Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Sheets or webs edge spliced or joined – Sheets or webs coplanar
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-14
2001-12-18
Gallagher, John J. (Department: 1733)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Sheets or webs edge spliced or joined
Sheets or webs coplanar
C052S747100, C156S182000, C156S185000, C156S214000, C156S304300
Reexamination Certificate
active
06331337
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The technical field primarily concerns permanently bonding side-to-side glass or plastic building blocks to obtain decorative and/or functional modular sub-assemblies, walls, panels, floors, windows, skylights, etc.
2. Description of the Known Prior Art
The conventional methods for bonding such building blocks employ bonding compositions, such as mortar, cement, grout, caulking and/or silicone. At least for commercial applications, mortar still remains the prevailing bonding medium. Optionally, a silicone or grout sealant is typically applied over each mortar joint to seal it against mold or mildew.
As judged architecturally, aesthetically and structurally, the quality of such glass block units depends to a large extent on the uniform alignment of the mortar joints within a common row and between successive rows in horizontal and vertical directions. Such uniform joint alignments depend, among other things, on the volume of mortar the installer spreads on and around each glass block.
Since the mortar volume is generally “eye-balled”, obtaining consistent joint alignments becomes a challenge even for the expert artisan. Do-it-yourselfers fear joint misalignments which might make their finished glass block panels or walls structurally and aesthetically unreliable. Such joint uniformity is necessary within a completed glass block unit to make it structurally sound and pleasing in appearance.
Also, the use of mortar adds considerable weight to a glass block assembly and reduces the construction speed since only a limited amount of mortar can be mixed, as the mortar's curing time controls the speed of assembly and finish. The number of courses of blocks that can be laid up at a time is also reduced due to the concern that the excessive weight of the freshly laid up blocks in the upper rows may squeeze the mortar out from the fresh mortar joints in the lower rows.
It is evident, therefore, that the known mortar methods for assembling glass/plastic blocks require skilled artisans to properly align their completed mortar joints, and to maintain the joints' width uniform during the whole installation leading to a completed building block unit.
Also, such known mortar methods can create serious health hazards from prolonged exposure to conventional bonding and sealing materials: mortar, cement, grout, caulking and/or silicone. They tend to generate dust and release chemical gases, all of which in accumulation can produce lasting injuries to block laying artisans and others on the worksite. As a consequence, builders were discouraged from extensively using glass and/or plastic blocks except for relatively expensive custom homes and overhead applications such as skylights.
To obviate some of such adverse effects, many patents suggest using separate rigid interlocked spacers for aid in forming grid-like structures intended to surround and maintain the individual glass or plastic blocks.
In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 5,430,985 describes longitudinal spacers
10
for enclosing the center ridges
76
that extend peripherally around and between the lateral faces of the glass blocks. Each spacer
10
has opposite longitudinal center sections. Each section has a rectangular, longitudinally-extending groove
42
dimensioned to receive an opposite glass block center ridge
76
. Fasteners
50
mechanically interconnect adjacently positioned spacers
10
. Pressure-sensitive, adhesive-coated foam bands
44
are used for aligning grooves
42
relative to their opposite block center ridges
76
. Abutting glass blocks
72
, spacers
10
, and fasteners
50
are permanently bonded to one another using mortar or silicone compositions.
It is a main object of this invention to use light-weight, action-activatable adhesive tapes to adhesively bond building blocks and to provide a relatively fast, easy, clean, and economical method for producing single or multi-tier building block units, wherein each block remains strongly bonded side-to-side to its abutting blocks, and wherein the inter-block joints have a uniform width dimension determined mostly by the thickness of the used adhesive tapes.
It is another object of this invention to overcome the above mentioned and other undesirable effects associated with the prior art mortar and mortarless methods for bonding building blocks, generally, and in particular for bonding blocks made of glass or plastic.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The method of this invention relates to bonding building blocks, each having a pair of opposite spaced-apart lateral faces and side faces therebetween, to create multi-tier building block units. Flexible, light-weight, elongated, adhesive tape strips, whose potency is responsive to a sufficient pressure force, bond the adhesive tape strips to at least portions of complementary side surfaces, thereby creating inter-block tape joints. The applied pressure force is maintained for a time needed to activate the curing of the adhesive within the inter-block joints. Preferably, the building blocks are made of a glass or other suitable material.
A multi-tier building block unit made in accordance with this invention includes a plurality of building blocks, each having a pair of opposite spaced-apart lateral faces and side faces therebetween. Adhesive tape strips bond portions of each block's complementary side surfaces so as to form inter-block tape joints, each having a width corresponding to the thickness of the tape strips, and each tape strip serves as the sole bond within its joint.
REFERENCES:
patent: 2197132 (1940-04-01), Lougheed
patent: 4774793 (1988-10-01), Mayer
patent: 1099714 (1968-01-01), None
Etheredge Jay Dwain
Osborn Bryan Woodrow
Breston Michael P.
Gallagher John J.
LandOfFree
Bonding building blocks using adhesive tapes does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Bonding building blocks using adhesive tapes, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Bonding building blocks using adhesive tapes will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2580351