Patent Application
20110143847
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an entertainment and sport equipment, in particular to a pool table.
2. Description of the Related Art
The cue sport refers to a kind of fashionable and decorous sport events, which provides an entertainment and involves in an extreme skill. Following the growth of economic, progress of society, and incessant development of sport events, the cue sport becomes popular among the public and is deemed as one of the international sport events. The pool table is basic equipment in the cue sport. Normally, the typical pool table essentially includes a table board and multiple legs supporting the board; wherein, the board has a hitting zone, around which six respective pockets are correspondently disposed. Under each pocket, a gathering device is disposed. While playing the cue sport, people organizes using a cue stick to aim at a white ball and shot it to push other colorful balls into the respective pockets for a competition or an amusement. Further, the balls inside the pockets are collected by the gathering device allowable for people to take the balls out and use for the next playing.
However, the typical pool table may satisfy the basic function required in the cue sport but still fails to attain a preferable effectiveness as some problems still exists on its structures and utilization, especially to the gathering device. The disadvantages of the typical pool table as described as follows:
The primary object of the present invention is to solve the conventional problems of the typical technique and to provide a pool table which takes advantage of a specific guiding oblique slot included in the gathering structure so as to efficiently attain a smooth guidance while collecting balls.
A further object is to provide a pool table which streamlines the configuration and facilitates a convenient assemblage in production.
Accordingly, the pool table in accordance with the present invention include a table board with pockets defined thereon and a table base disposed under the table board; wherein, the table base comprises two longer rails, two shorter rails, and a plurality of legs; each of the longer rails has an interior barrier and an exterior barrier longitudinally and parallel spaced thereon; two bottom slant plates are laterally disposed between the interior barrier and the exterior barrier; a guiding oblique slot, defined on the bottom slant plates, is enclosed by the interior barrier, the exterior barrier, and the bottom slant plates; the bottom slant plates provide slopes respectively extending aslant and downward from two edges of the longer rail toward a middle thereof and convene at the middle to generate a gathering zone.
Preferably, an arcuate guiding recess is defined on a surface of the bottom slant plates.
Preferably, a soft buffer layer covers a surface of the bottom slant plates.
Preferably, a gathering frame is disposed in the gathering zone; a goal susceptible of reversibility is defined at an exterior side of the gathering frame for a convenience of taking balls out.
Preferably, the gathering zone aims at a side pocket of the table board.
Preferably, the interior barrier, the exterior barrier, and the bottom slant plates are all made of wood.
Preferably, a top of the slope aims at a corner pocket of the table board.
Preferably, the guiding oblique slot adopts a straight railway.
By comparing with the typical technique, the present invention preferably attains better advantages and effects. More specifically, according to the above configuration, the present invention has a gathering structure respectively disposed inside the two longer rails, in which two independent gathering zones are preferably defined. Such design leads to the guiding oblique slot forming in a straight railway for omitting the design of the conventional curved ramp and allowing balls to straightly roll therein, so as to efficiently prevent the occurrence of blocking and attains a smooth rolling of the balls. Furthermore, due to the fact that the present gathering structure is constructed by the enclosure of the interior barrier, the exterior barrier, and the bottom slant plates, the gathering structure could be immediately finished when the longer rails are accomplished, which hence streamlining the manufacture of the product, increasing the production efficiency, and decreasing the costs. What is more, the guiding oblique slot of the present invention preferably made of wood could attain a better strength and durability than the typical ones made of plastic or net materials.
The advantages of the present invention over the known prior arts will become more apparent to those of ordinary skilled in the art by reading the following descriptions with relating drawings.
Continuing with the aforementioned, the table base 20 is supportably disposed under the table board 10. The table base 20 comprises two longer rails 21, two shorter rails 22, and a plurality of legs 23; wherein, the two longer rails 21 are juxtaposed and disposed parallel with each other, and the two shorter rails 22 are juxtaposed and disposed parallel with each other as well. The longer rails 21 and shorter rails 22 are engaged together to enclose a rectangular frame, and the four legs 23 respectively connect to four corners of the rectangular frame, so as to construct the table base.
Furthermore, referring to
In this preferred embodiment, a gathering frame is disposed in the gathering zone 24, and the gathering frame is upwardly communicated with the side pocket 122 of the table board. Further, a goal 241 is preferably defined at an exterior side of the gathering frame, and the goal 241 is susceptible of reversibility for people to conveniently taking balls out.
Also referring to
In operation, when the struck balls 30 enter the four corner pockets 121, the balls 30 would drop into the first guiding oblique slot 201 or the second guiding oblique slot 202 and would automatically move by self-rolling due to the gravity and gather in the gathering zone 24. As long as the balls 30 are pushed toward the two side pockets 122, the balls 30 would directly fall off into the gathering zone 24 for a collection. Consequently, the balls inside the six pockets would be automatically gather in the two gathering frames and the user could reverse and open the goal 241 to take all the balls out for a next operation.
The characterized design of the present invention is to adopt a specific gathering structure different from the typical designs, which preferably distinguishes from the typical ones and attains the effects as follows:
Initially, by means of respectively disposing the gathering structure in the two longer rails and forming two independent gathering zones therein, the present design leads to the guiding oblique slot forming in a straight railway for omitting the design of the curved ramp and allowing balls to straightly roll therein, so as to efficiently prevent from blocking the moving of balls and attains a smooth rolling in time of operation.
Furthermore, due to the fact that the present gathering structure is constructed by the enclosure of the interior barrier, the exterior barrier, and the bottom slant plates, the gathering structure could be immediately finished when the longer rails are accomplished, which hence streamlining the manufacture of the product, increasing the production efficiency, and decreasing the costs.
Besides, the guiding oblique slot of the present invention preferably made of wood could attain a better strength and durability than the typical ones made of plastic or net materials.
While we have shown and described the embodiment in accordance with the present invention, it should be clear to those skilled in the art that further embodiments may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
