Abstract: An illuminated, shallow weatherproof signage character has individual three dimensional back-lighted/front/side and/or silhouette-lighting, with frosted areas of plastic, with virtually no limitation on the size or number of individual characters, which may be moulded or machined from solid plastic, which is U/V protected. Miniature, preferably LED lamps are concealed in the character. The life of the LED lamps is extended by limiting the applied voltage and the “on” time. The signage characters are usually elevated from their supporting surface, to effect back-lighting. Colored LED's or a RBG LED, can be used selectively to color the plastic signage.

Abstract: A door actuating system has a fractional horsepower motor mounted on the door adjacent its free edge, driving a clutch connected to a duplex capstan pulley that is wrapped by two tensioned flexible static lines, for opening/closing movement ‘along the line’. The motor also drives a gear that engages a rack projecting from the door frame, to displace the door relative to its frame. Rotation of the gear is read by a rotary encoder, which feeds a microprocessor, to continuously monitor the location, speed and direction of motion of the door, for both the ‘on’ and the ‘off’ condition of the electric motor. A latching clip over-rides action of the original door latch.

Abstract: A lightweight, portable post-anchor is readily secured to the ground without the use of tools, and is readily removed for re-use elsewhere, being used with a beach-style umbrella, and/or a table. It can support citronella torches, games nets and signage. The high strength plastic anchor has integral spikes projecting downwardly, and reinforced upper and lower surfaces to provide end loading spaces, for a users foot to force the spikes into the ground. The gusset-reinforced base plate is reinforced with ribs under the loading spaces, and an upstanding gusset-reinforced tube to hold a beach umbrella and/or a table; and to serve as a lever for removing the anchor from the ground.

Abstract: A banner is displayed about a tower structure, such as a water tower, by a system that enables ready substitution or replacement of the banner, without the use of high-lift equipment. The fabric banner is segmented, of wind permeable stretchable fabric, and mounted on rings that are carried on cables, suspended from a capstan atop the tower. Cable guidance pulleys, mounted on trolleys that run on a peripheral track about the top of the tower, enable the banner to be reoriented about the tower. The capstan and trolleys may be remotely controlled.

Abstract: A rotary tool used with a pneumatic or an electric drill, for polishing truck wheels, adjacent the in-situ nuts, has a chuck mounted on a driving shaft, the chuck including an outer cylindrical housing, a centre housing with a replaceable guide bushing, and an annular interior passage containing a projecting flexible, fabric polishing sleeve. The guide bushing slides in centering relation over a wheel nut. The annular fabric sleeve protrudes beyond the front of the tool, and radially outwardly, to engage and polish the skirt of the nut and a surrounding portion of the wheel, with pre-applied polishing compound.

Abstract: A suspended scaffold, which hangs from the wall plate within a frame structure, has two hangar brackets attached to the wall plate. Each bracket has an outer retainer bar for insertion between the wall plate outer face and an adjoining sheathing panel. A cooperating clamp portion has a cross-bar lying upon the top face of the wall plate and a downwardly extending load bar and extension piece having a forwardly projecting braced foot which carries the platform lumber. Pivotal links connecting the clamp portion with the extension piece enable clamp opening/closing, and include disabling and safety locks that are engaged by the extension piece. The braced foot portion, which has a plank-retaining toe, can be folded up when free of platform lumber.

Abstract: An elastic visor for detachable mounting on headwear is of sheet neoprene having a reinforcing layer of nylon, with a crown aperture that is stretched around, and grips the surface of a headwear to which it is mounted. The neoprene, of about five millimeter thickness, serves to grip the surface of the headwear. The flexible material of the visor permits the peak to deflect under the application of undue force. Ear-protective side flaps and an extended protective neck-flap portion can be incorporated. Decorative crown cut-outs are silhouetted against the helmet.

Abstract: A range of damage and wear-susceptible articles, including such as drinkware and flatware, and heat-susceptible articles, have a tough, protective plastic coating applied in sealing, protective relation with a surface portion. The protective coating may hermetically seal underlying decorative material, including toxic materials. Digital ink jet printing may be applied directly or by transfer, including pad transfer. A plastic undercoating incorporating an adhesion promoting additive may first be applied by DIJ printing or by flow coating. The impact resistance of drinking glasses can be improved ten-fold with a hard, visually undetectible 5-mil outer coating selected from polyesters and other polymers, polyurethanes and acrylates having the desired visual, toughness and bonding characteristics. With u.v. curing, high speed economic automated line production, the process is applicable to a wide range of articles.

Abstract: In a load tie-down system that incorporates a wind-down winch for securing and tensioning a hold-down member, the improvement consists of incorporating a tensioning spring that maintains a resilient loading upon the drum of the winch, such that in the event of reduction in the tension of the hold-down member, the drum is driven in a winding-on sense, to maintain tension in the hold-down member. A releasable coupling between the spring and the winch drum enables independent operation of the winch and of the tensioning spring. One embodiment incorporates a spring mounted upon an extension of the winch drum, outside the frame. Helical springs are used. The spring torque is automatically connected to the winch drum, and is automatically disconnected when the spring is de-tensioned.

Abstract: A conveyor vacuum system for transporting objects while applying vacuum to their undersides has a series of self-contained suction transfer blocks, each with a sensor low pressure air jet for detecting the presence of an article upon the conveyor belt, which sensor directly controls the application of high vacuum from an air driven ejector through the conveyor belt, to draw-down and secure the overlying object to the belt. A position encoder driven off the conveyor end pulley gives accurate stop/start operation of the conveyor (including reversal) for multiple work stations. Side by side conveyors can be clutch-driven from a common drive shaft. Return air has oily contaminants removed. The transfer blocks may also be “blown” to help support a load on the belt.

Abstract: A spring-loaded bobbin for use in tying fly fishing lures has a simple frame carrying a support mechanism having a centered bearing by which an off-the-shelf spool of tying thread is rotatably mounted. The frame carries a thread guide tube that is centered on and extends at rightangles to the spool axis, to receive and deliver the thread. The spool support mechanism includes a coil spring that is tensioned upon the withdrawal of thread from off the spool, so that, on release of the thread by the user, the spool is reverse wound by the tensioned spring, to take up the slack in the thread.

Abstract: An improved cutting filament for use in a rotary trimmer is an extruded resin, being subject to vertical extrusion to sustain true-section profile, and to structural orientation to enhance the strength and toughness of the material. One embodiment, a polygonal extruded section is drawn down in size, being found to possess improved abrasive, herbiage-cutting characteristics. One embodiment has a finned profile with at least one fin in the form of a projecting rib, preferably with a scarified surface, to enhance its abrasive characteristics. In a polygonal section, the fin portions of the section are located at the apices of the polygon. The draw-down molecular orientation process enables the use of an extrusion die of sufficient size that the scarified finning provision is readily incorporated into the die.

Abstract: Lightweight advertising emblems that are readily knocked down into compact packages are mounted upon light standards or upon free-standing masts which use bases that incorporate local ballasting agents such as paving stones, gravel, sand, stones or water. The emblems have a display surface which may be planar, or may be wrapped to form a three-dimensional object, such as a giant sized paper drinking cup, complete with straw, an olympic style torch or other representation. The display surface is preferably of knitted material such as a polyester fabric, that may be printed upon by a silk-screen process, and is highly resistant to creasing. In the case of planar, banner-like displays, the mounting may include a rotary bearing, to permit weathervaning of the banner, for minimum wind resistance and dynamic display.

Abstract: House wares, including frangible wares, comprising glassware, earthenware including china, and ceramics, the glassware including dishes and vessels such as drinking glasses, are coated with a protective plastic coating, usually including an initial adhesion-promoting silane, and a coating of urethane, such as a high temperature urethane to give protection to the underlying layers, and to the article, including protection within a commercial dishwasher. The silane combines with glass, and couples strongly with urethane. The urethane is highly receptive to decoration, which may be transferred or printed onto the urethane surface. If sublimation is applied to the decoration, then subsequent application of a sealing outer coat of urethane may prove unnecessary.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method of making an interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) of at least a first polymer and a second polymer from a first and second component wherein the first component is the first polymer, or a polymerizable reactant selected from monomers or pre-polymers polymerizable to the first polymer and mixtures thereof, and the second component is a polymerizable reactant selected from monomers or pre-polymers polymerizable to the second polymer and mixtures thereof, the method comprising the steps of forming a reaction mixture of at least the first component, the second component, an initiator or catalyst and a crosslinker, effecting polymerization and crosslinking of polymerizable reactant, and recovering the IPN so obtained, wherein during the polymerization and crosslinking, a surface of the reaction mixture is maintained in contact with a third component comprising each said polymerizable reactant at a chemical potential similar to the chemical potential of the same reactant in th

Abstract: A covering sheet for applying to a selected surface in substantially fitted, covering relation consists of a flexible sheet of predetermined size and thickness, having a rectangular grid of lines to provide rectilinear yield lines (lines of weakness) extending in a first direction and in a second direction at right angles to the first direction, to enable tearing by hand along selected ones to the grid lines as a tear in a first direction, the sheet having individual perforations extending completely through its thickness, and located at the points of intersection of the axes of the lines of weakness. The perforations facilitate changes in the direction of a tear at a selected point of intersection, to extend the tear in the second direction, to achieve a desired size of sheet.

Abstract: A door lock for use with a door having a through bore and an intermediate transverse aperture connecting said bore with an edge of the door, into which through bore actuator portions of the lock are inserted, and through which transverse aperture a latch portion of the lock is inserted; the lock having an outer first portion insertable into an outer portion of the through bore, an inner second lock portion insertable into an inner portion of the through bore, the lock first portion having at its inner end a laterally extending slot to receive the latch portion in entered relation therein, the lock second portion having a threaded cylindrical portion at its inner end, the lock first portion having a threaded inner end portion to make threaded engagement with the lock second portion, enabling rapid mounting of a lock within a door.

Abstract: A laminated non-slip liner or mat comprises a first lower laminate layer, the undersurface thereof having printed thereon a pattern of relatively high friction material; a second laminate upper layer of material with upper and lower surfaces is supported by the first layer, with an adhesive layer between the first and second layers, bonding the top face of the first layer to the bottom face of the second layer. The lower, first laminate layer serves as a barrier between the pattern of relatively high friction material and the adhesive. Preferably, the pattern of relatively high friction material is a high density matrix of printed latex, polyvinylchloride, or polyethylene projections which may include a tackifying agent to enhance the coefficient of friction of the projections. The second laminate layer may be a printed vinyl sheet. The improved liner or mat has the unexpected benefit of not adhering to fine finish surfaces of oil based paints, lacquers and linoleums.

Abstract: An sir blowing system for use in deeping railroad track switches clear of snow utilizes flexible tubes, preferebly of rubber or plastic, located transversely beneath the main tracks, and connecting with resilient nozzles to direct a high flow of air in the direction of the track switch points. The system may include resilient ducts conveying air in protective relation with the switch control rods, extending laterally beneath the track. The rod protective air discharge may be by way of a louvered cross-tube, extending parallel with the rods, to discharge air laterally of the rods, or one or more nozzles discharging air longitudinally of hte rods.

Abstract: The laminated non-slip liner or mat comprises a first laminate layer of nonwoven material having a first surface and a second surface, the second surface having printed thereon a pattern of relatively high friction material; a second laminate layer of material having a first surface and a second surface; and an adhesive between the first and second layers, bonding the first layer first surface to the second layer second surface. The first laminate layer of nonwoven material acts as a barrier between the pattern of relatively high friction material and the adhesive. Preferably, the pattern of relatively high friction material is a high density matrix of printed latex or polyvinyl chloride projections. The second laminate layer may be a printed vinyl sheet.