The present invention relates to fastening tools, and more particularly to fastening tools with fastener magazines.
Fastening tools, such as concrete nailers, staplers, and other nailers, are normally provided with fastener magazines. Although the magazines are useful for supplying fasteners to be driven into a work surface so that the operator does not have to reload the fastening tool after every shot, fastener magazines present their own set of problems. One of the greatest drawbacks is that fasteners frequently jam in the magazine and fastening tool mechanisms, as they exit the magazine into position along the drive axis of the fastening tool. Then it becomes necessary for the operator to stop work and clear the fastener jam. If, as is frequently the case, the jam is not readily accessible with the magazine attached to the fastening tool, the operator must at least partially remove the magazine from the fastening tool. Ideally, the magazine can be completely removed from the fastening tool to expose more of the drive track for clearing the jam, or to load more fasteners.
However, providing a fastening tool with a totally-removable magazine presents another set of problems. A typical job site demands that any system for retaining the magazine on the fastening tool be robust. This means, for example, that the magazine will not separate from or become misaligned with the fastening tool during the hard use typically experienced by a fastening tool in that environment. In addition to the typical shocks that a fastening tool encounters during the course of the day when being thrust against unyielding work surfaces, fastening tools are frequently dropped; and at the end of the day, they are often thrown into the back of a pickup truck. So the core issue is, how do you design a magazine retention system in which the magazine is easily removable, but that consistently survives the rigors of the job site? It is no wonder that many fastening tool manufacturers have opted to produce tools either with non-removable magazines, or tools where only part of the magazine is removable to clear jams or to load fasteners into the magazine.
To date, conventional attempts to solve the problem have been unsatisfactory. On the one hand, some manufacturers have opted to use simple hook-and-latch systems in an effort to keep costs down. However many of these types of systems fail to maintain the magazine in alignment with the fastening tool drive track, thereby creating a jam-plagued tool, and others simply do not survive long on the job site. On the other hand, in attempting to make magazine retention systems more robust, several manufacturers have made their systems unduly complicated and expensive, such as by requiring that the operator use tools and/or manipulate the latch mechanisms along two or more axes. For example, one conventional system requires that the fastening tool operator use two simultaneous but different motions, namely moving a lever in one direction while simultaneously pushing a button in another direction to release the magazine from the fastening tool. Another system uses an expensive assembly of multiple spring-biased components to latch and unlatch the magazine from the fastening tool. Furthermore, conventional fastening tools with magazines, particularly concrete nailers, do not provide full access to the fastening tool drive track to enable jams involving nails as long as 2½ inches to be easily cleared.
In essence, the state of the art has yielded just two types of solutions: cheap, but not robust; or much more expensive, complicated and more difficult to use. What is needed is a tool-free, low-cost system that requires only a single motion to attach a magazine to, or release it from, a fastening tool, but that provides consistently robust magazine retention even under the most challenging of job site conditions. What is also needed is a magazine that will cooperate with the fastening tool drive track if a nail, including a nail at least as long as 2½ inches, is ever jammed, to provide ready access to the drive track to clear the jam.
Accordingly, one embodiment of the fastening tool of the present invention provides an elegant solution to all of these problems. In essence, the fastening tool operator need only rotate a one-piece wedge or cam in a single motion against one of a fastening tool housing member and a magazine housing member, thereby sandwiching the wedge and housing members together to releasably retain the magazine on the fastening tool. If desired, that single motion also can simultaneously move one or more lobes of the cam into one or more chambers defined by one of the fastening tool and magazine housings, which thus provides a secondary retention system that is useful, for example, if the fastening tool is dropped. A biasing agent cooperates with the cam to create an over-center latch that releasably retains the cam in the latched position.
To remove the magazine, the fastening tool operator need only rotate a cam lever in the opposite direction to rotate the cam and disengage the over-center latch. This rotation simultaneously releases the wedge and moves the cam lobe(s) out of the chamber(s). The magazine can now be removed from the fastening tool. The magazine retention system of the present invention thus provides a single-motion, tool-free method for quickly and reliably disconnecting a magazine from, and reattaching a magazine to, the fastening tool. Furthermore, the magazine includes a drive interface that cooperates with a drive track of the fastening tool to guide the nails, including those at least as long as 2½ inches, along the drive axis. When the magazine is removed to clear a jam, a full 2½ inches of the concrete nailer drive track is exposed, thereby giving an operator sufficient access to clear the jam.
In addition to being simple, easy to use and robust, the magazine retention system of the present invention is inexpensive to implement. One major reason is because the fastening tool and magazine housings themselves not only provide two of the elements of the wedge sandwich, but also define the chambers for retaining the cam lobes. Inasmuch as the housing members are formed during the same molding operations as are the rest of the respective fastening tool and magazine housings, the housing members are provided at little or no additional cost. Another major reason is that only three additional parts need be provided to complete the magazine retention system of the present invention: a cam, a pressure member and a spring, which three parts cooperate to form the over-center latch system.
Another embodiment of a magazine retention system of the present invention also provides a simplified and even less expensive, yet robust, solution for releasably connecting a fastener magazine to a fastening tool. In this embodiment, one of the fastening tool and fastener magazine housing members includes a floating nut operatively associated with a bolt defining an axis. The other of the fastening tool and fastener magazine housing members defines a bolt receptacle operatively associated with the bolt and being axially aligned with the bolt axis. The fastener magazine is first attached to the fastening tool; the bolt is then threaded through the floating nut and is tightened against the bolt receptacle, thereby releasably retaining the magazine on the fastening tool. One of the advantages of this embodiment is that the bolt receptacle may be configured to define a conical surface axially aligned with the bolt and the floating nut, so that the bolt receptacle conical surface and the bolt cooperate to compensate for variations in tolerances as the bolt is tightened through the nut and against the receptacle.
The above-mentioned and other features and advantages of this invention, and the manner of attaining them, will become more apparent and the invention will be better understood by reference to the following description of an embodiment of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views. The exemplifications set out herein illustrate embodiments of the present invention, and such exemplifications are not to be construed as limiting the scope of the present invention in any manner.
Referring now to the drawings and particularly to
At this point, it should be noted that although the embodiments of the present invention depicted in the Drawings are shown as concrete nailers, it will be appreciated that the present invention can be incorporated in any fastening tool, including, without limitation, staplers and other nailers. Furthermore, although the embodiments of the magazine retention system 25 are shown being used in connection with a fastening tool using an electric-powered drive system, it will be appreciated that the magazine retention system of the present invention is also capable of being used in connection with fastening tools using pneumatic, hydraulic, and gas/explosive drive systems, among others.
Moving now to the magazine 50, one embodiment is shown, for example, in
It will be useful now to describe how the fastening tool 10 and the magazine 50 cooperate to provide ready access to a nail ranging in length up to at least 2½ inches. Referring to
Looking now at
As shown in
The biasing agent 100 is shown for example in
A first element of a method according to the present invention of removably retaining the magazine 52 on the fastening tool 10 includes using the cam 80 to wedge a magazine housing member 56 against a fastening tool housing member 24, as shown by arrows W in
When the operator has moved the cam lever 82 to its closed or latched position shown in
The wedged elements 24, 56 and 80 are releasably retained in their latched or closed position by the operation of an over-center latch created by the cooperation of the cam 80 with the biasing agent 100. Referring once again to the cam profiles 88, 108 shown, respectively, in
In one embodiment of the magazine retention system 25, the springs 102 should be selected to exert a total of from 1 to 5 pounds of force (½ pound to 2½ pounds each) and preferably 3 pounds (1½ pounds each). Another embodiment of a cam 80′ cooperating with a biasing agent 100′ is shown in
As shown in
In the first embodiment of the fastening tool 10 and magazine 50 of the present invention shown in
As shown in
Referring now to
As an operator begins to rotate the cam lever 82 clockwise from the open or unlatched position shown in
Returning to the embodiment of the fastening tool 200 and magazine 250 shown in
Referring now to
Magazine 350 includes magazine alignment surfaces 351 that cooperate with the fastening tool housing 302 and alignment surfaces 330 to retain the magazine properly oriented with the fastening tool 300. The magazine 350 also includes a magazine housing 352, a plurality of nails 354, and magazine housing members 356. One such magazine housing member 356 may include a bolt receptacle 358 defining a conical inner surface 360.
To retain the magazine 350 on the fastening tool 300, the magazine is first placed into alignment with the fastening tool, as was previously described, so that the bolt receptacle 358, bolt tip 336, and bolt head 332 are axially aligned along axis 338. Then the bolt 331 is threaded into engagement with the bolt receptacle 358, and is tightened in the floating nut 326. The geometry of the conical surface 360 of the bolt receptacle 358 cooperates with the tip 336 of the bolt 331 to compensate for variations in tolerances in the bolt receptacle, bolt, magazine 350 and fastening tool 300 as the bolt is tightened in the floating nut 326. For example, if the bolt 331 is slightly off-center with axis 338, the receptacle conical surface 360 ensures that the bolt nevertheless makes firm contact with the receptacle 358. It should be noted that, if desired, the locations of the respective retention components on the fastening tool 300 and magazine 350 may be reversed, for example, by mounting the bolt 331 and nut 332 on the magazine 350, and the bolt receptacle 358 on the fastening tool 300.
It can now be seen that two embodiments of the magazine 50, 250 of the present invention can be removably but securely retained on the fastening tool 10, 200 of the present invention by rotating a one-piece wedge or cam 80, 280, using a single motion in a single plane, as part of an over-center latch. Thus, the magazine retention system 25 of the present invention according to such two embodiments requires absolutely no tools, and provides a simple yet elegant solution to the problems previously embodied in conventional fastening tools.
While the present invention has been described with respect to various embodiments of a concrete nailer, the present invention may be further modified within the spirit and scope of this disclosure to apply to other products as well. This application is therefore intended to cover any variations, uses, or adaptations of the present invention using its general principles. Further, this application is intended to cover such departures from the present disclosure as come within known or customary practice in the art to which this invention pertains and which fall within the limitations of the appended claims.
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Entry |
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Extended European Search Report dated Mar. 29, 2018. |
Hilti DX460—at least as early as Mar. 17, 2016. |
Hilti DX351—at least as early as Mar. 17, 2016. |
Ramset XT540—at least as early as Mar. 17, 2016. |
Hilti GX120—at least as early as Mar. 17, 2016. |
Simpson GCN-MEPMAG—at least as early as Mar. 17, 2016. |
Ramset Trackfast—at least as early as Mar. 17, 2016. |
T3 Ramset—at least as early as Mar. 17, 2016. |
Hilti GX2—at least as early as Mar. 17, 2016. |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20180001451 A1 | Jan 2018 | US |