Metal deforming – Process – Tube making or reshaping
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-20
2001-05-22
Crane, Daniel C. (Department: 3725)
Metal deforming
Process
Tube making or reshaping
C072S367100, C072S454000, C072S466800, C072S416000, C029S402190
Reexamination Certificate
active
06234000
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to ball-bats. More specifically, this invention relates to a ball-bat repairing apparatus and method of use.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Traditionally, sports involving the use of ball-bats, e.g., baseball and softball, use wooden bats made of ash or other hard woods. These wooden bats are expensive, time consuming to manufacture, and once broken cannot be satisfactorily repaired to be put back into effective use. So, over time, a metal, and usually aluminum, ball-bat was introduced into baseball and softball as a substitute for the traditional wooden bat because it was relatively inexpensive to manufacture and had a much longer useful life than a wooden bat. In fact, even when slightly deformed through repeated impacts with a baseball or softball, an aluminum bat can still be used. However, even an aluminum bat is generally thought of as having a finite useful life until the aluminum bat becomes so deformed, for example, even taking on triangular or square shapes of deformation, the aluminum bat must be retired. Once an aluminum becomes deformed to this extent it can simply not be effectively used to swing at and strike a ball to achieve desired results.
Use of aluminum bats reaches from little league softball and baseball, to collegiate use, to professional softball and to use in international amateur sporting events. About the only sporting teams regularly using traditional wooden bats are those playing professional baseball. So, manufacture, sale and use of aluminum bats far outpaces wooden bats.
Most aluminum bats are generally less expensive use than wooden bats there are softball and baseball teams that simply cannot afford to replace deformed aluminum bats as often as needed. Little league baseball and softball teams in economically disadvantaged areas often cannot afford to replace old and worn-out equipment, even equipment as integral to softball and baseball games as the aluminum bat itself. Furthermore, it has become commonplace for high school and even collegiate athletic programs that have become short of funding for their teams to be forced to cut costs by not only keeping old and deformed aluminum bats in softball and baseball rotation, but even cutting funding for entire sports teams.
Of course, old aluminum bats that should have been long since retired from use do not simply represent an economic burden on those little league, high school, and collegiate teams, et al., who cannot afford new bats, but also those deformed aluminum bats are still used by those batters who are waiting for a perfect pitch and are thus placed at a serious competitive disadvantage when facing teams with the funding to provide new equipment to its players. In order to, as nearly as possible, allow equally talented teams compete on equal footing it would be a great advance to enable all teams to perform on the playing field with equally sound equipment.
On the other hand, contemporary aluminum bats and bats made of other non-wood materials can be very expensive and very costly to replace regardless of who the purchaser may be. One example of such a contemporary bat is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,676,610 on a bat having a rolled sheet of resilient material inserted into the barrel. This type of bat has a relatively thin metal barrel and, while the resilient insert is intended to spring the barrel back after an impact, is more easily deformed by the impacts caused when, for example, a professional softball player hits a home run.
OBJECTIVES OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
Therefore, it is a first objective of the present invention to provide a ball-bat repairing apparatus which repairs deformed non-wooden ball-bats.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide a ball-bat repairing apparatus that is relatively inexpensive and of durable construction.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide a ball-bat repairing apparatus that will return a damaged metal ball-bat which has been deformed from its original barrel diameter back to the original barrel diameter without damaging the ball-bat.
It is yet another objective of the present invention to provide a method of repairing a non-wooden ball-bat having damaged portions along the longitudinal extent of the ball-bat barrel which deviate from the ball-bat barrel original diameter.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The objectives of the present invention are achieved by providing a ball-bat repairing apparatus and method of use in which a ball-bat having damaged portions with outwardly and inwardly deformed portions along the longitudinal extent of the ball-bat barrel is inserted into a generally cylindrical die housed within a frame, the die being compressable around the barrel to repair the barrel damage. The die is a two-part die with a first body half, a second body half and having a substantially cylindrical die insert diametrically cut so that first and second opposed die insert halves may be secured within respective first and second die body halves. The die insert is made from relatively soft material, e.g., plastic or other suitable material that does not damage the ball-bat during application of the present inventive method. The ball-bat repairing apparatus has a manually operable compression member threadedly received through the housing and received in mechanical cooperation with one of the die body halves to reciprocate the body halves together around a ball-bat barrel inserted within the die. The body halves are resiliently and continuously biased apart to allow a user to more easily relieve pressure from the barrel after barrel compression, as discussed below.
In the method of the present invention, a ball-bat barrel with a damaged portion having inwardly and outwardly deformed portions is inserted into the repairing apparatus, the damaged portion being positioned between the first and second insert halves with the outwardly deformed portion of the ball-bat vertically oriented within the die. The die insert has a diameter slightly larger than a ball-bat barrel so that the ball-bat barrel may be over-stressed during compression, as discussed below. After the damaged portion of the ball-bat barrel has been positioned between the first and second insert halves, the user reciprocates the compression member downwardly so that it exerts downward force upon the die with the ball-bat barrel positioned therein. The user compresses the die upon the ball-bat barrel so that the damaged portion of the barrel is compressed to about the original barrel diameter and then over-stressed to a diameter generally smaller than the barrel's original diameter in the vertical plane. Over-stressing the barrel in the vertical plane in which the outwardly deformed portion is oriented allows the barrel to slightly flatten within the die in the vertical plane. The user then decompresses the ball-bat barrel which rebounds from its over-stressed condition to about the barrel original diameter and then, as desired, rotationally index the barrel while maintaining the damaged portion within the die, for further repair. As desired, the user then recompresses the damaged area and over-stresses the damaged portion once again, thereafter decompressing the ball-bat barrel damaged portion.
Each time the ball-bat barrel is decompressed the barrel has a tendency to spring back to substantially the original barrel diameter from the barrel's over-stressed condition. The user performs the inventive method upon the ball-bat barrel damaged portion as many times as is desired in order to substantially return the damaged portion to the barrel original diameter.
As is desired, the user longitudinally indexes the ball-bat barrel through the die in order to repair other damaged portions along the ball-bat barrel's longitudinal extent by the inventive method described above.
The features and objectives of the present inventive ball-bat barrel repairing apparatus will become more readily apparent from the following Detailed Description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent
Crane Daniel C.
Wood Herron & Evans LLP
LandOfFree
Ball-bat repairing method does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Ball-bat repairing method, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Ball-bat repairing method will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2472013