Abstract: A pillar intended to form part of a furniture support, particularly of a seat, and composed of a sliding tube whose frustoconical top end is intended to be engaged with a force fit, by its top part, in a matching frustoconical cavity in the top part of the piece of furniture, and which slides in a support tube fastened to a foot of the piece of furniture. The sliding tube holds captive, with radial clearance, the body of a gas spring whose piston rod is fixed to the bottom of the support tube. A metal reinforcement sleeve is engaged with a force fit inside the frustoconical end part. Its bottom edge serves as a support surface for the top edge of the gas spring body. It is advantageously composed of a split bush carrying a tongue which secures against rotation a pushrod interposed between the locking control finger and an actuating lever.

Abstract: The invention relates to a control device for a gas spring which can be locked as desired by displacement of a sliding control finger. Two axially elongated, diametrically opposed windows (14), at least one of which is larger at the end nearest to the gas spring, pass through a tubular connector (1) coaxial with the control finger (6). A lever (2) which has thinner parts (25, 26) flanking a wide part (24) engages in these windows. Devices (7) are provided so that, after mounting on the gas spring, the wide part (24) is unable to reach the wide section of the window, thus preventing the lever from being dislodged. The edges of the windows (14) form bearing points for the pivoting movement of the leaver and the actuation of the control finger (6).

Abstract: The invention relates to a disassemblable ball and socket joint, of the type positioned by a single operation. The ball carried by a journal enters a hemispherical housing of the ball cage, a C-shaped retaining ring partly surrounds the cage and penetrates its wall through two slots which lead into the introduction channel of the ball into its housing, converging outwards. To avoid corrosion risks and to facilitate disassembly, the ring exerts upon the cage a force parallel to the axis of the channel at two points located on either side of the plane of symmetry in the summital region, and it also urges the interior face of the slots, by virtue of protuberances provided near its ends, for example, so that it is not normally in contact with the ball or its journal.

Abstract: A lockable pneumatic spring comprising a piston which slides in a cylinder filled with pressurized gas and which divides the cylinder into two different chambers which mutually communicate with each other through the intermediary of a slide valve. The slide valve includes a cylindrical first part which sealingly contacts a first annular seal element to form a lock seal between the chambers and a depressible cylindrical second part of constant diameter projecting outside the cylinder. The diameter of the first part is larger than the diameter of the second part and the two parts are connected by an intermediate part which tapers from the end of the first part to the end of the second part.

Abstract: A spring-damping device operating with a pressurized gas in which sudden movements caused by a severe drop in pressure are avoided or limited. A variable volume chamber, which is usually in a state where it permits relative movement of a rod in relation to an enclosure, distorts during a rapid depressurization in the enclosure, until it opposes these movements, due to a valve which maintains its internal pressure near to the initial level.

Abstract: A tube having a welded bottom impermeable to gases under pressure, the tube including (a) a tube body having an end with an inner peripheral edge folded-over toward the interior of the tube body for forming an opening of reduced diameter; and (b) an end piece for forming the welded bottom of the tube, the end piece including a metal disk with an outer diameter substantially smaller than the inner diameter of the tube body and substantially greater than the reduced diameter of the opening of the inner peripheral folded-over edge of the tube end, the disk having at the center thereof a cylindrical outwardly directed projection, the projection having a diameter slightly smaller than the reduced diameter of the opening of the peripheral folded-over edge of the tube end, wherein the end piece is located inside the tube body and joined to the folded-over edge by a welded zone having a metallographical structure of melted or softened metal, the welding zone having an exposed surface in the bottom of a narrow groove