14 and the right hinge 15. The spine rod 13 is the structure that forms the bottom of the trough 12. The front frame 16, the spine rod 13, and the back frame 17 delineates the entire structure of the trough 12, but the fabric 18 actually allows the trough 12 to catch the wet paint drops and the dry paint chips. The fabric 18 is adhered to and stretched across the front frame 16, the spine rod 13, and the back frame 17.
To adequately position the trough 12, the front frame 16 rests against the wall that the ladder is leaning on, the back frame 17 rests against the ladder, and the spine rod 13 is supported from the bottom by both the left ladder attachment 1 and the right ladder attachment 2. The left ladder attachment 1 and the right ladder attachment 2 each comprise a ladder panel 3, a ladder insert 4, a handle 5, a pair of rod holes 6, an L-shaped rod 7, an extension arm 10, and a plurality of spine grooves 11. The configuration of either ladder attachment is illustrated in
The left ladder attachment 1 and the right ladder attachment 2 work in conjunction to support the trough 12 from the bottom. The extension arm 10 of the left ladder attachment 1 supports the bottom left half of the trough 12. The extension arm 10 of the right ladder attachment 2 supports the bottom right half of the trough 12 and is parallel to the extension arm 10 of the left ladder attachment 1. The plurality of spine grooves 11 is positioned on the extension arm 10. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the plurality of spine grooves 11 is semicircular notches filed into the extension arm 10. Each of the plurality of spine grooves 11 on the extension arm 10 of the left ladder attachment 1 has a corresponding spine groove positioned on the extension arm 10 of the right ladder attachment 2. The spine rod 13 is placed into one plurality of spine grooves 11 on the left ladder attachment 1 and the corresponding spine groove on the right ladder attachment 2 in order to prevent the trough 12 from sliding out of place on the left ladder attachment 1 and the right ladder attachment 2.
Although the invention has been explained in relation to its preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that many other possible modifications and variations can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as hereinafter claimed.
The current application claims a priority to the U.S. Provisional Patent application Ser. No. 61/381,102 filed on Sep. 9, 2010.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20120061400 A1 | Mar 2012 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61381102 | Sep 2010 | US |
