Chairs and seats – Collapsible chair; i.e. – relatively folding bottom – back,... – Relatively collapsible bottom – rear legs – and integral back...
Patent
1995-11-16
1998-02-17
Brown, Peter R.
Chairs and seats
Collapsible chair; i.e., relatively folding bottom, back,...
Relatively collapsible bottom, rear legs, and integral back...
29744024, A47C 442
Patent
active
057184747
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF ART
This invention relates to chairs, and particularly to foldable chairs that can be stacked one upon another.
BACKGROUND ART
Conventional foldable chairs of this type, for example, comprise a front-stand made of a metal pipe and formed into a generally U-shape continuously arranged with a backrest provided at the upper end thereof, a rear stand made of the same metal pipe as the front stand and formed into a generally U-shape, and a seat pivotally mounted to the front and rear stands, and have such a structure that as the front and rear stands are moved to approach each other, the seat is rotated toward the backrest to take an upright posture, thereby to fold the front and rear stands and the seat into a generally flat configuration.
In a foldable chair of the above structure, for example, the outer sides of the front and rear stands are connected through link members so that when the chair is folded, the front and rear stands overlap each other at both sides of the seat as Viewed from the front or rear side.
Since the link members are plate-shaped with a pivot portion provided at both ends, it tends to tilt toward the direction of its thickness because of the clearance of the pivot portion or deformation of itself. This makes it difficult to restrain the relative movement laterally to the rear stand and the front stand by such link members. As a result of this, if a big load acts on the chair wherein the upper end of the rear stand makes abutting engagement with the rear face of the front stand when in use, there is a problem that the link members are easily plastically deformed or broken because of the rear stand movement toward lateral direction.
There is another foldable chair in which slide links are slidably provided at the top end of each of the rear legs and have each of its top end pivotally mounted to the outer side of each of the front legs by a shaft.
In this chair, as the top ends of the slide links are connected to the outer sides of the front legs, the rear legs are placed on the outer sides of the front legs. As a result of this, the seat is supported away from the sides of the rear legs, thereby decreasing the strength to support the seat. In addition, as the rear legs are disposed outside the front legs, a plurality of such chairs arranged closely side by side require a broader space, thereby to decrease the efficiency to utilize space.
In order to solve these problems, a foldable chair has been proposed, in which a joint member is welded to the rear side of each front leg and the top end of a slide link is pivotally mounted to the joint member. With the slide link using the above joint member, as the joint member is fixed to the rear side of each front leg, the front and rear legs can be designed to overlap each other as viewed from the front or rear side when the chair is folded.
In the above arrangement, the welding of the joint members to the front legs must be conducted in a different working step outside the manufacturing line in which cutting and bending of pipe material is conducted. Therefore, the manufacturing line becomes complicated, and even though the line is automated, it is difficult to reduce the number of the manufacturing steps and consequently the manufacturing cost.
In addition, the conventional chairs are made of pipe members where a front leg and a back support rod of the backrest are integral therewith, thereby to require a large-scale facilities for molding pipe material. Further, for the foldable chairs of this type as there are a plurality of different shapes of the front leg and the backrest, a plurality of different facilities corresponding to the combination of these shapes are required. The facilities should be changed in whole for a change in specification of a front leg or a backrest alone, thereby to require time and labor for changing facilities.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
This invention has been accomplished in view of the above problems. The object of the invention is to provide a foldable chair which is difficult to be broken by a l
REFERENCES:
patent: 2757715 (1956-08-01), Hendrickson
patent: 2757717 (1956-08-01), Adler
patent: 4784436 (1988-11-01), Sutherland
patent: 4881776 (1989-11-01), Wang
patent: 5154382 (1992-10-01), Hoshino
Ito Sakuji
Kojima Kiyoshi
Nagai Nobuyuki
Sugano Takao
Brown Peter R.
Kokuyo Co. Ltd.
Takano Co., Ltd.
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