Games using tangible projectile – Projectile – per se; part thereof or accessory therefor – Arrow – dart – or shuttlecock; part thereof
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-19
2001-06-19
Ricci, John A. (Department: 3712)
Games using tangible projectile
Projectile, per se; part thereof or accessory therefor
Arrow, dart, or shuttlecock; part thereof
C473S585000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06248033
ABSTRACT:
This invention relates to darts for use in the game of darts.
Most darts consist of a metal dart barrel, a metal dart point, and a rear dart shaft carrying the flight.
Dart points are commonly attached to dart barrels by an interference fit between the rearward diameter of the point and an appropriate cooperating bore in the dart barrel. After a time the dart point wears and conventionally is sharpened on an abrasive stone. After repeated sharpenings the point becomes shorter and eventually too short to allow the dart when thrown to stay in the dartboard. The point cannot be replaced by the user but only by an expert using appropriate tools and if the point cannot be replaced then the dart becomes useless.
Additionally differing styles of throw may require points which protrude by different amounts and, again, points cannot be interchanged by the user.
Dart shafts are conventionally attached to the rear of the dart barrel by a threaded male portion which interfaces with a female threaded end of the dart barrel. This system permits different kinds of shaft, and more particularly different lengths of shaft, to be fitted to a dart barrel to suit differing styles of throw. Dart barrels are known which have a plain hole rearwardly into which a slender shaft without a threaded portion is inserted and held securely by means of interference fit but such an arrangement does not allow the user to change the style or length of the shaft, and if the shaft becomes damaged the whole dart becomes useless.
EP-A-0257853 discloses a dart including a point insertable into a resilient member housed in a bore of the dart body. The resilient member allows limited longitudinal movement of the point relative to the dart body to provide a hammering action of the dart as it hits a dartboard.
GB-A-2039755 discloses a dart having an elongate body with a point sliding in one end of the body and a tail carried at the other end of the body. The point is normally in an extended position. On impact with a target, the momentum of the body causes the point to slide in the body to a position where the body impacts the head of the point and hammers the point into the target thereby reducing the likelihood of bounce of the dart.
WO-A-94/03242 discloses a dart equipped with a dart point contraction system which allows the dart point to contract into the body or barrel of the dart as when the dart point impacts wire, or staples and the like which surmount boundaries of denominated regions of a dartboard. The dart body defines a cylindrical cavity into which the downstream end of the dart point can reciprocatingly travel since it also is cylindrical and comes to rest against the dart body at the end of its travel. It is as a result of the kinetic energy of flight that even though the dart point may have impacted a boundary wire or even a denominated region of the dartboard, that “bounce-out” is inhibited by the cylindrical portion of the dart point travelling in the cylindrical cavity of the dart body when impact occurs.
EP-A-0367558 discloses a dart capable of being used either with a conventional dartboard or an electronic board includes a barrel which carries or is adapted to carry at one end a shaft capable of receiving a flight and is formed at its other end with means by which a point-carrying extension piece can selectively be connected to or disconnected from the barrel. The barrel end may be formed with an internally threaded bore for receiving a threaded member protruding from one end of each of at least two individual point-carrying extension pieces, one such extension piece carrying a metallic point and an other extension piece carrying a non-metallic point.
An aspect of this invention which aims to provide a dart which avoids or reduces the problems mentioned, provides a dart for the game of darts. The spring clip is dimensioned relative to the stem part such that the grip is adequate to retain the stem but the point or the shaft can be removed manually.
During play, if a second or third dart is thrown close to a dart or darts already in the board, the second or third dart may strike or brush against the dart already in the board and be deflected from its given trajectory. Since the cross-section of the dart flight as viewed from the throwing position is significantly greater than that of the dart barrel it is usually the clashing of the flight of a dart already in the board with the barrel or flight of a succeeding dart that causes a deflection.
To overcome this problem, rotating dart flights have been known for some time. Then a following dart is likely, because of its relative weight, to continue on its trajectory when it strikes the rotatable flight of a dart already in the board. It will be obvious that rotation can be achieved if a dart barrel with a fixed point is used in conjunction with a rotating flight, or in an alternative if the flight is fixed relative to a dart body which has a point rotatable with reference to the dart body, or in a further alternative if both the point and the flight are rotatable with reference to each other and to the dart body. Methods of achieving rotation until the present have usually been unreliable having regard to the smallness and nature of the bearing surface available. Usually the bearing is made of a plastic material and is subject to rapid wear and damage, so that frequently the designed degree of freeness in the rotation becomes impeded and following darts cannot overcome the friction which arises progressively through wear or misalignment.
Consequently, one embodiment has a bore which is larger in diameter than the outside diameter of the spring clip, which latter is loose within the bore. In these circumstances, the stem can still rotate although it is retained by the spring clip in the bore. With such an arrangement, it is advantageous to provide a counter-bore at the bottom of the main bore, but of a diameter which matches that of the stem, which can enter the counterbore without being gripped by it. This gives the whole dart point lateral stability.
Certain further developments have also been made in relation to a slightly different aspect of a dart.
Traditionally dart points have been made of hardened and tempered steel and the dart assembly is thrown at a target which may be made of coiled paper or compressed sisal fibres. Much earlier targets were made from a slice of a tree trunk of appropriate species and size. More recently targets have been devised that consist of an open honeycomb structure, commonly in an appropriate plastic material, and the points of the darts used with such targets made of a pliable plastics material. Such darts are colloquially referred to as ‘soft tip’ darts as opposed to the traditional darts which are described as ‘steel tip’ or ‘steel point’.
The honeycomb formatted dart target may be of a very simple nature but there also exists segmented honeycomb structures adapted so that they can independently of each other impinge on a membrane behind a dartboard face containing a printed circuit. When impacted by a dart the honeycomb impacts onto the membrane and this impact is converted by electronic means to activate scoring devices.
Dart players frequently play in both disciplines, namely steel point or soft tip, and are obliged to use two different sets of darts, one with steel tips and one with soft tips. The object of the present invention is to permit one set only of darts to be used with the minimum of change parts and without the use of complex or special tools.
Darts have been known that can convert from one discipline to another and the conversion is carried out by unscrewing a nose portion containing a steel tip for example and replacing it with a soft tip which has the same connecting thread as the steel tip. This method is unsatisfactory in that the metal to metal thread connection of the steel tip frequently works loose. The cost of creating such a change part is high.
The present invention may in one embodiment also provide a dart which can be simply converted from one discipline to the other which does not suf
Ricci John A.
Thomas Kayden Horstemeyer & Risley
Unicorn Products Limited
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