Moby Susan - Lazy Susan with four nylon legs

Abstract

Four nylon legs were added to old Lazy Susan to allow much improved functionality of the device. Work to date demonstrates that the addition of a set of four nylon legs represents a major departure from, and adds a new dimension to, the age-old Lazy Susan. As such, this seemingly small difference between Lazy Susan and my Moby Susan may prove to be very substantial and significant. Incorporation of Moby Susan as a built-in feature in the design of future microwave ovens is suggested.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This Non-provisional Patent Application corresponds to the following Provisional Patent Application:

PPA 61/572,660 filed Jul. 19, 2011

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENTS

Not Applicable

REFERENCE TO SEQUENCE LISTING, A TABLE, OR A COMPUTER PROGRAM LISTING COMPACT DISK APPENDIX

Not Applicable

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Lazy Susan generally refers to a type of turntable, or turning platform, invented ages ago to turn about a fixed vertical line passing through the center of the turntable. For years, it has been found very useful for reaching an object placed on any side of this turning platform from another position somewhere a small distance away from the turntable, such as from a seating chair around a large dining table, from either side of a kitchen counter, or in front of a kitchen cabinet. However, the design of Lazy Susan apparently did not anticipate its use for large objects, such as a regular microwave oven, placed on a kitchen counter and with its door to be opened widely and repeatedly through its course of a routine operation.

Microwave oven is a piece of small electric appliance that has found wide use in American household and elsewhere. It would be very desirable if means can be found to take advantage of the turning capability of a Lazy Susan so as to allow more convenient and more effective use of microwave oven.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

My invention is borne out of this simple-minded desire to find a way to use microwave oven more conveniently on the kitchen counter. It comes into being when four nylon legs are fastened to the bottom plate of this age-old Lazy Susan and a large platform attached to its upper plate to form a new assembly. When modified in this manner, this newly formed assembly inherits from Lazy Susan the ability to turn 360°, while being endowed limited but smooth lineal movement of the entire assembly without scratching the underlining surface of the counter top.

The addition of a set of four nylon legs represents a major departure from, and adds a new dimension to, the age-old Lazy Susan. While this addition appears to be a small change from Lazy Susan, it does add new capabilities and ushers in new applications for the old Lazy Susan. Recognizing the fact that microwave ovens are widely used in American households and elsewhere, and the fact that the combined use of my invention with a microwave oven will make the latter more user-friendly with much improved functionality. As such, this difference between Lazy Susan and my invention may prove to be substantial and significant.

For the reasons outlined above, my invention will henceforth be coined Mobile Lazy Susan, or more affectionately referred to as Moby Susan. Several different versions of a prototype of Moby Susan have been built, tested, and used, and results have been most gratifying.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

FIG. 1 represents a schematic showing how four nylon cap nuts and matching screws are attached to “Lazy Susan lower plate (5)” to form four nylon legs. This is done by allowing four “Screws (2)” to go through four “Holes for screws (7)” on “Lazy Susan lower plate (5)”, securely fastening the “Cap Nuts (1)” to the “Lazy Susan lower plate (5)”. Additionally, a “Large hole on lower plate (6)” and another set of four “Holes on upper plate (4)”, also provided by the manufacturer of Lazy Susan, will be used to facilitate attaching our “Rectangular plate (8)” to “Lazy Susan upper plate (3)”.

FIG. 2 depicts a fully assembled Moby Susan, with four nylon legs attached to “Lazy Susan lower plate (5)” as described above, and with a “Rectangular Plate (8)” attached to “Lazy Susan upper plate (3)” in accordance with instructions given by manufacturer of the Lazy Susan. For the sake of clarity, Moby Susan is shown in an inverted view, with the upper plate and the attached “Rectangular plate (8)” at the bottom of the figure, and “Lazy Susan lower plate (5)” with nylon legs attached at the top.

LIST OF REFERENCE NUMERALS

1=CAP NUTS

2=SCREWS

3=LAZY SUSAN UPPER PLATE

4=HOLES ON UPPER PLATE

5=LAZY SUSAN LOWER PLATE

6=LARGE HOLE ON LOWER PLATE

7=HOLES FOR SCREWS

8=RECTANGULAR PLATE

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

A conventional turntable, also known as Lazy Susan, consists of two round plates which are connected together, but are otherwise free to rotate relative to each other. The bottom plate usually stays stationary on the supporting surface on which it is placed, thus allowing the upper plate to rotate freely relative to the supporting surface. For convenience, commercially available Lazy Susan is generally fabricated to allow plates of various sizes and shapes to be attached to either of its upper or lower plates.

Moby Susan is composed of three basic components: A conventional turntable commonly referred to as Lazy Susan, four small nylon legs attached in a symmetrical pattern to the bottom plate of the turntable (FIG. 1), and a rectangular plate of appropriate dimensions attached, with screws, to the upper plate of the Lazy Susan (FIG. 2). One concludes, and correctly so, from these descriptions that the only difference between Moby Susan and Lazy Susan lies in the addition of four nylon legs attached to the bottom plate of Lazy Susan.

As its name implies, Lazy Susan is incapable of doing anything other than turning around the vertical line passing through the center of the turntable. However, even with this limited capability of rotation, Lazy Susan has for ages found wide use for storage of cooking items on the shelf of a kitchen cabinet, and for serving large dishes on a large dining table. It is only when it comes to applications in connection with large objects of a more modern vintage, such as a microwave oven placed on the kitchen counter, that Lazy Susan met its limit of applicability.

Except for those which are built into the kitchen wall, microwave ovens are often placed at spots on the kitchen counter where the counter meets the wall. This practice is obviously a compromise between avoiding the unsightly pile of inconvenience in the middle of limited counter space, and maintaining reasonable access for taking items to be heated into and out of a microwave oven. This compromise becomes even more difficult to reach when one wishes to do so all from the same side of kitchen counter without changing the location of the microwave oven on the kitchen counter.

Moby Susan is designed specifically to address these difficulties noted above by adding four nylon legs to the bottom plate of Lazy Susan and a rectangular plate of appropriate size to its upper plate. While the basic rotational capability of Lazy Susan is retained in Moby Susan, the addition of nylon legs enables a limited capability of lineal movement without scratching the underlying counter surface. When a large object, such as a microwave oven, is placed on the rectangular plate attached to the upper plate of Lazy Susan, this capability for lineal movement allows the large object and Moby Susan together to move slightly away from its resting position near the wall until Moby Susan is free to turn to any angular position required for the door of the microwave oven to open for optimal access from either side of the kitchen counter. When the heating process is completed, Moby Susan can then be pushed back, with equal ease, to its original position against the wall to maintain the appearance of tidiness on the kitchen counter.

When used as a platform for microwave oven, Moby Susan also offers an interesting though unexpected convenience. With the door of the microwave oven manufactured to be limited in size and to open only in one direction, that is, either right-handedly or left-handedly, the angular position of the opening for optimal access is quite different for a right-handed person as compared to that for a left-handed person. With Moby Susan, this problem can easily be resolved through a rotation of the assembly from the angular position for optimal access for right-handed person to that for the other, or vice versa, without changing the location of the microwave oven on the kitchen counter!

NOVEL FEATURES OF THE INVENTION

• • 1. The inclusion of four nylon legs adds a new dimension to the functional capability of a conventional Lazy Susan. These four legs allows limited lineal movement on any smooth surface such as stone, composite material or even finished wood surfaces commonly used for table tops and kitchen counters. Adding to the rotational movement that conventional Lazy Susan is already capable of doing, my invention makes it easy to operate a heavy object, such as a microwave oven, from either side of a kitchen counter, opening its door to place a food item to be heated into it, remove the same from it, and returning it to a tidy spot near the wall effortlessly at the end of the operation.
  • 2. Microwave ovens commercially available for non-built-in purposes are usually built with small rubber stands on the base plate for the oven. It should be straightforward to modify the bottom base plate of the microwave oven for inclusion of my Moby Susan with four nylon legs as a factory-equipped option.
  • 2.
  • 3. Among the prototypes I have built, the nylon legs are fastened to the bottom plate of the turntable by using cap nuts made of nylon as legs and matching 10-24 screws ⅜″ in length. Other forms of fasteners, such as push-in nylon heads or just nylon spacers glued to the bottom plate of Lazy Susan, can also be used.
  • 4. Size and stability of turntable: To accommodate large-sized objects on the rectangular plate attached to the upper plate of the turntable, the size of the turntable itself must be sufficiently large. A 12″ diameter unit, perhaps the largest among those readily available commercially, was chosen and was found to provide good lateral balance and stability when the vertical line passing through the center of gravity of the load placed on the rectangular plate roughly coincides with that of the Lazy Susan. This is one of the considerations which have been incorporated into the design of our Moby Susan.
  • 5. The rectangular plate attached to the upper plate of Lazy Susan should be large enough to accommodate various sizes of microwave oven commercially available for non-built-in purposes. For production purposes, our plan calls for a standard size of 24″×16″, with thicknesses dependent upon the type of material used, but thick enough to provide adequate support for the weight of the microwave oven. Other sizes will be made available upon request. The materials to be used for the plate includes natural wood, particle board, plastic, tempered glass, or even metallic plate. The color will be chosen to blend into the decor of the kitchen.
  • 6. Other applications. Moby Susan should be very useful in common household kitchen with counter spaces running along the wall, and/or with some counter space running perpendicular to the wall to allow access from either side of the counter. In many hospital or school cafeteria, where microwave oven is often placed by itself on a small table against a wall, the use of our Moby Susan can make it accessible from essentially three orthogonal directions, that is, accessible over an angular range of 180°.
  • 7. With Moby Susan, the opening of a microwave oven placed at any given spot on a counter or table will be more accessible to everyone, and equally so to both right-handed and left-handed users.

Claims

1. Four nylon legs added to old Lazy Susan to allow much improved functionality of the device. My work to date demonstrates that the addition of a set of four nylon legs represents a major departure from, and adds a new dimension to, the age-old Lazy Susan. As such, the seemingly small difference between Lazy Susan and my Moby Susan may prove to be substantial and significant.

2. Incorporation of Moby Susan as a built-in feature in the design of future microwave ovens. Microwave ovens commercially available for non-built-in purposes are usually built with small rubber stands on the base plate of the microwave oven. It should be straightforward to modify the base plate of the microwave oven for inclusion of my Moby Susan with four nylon legs as a factory-equipped option.

3. Consideration of size, strength and coordination of all components of Moby Susan to ensure stability and durability of the overall assembly for everyday operation.

4. A design that offers more accessibility and convenience to everyone, including both right-handed and left-handed users. The door of the microwave oven is manufactured to open only in one direction, that is, either right-handedly or left-handedly; the angular position of the opening for optimal access is quite different for a right-handed person as compared to that for a left-handed person. With Moby Susan, this problem can easily be resolved through a rotation of the assembly from the angular position for optimal access for right-handed person to that for the other, or vice versa, without changing the location of the microwave oven!

5. Other applications for Moby Susan, which include many hospital or school cafeteria, where microwave oven is often placed by itself on a small table against a wall. The use of Moby Susan can make it accessible from essentially three orthogonal directions, that is, accessible over an angular range of 180° to facilitate ease of approach to the microwave oven.

6. Use of other materials in place of “nylon legs”. These materials, such as felt and plastic, can be made to provide smooth surfaces and therefore do not scratch the underlying surfaces of the kitchen counter. Additional, these materials can also be fabricated to assume different shapes to further facilitate linear movement on another smooth surface.