Patent Application
20170368658
The present disclosure generally relates to sanding wheels and more particularly relates to a sanding wheel that includes replaceable blades.
Sanding wheels are used for a variety of sanding and finishing applications. Non-limiting examples of these applications include sanding and finishing wood decks, removing mastic from floors, sanding tile floors, sanding walls and the like. A variety of sanding tools are available in the market.
Sanding wheels that are used with hand tools have been improved by Applicant. For example, Applicant promotes a sanding tool under U.S. Pat. No. 8,043,144. Such sanding tools have proven to be very successful in the market.
A need has arisen for an improved sanding wheel.
A sanding wheel is provided herein, the sanding wheel including a base having at least one riser, the riser including an angled face, the angled face being coplanar with a slot. A fastening clip is received on the angled face of the riser. The fastening clip includes a retaining spring that captures a blade having an abrasive on a first end. The blade has an aperture at a second end and a shoulder positioned adjacent the aperture, where the retaining spring is sized to be received in the aperture so that the blade is fastened to the sanding wheel.
The sanding wheel may include a plurality of concentric risers and the riser may include a pair of slots and a boss. In a first preferred embodiment, the base may be made with plastic and the blade may be made from metal.
A sanding blade is also provided where the sanding blade is configured for attachment to a sanding wheel where the sanding wheel includes a retaining spring associated therewith. The blade includes a sanding section having a hard abrasive particle affixed thereto; and a retaining shoulder adjacent to an aperture in the sanding blade the retaining shoulder sized to mate with the retaining spring.
The drawings show exemplary views an improved sanding wheel according to the principles of the present disclosure that, e.g., provides blades that snap into place without the need for separate fasteners and an expensive base. The sanding wheel includes a base having several risers that substantially axially protrude from a front face of the base and, in some embodiments, are arranged on the front face in a substantially circular shape about a center portion of the base. In some embodiments, the substantially circular arrangement of the risers may be concentric with a center axis of a fastener of the sanding wheel configured to engage a mount or output shaft of a hand tool.
These risers support a sanding blade as described herein. In some embodiments of a sanding wheel according to the principles of the present disclosure, e.g. wheels designed for use with smaller hand tools, there may be six risers. In other embodiments of a sanding wheel according to the principles of the present disclosure, e.g. wheels designed for use with larger tools, there may be more risers. It should be understood that the exemplary embodiments herein, illustrating a set of six risers arranged in a substantially circular shape, substantially equally angularly spaced within that substantially circular arrangement, the substantially circular arrangement being substantially concentric with the fastener 60, is exemplary. The configuration, total number of one or more risers, should not be understood to be limited to the exemplary embodiments of this disclosure. Rather, many variations of configuration of one or more risers on a sanding wheel should be understood to be within the scope of this disclosure.
Each riser includes an angled face, relative to the front face of the base, and an associated slot, defined in part by the angled face. A fastening clip is configured to be received on the angled face and in the slot and to be captured on, i.e. relatively coupled to, the angled face. The fastening clip includes a retaining spring operable to secure a sanding blade. The retaining spring is positioned below the opening of the slot. The sanding blade includes an aperture and shoulder where the retaining spring is received in the aperture and, in cooperation with slot, captured thereby. As described herein, the base includes a plastic material, and each of the fastening clip and blade include a metal material. An abrasive is bonded to the blade. According to the principles of the present disclosure, the abrasive may include diamond material. As such, it should be understood that, as used herein, “sanding” and other derivative terms refers to abrading, generally, i.e. being or operable as an abrasive, inclusive of any suitable abrasive materials, e.g. diamonds. The tool described herein may be particularly useful to sand wood decks or polish concrete.
With reference to the drawings where like elements are numbered alike, there is shown a sanding wheel 10. As shown, sanding wheel 10 includes a carrier base 12 with a generally circular front face 13. The sanding wheel 10 further includes one or more risers 14 extending from the base 12. As shown, in some embodiments, the sanding wheel 10 includes six risers 14 extending axially away from the front face 13 of the base 12, with the axial direction defined along an axis A of a fastener 60 of the wheel 10, described in further detail herein. The front face 13 may be substantially orthogonal to the axial direction.
With reference to
With reference to
Each riser 14 further includes a cross member 17 axially between the outermost end of the angled face 16 and the front face 13. At each riser 14, therefore, each cross member 17 is outside of and radially overlaps the respective angled face 16 to create, with the respective angled face 16, a pocket or slot 19. In some embodiments, the pocket 19 is configured with a height between the angled face 16 and the cross member 17 corresponding to the total thickness of the fastening clip and the sanding blade. As shown in
With reference to
With reference to
Aperture 54 is defined about its perimeter by a shoulder 56. The sanding blade 50 is received in pocket 19 and is captured on fastening clip 40 by fitting aperture 54 over cross member 46 and retaining spring 48 such that retaining tab spring 48 mechanically engages shoulder 56. The engagement of the sanding blade 50 by the pocket 19 and the retaining tab spring 48 mechanically locks the sanding blade 50 relative to the riser 14 and the base 12. Once each blade 50 is locked into place the manufacturing process of the tool is complete.
As shown in the exemplary embodiment herein fastening clip 40 does not extend beyond a top edge of riser 14. In alternate embodiments, fastening clip 40 may extend beyond the top edge of riser 14 to provide blade 50 additional support.
In other alternate embodiments, a retaining tab may be integrally formed in the angled face in the riser, and the fastening clip and boss may be omitted. In such an embodiment, the pocket between the angled face and the cross member may be configured with a height corresponding to the thickness of the sanding blade only, and the integral retaining tab may protrude into the pocket. The engagement of the sanding blade by the pocket and the retaining tab may mechanically lock the sanding blade relative to the riser and the base.
The sanding wheel according to the principles of the present invention is configured to couple to a mount and/or an output axis of a tool. For example, the exemplary wheel 10 includes a fastener 60 fixed at in a center portion 62 of base 12. The base 12 may include a through aperture (not shown), and the fastener 60 may be aligned with the through aperture. In some embodiments, e.g., the fastener 60 may be in the form of a threaded nut affixed to the center portion 62 and overlapping the through aperture, so that a complementary threaded bolt or stud may threadingly engage the fastener 60 from either axial direction. Fastener 60 may be configured to attach to a variety of devices which will rotate sanding wheel 10. These devices are not shown but may include a high speed grinding tool which may operate at between 5000 rpm to 15,000 rpm.
Accordingly, it is to be understood that the above description is intended to be illustrative and not restrictive. Many embodiments and applications other than the examples provided would be apparent upon reading the above description. The scope should be determined, not with reference to the above description, but should instead be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled. It is anticipated and intended that future developments will occur in the technologies discussed herein, and that the disclosed systems and methods will be incorporated into such future embodiments. In sum, it should be understood that the application is capable of modification and variation.
All terms used in the claims are intended to be given their ordinary meanings as understood by those knowledgeable in the technologies described herein unless an explicit indication to the contrary is made herein. In particular, use of the singular articles such as “a,” “the,” “said,” etc. should be read to recite one or more of the indicated elements unless a claim recites an explicit limitation to the contrary.
The Abstract is provided to allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in various embodiments for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separately claimed subject matter.
