Winding – tensioning – or guiding – Reeling device – Fishing rod reel
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-21
2001-09-11
Saether, Flemming (Department: 3627)
Winding, tensioning, or guiding
Reeling device
Fishing rod reel
C411S120000, C411S374000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06286774
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fishing reel, and more particularly to an improvement of a coupling structure for coupling a driving shaft with a handle in a fishing reel.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, a fishing reel, particularly a bait casting reel, has a handle coupled with and fixedly mounted on one end portion of the driving shaft by a nut, which includes a looseness prevention member for preventing looseness of a nut fastened at one end portion of the driving shaft. As examples, Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication Nos. Sho 55-108873 and Hei 3-74266 disclose looseness prevention members mounted and fixed on the respective handles in the form of protrusions protruded from the respective upper portions thereof the handles.
Since the looseness prevention members disclosed in the above publications are all constructed to be protruded from the respective upper portions of the handles, a problem has been raised against a possible wound of the user's fingers due to an inadvertent contact with the looseness prevention members in the course of adjusting the fishing reel with the handle. Moreover, slime such as fish, bait, dust, etc, is apt to adhere to the looseness prevention members, and the fishing reel might also be entangled or coiled around the looseness prevention members.
To overcome such problem posed by the conventional reel, EP 0 654 216 B1 (Mimura) teaches a looseness prevention member, the external surface of which is formed of a smooth surface extending to the center from the peripheral rim. This prior art was referred to in the present application.
An embodiment of the above-referenced European patent is illustrated in FIG.
1
. Referring to
FIG. 1
, the looseness prevention member is coupled with a nut
40
for preventing looseness of the nut. The looseness prevention member comprises a cover
30
shaped in elliptical form so as to be inserted into a recess
12
, which is shaped in the corresponding elliptical form at the center of an upper portion of a handle
10
. The cover
30
has a recess
36
on the backside thereof for preventing looseness of the nut by being aligned on the clamped nut. The looseness prevention member can be fixed onto the handle by being coupled with a screw
42
in a hole
18
of the handle
10
.
The looseness prevention member also has a curved surface forming a shape of being protruded slightly from the peripheral rim to the center thereof. Accordingly, if the looseness prevention member is fixed onto the handle, a smooth surface may be formed to be enhanced to the external curved surface of the handle. The smooth surface formed in that manner to be enhanced to the curved surface of the handle serves to eliminate the possible caught-up of the bait, user's finger or fishing reel by the looseness prevention member.
In the looseness prevention member disclosed in the Mimura patent described above, a recess is formed internal surface thereof so as to prevent looseness of the nut for fixing the handle onto the driving shaft. In other words, the recess of the looseness prevention member is in complementary shape with the nut so that the recess can be in close contact with the external peripheral surface of the nut.
The nut used for fixing the handle onto the driving shaft is normally a hexagon nut. Allowable tolerance is unavoidable in the course of manufacturing the fittings such as handle, driving shaft, etc. Therefore, the position of a nut clamped through rotation, i.e., the degree of orientation of a nut, cannot always be consistent when mounting the handle onto the driving shaft by means of the nut. As a result, the nut cannot be aligned in a consistent direction inside of the recess of the handle. In other words, even if a nut is applied to the same reel, the nut will have different orientation degrees in each reel. To the contrary, the recess formed on internal surface of the looseness prevention member has a consistent degree of orientation due to its elliptical shape. Thus, a precise engagement of the clamped nut with the recess of the looseness prevention member can rarely be expected even after completion of the coupling. To align the clamping nut to be precisely engaged with the recess formed on the looseness prevention member, it is necessary to additionally rotate the nut to a certain extent.
Enlarging the recess formed on the internal surface of the looseness prevention member to be slightly greater than the nut for the purpose of overcoming the above drawback is apt to pose another problem of loosening the nut inside of the recess.
Moreover, since the looseness prevention member is in elliptical shape and fixed onto the handle by means of a single screw, the surface opposed to the one fixed by the screw tends to be slightly protruded from the curved surface of the handle. Furthermore, foreign material such as slime, etc, might be adhered around the periphery of the head portion of the screw exposed to the external surface of the looseness prevention member.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
To resolve the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a fishing reel, in which the looseness prevention member can be aligned under the state of substantially fixing the nut for coupling the handle with the driving shaft.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a fishing reel capable of fixing the nut when coupling the handle with the driving shaft irrespective of the degree of orientation thereof the nut.
To achieve the above and other objects, the present invention provides a fishing reel with a handle fixing structure, under which a handle having a recess at the center is fixed onto a driving shaft. The handle fixing structure comprises a nut member which is received inside of a recess of the handle and couples the handle with the driving shaft, a nut lock member aligned inside of the recess for a close contact with the nut member so as to prevent looseness of the clamped nut member, and a cover for shielding the recess and limiting movement of the nut lock member through contact therewith during shielding.
Preferably, an internal screw section is formed on a part of a recess wall of the handle and the cover has a cylindrical portion including an external screw section threaded into the handle in cooperation with the internal screw section.
As an alternative embodiment, it is preferable that a groove is formed on a part of the recess wall of the handle, and that the cover has a cylindrical portion including a protrusion coupled with the handle by being snap-fitted into the groove.
The nut lock member is in cylindrical shape having an open one end, and a predetermined polygonal groove is formed on the internal surface thereof.
REFERENCES:
patent: 369242 (1887-08-01), Higgin
patent: 1261002 (1918-04-01), Baas
patent: 2407928 (1946-09-01), Hereshoff
patent: 5690290 (1997-11-01), Asano
patent: 5827029 (1998-10-01), Denman
patent: 5906323 (1999-05-01), Morimoto
Oh Chul Suk
Saether Flemming
Welsh & Katz Ltd.
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