Patent Application
20100084799
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a class of ratchet clamp or lever clamp in general, and particularly to single hand operated ratchet clamp. A finger ring lever is attached to the free end of the lever element of the ratchet clamp for inserting one of operator's fingers so that the ratchet clamp can be operated to clamp workpiece(s) with one hand. An alternate design is making a finger hole on the free end of the lever element of the ratchet clamp.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical ratchet clamp comprises a slide rail, a fixed arm, a sliding arm which is free to slide over the slide rail, a lever element which is mounted in a pivotable manner on the sliding arm and a pressure plate which is mounted on the sliding arm and can be displaced transversely to the sliding arm pushing the workpiece against the fixed arm by the turning of the lever element. However, this clamping action on a workpiece usually requires two hands of an operator, with one hand holding the slide rail and the other hand operating the lever element due to the distance between the slide rail and the free end of the lever element. In this case, one may need a helping hand from other person to hold the workpiece(s) so that the clamping job can be completed. The present invention is devised to solve this problem.
The present invention comprises a ratchet clamp or lever clamp and a finger ring lever pivoted to the free end of the lever element. In order to clamp workpiece(s) with the present invention, an operator may hold the slide rail with one hand, push the sliding arm towards the fixed arm until the gap between the fixed arm and the sliding arm is slightly larger than the size of the workpiece(s) to be clamped, insert one of the five fingers of the same hand of the operator to the finger ring lever while holding the slide rail with the other four fingers, hold and place the workpiece(s) with the other hand between the fixed arm and the sliding arm, turn the lever element towards the slide rail so that the pressure plate is pushed towards the workpiece(s), and hence the workpiece(s) is(are) clamped between the fixed arm and the sliding arm. This clamping operation not only frees one hand of the operator for holding the workpiece(s) but it is faster also.
The finger ring lever can be replaced with a finger hole made on the free end of the lever element of the ratchet clamp.
With the help of the drawings and the detail description below, the features of the present invention will be apparent and fully understandable.
Referring to
To clamp a workpiece or workpieces with the present invention using one hand, an operator will hold the slide rail 1 with four fingers of one hand, push the sliding arm 2 with the remaining finger of the same hand towards the fixed arm 3 until the gap between the pressure plate 5 and fixed arm 3 is a bit bigger than the size of the workpiece(s). Put one of the five fingers of the same hand into the round hole 2111 of the finger ring lever 211 and pull the finger ring lever 211 towards the slide rail 1 while holding the workpiece(s) between the pressure plate 5 and the fixed arm 3 with the other hand. The pulling action on the finger ring lever 211 will turn the lever element 21 so that the pressure plate 5 is pushed towards the fixed arm 3 and as a result, the workpiece(s) is(are) clamped by the pressure plate 5 and the fixed arm 3. The clamping operation is completed by operating on the present invention with one hand while holding the workpiece(s) with the other hand.
As shown on
