Process for making a toothbrush

Details Process for making a toothbrush Process for making a toothbrush

1998-05-27

2000-05-23

Spisich, Mark

Plastic and nonmetallic article shaping or treating: processes

Mechanical shaping or molding to form or reform shaped article

To produce composite, plural part or multilayered article

264243, 264254, 264263, 264279, 151671, 300 21, A46D 300, B29C 4500

Patent

active

060662824

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to toothbrushes and to processes for making toothbrushes, particularly toothbrushes made of plastics materials and injection moulding processes for making toothbrushes.
Toothbrushes generally consist of a bristle-bearing head integrally linked at the basal end of the head to the head end of a grip handle. Often the head end of the grip handle forms a thinned neck.
Generally, known toothbrushes are made of plastics materials by an injection moulding process in which the head and handle are integrally formed, then bristles are inserted into sockets in the head and retained therein by small metal clips. Alternatively bristles can be directly fixed into the head during the moulding process, so that for example the fixed ends of the bristles have soft plastics material injected into a mould around them, and when this material sets the bristles are thereby firmly fixed into the head. For example WO 95/30350 and EP 0504571A disclose such an injection moulding process.
Injection moulding processes have been developed in which the head and handle are integrally moulded out of rigid plastics materials, then a second, elastomeric material is introduced in a subsequent injection moulding process to form a two-component toothbrush, for example including a grip mat on the grip handle made of the elastomeric material, or a cut-out between the head and handle filled with the elastomeric material to modify the relative flexibility between the head and the handle. Such toothbrushes are described in GB 2216785 A and DE 3923495, and such a process is for example disclosed in WO 94/05183.
A problem with such known toothbrushes is that it is difficult to vary the combination of head and handle (e.g. to vary the shape of the head whilst retaining the shape of the handle constant or vice versa) without the expense of making an entirely new mould for an integral head and grip handle. A further problem occurs in that the speed at which bristle-bearing toothbrush heads can be made may vary from the speed at which handles, particularly two-component handles, can be made. Therefore the speed of the manufacturing process is limited by the speed of the slower machine.
It is an object of the present invention, in part at least, to alleviate these problems. Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description.
According to this invention, a process for making a toothbrush comprises the steps of: making a toothbrush head from a plastics material by a head moulding process, the head having at its basal end a first engagement part; then making a toothbrush grip handle from a plastics material by a handle moulding process, during the said handle moulding process forming a second engagement part at the head end of the handle in engagement with the first engagement part, such that the engagement between the first and second engagement parts retains the head and grip handle together.
In an alternative form of this invention, a process for making a toothbrush comprises the steps of: making a toothbrush grip handle from a plastics material by a handle moulding process, the grip handle having at its head end a first engagement part; then making a toothbrush head from a plastics material by a head moulding process, during the said head moulding process forming a second engagement part at the basal end of the head in engagement with the first engagement part, such that the engagement between the first and second engagement parts retains the head and grip handle together.
In another alternative form of the process, a toothbrush head and a toothbrush grip handle are made separately by respective head and handle moulding process, the head and handle having respective engagement parts respectively at the basal end of the head and the head end of the neck, and the respective engagement parts are linked together by forming a mass of plastics material, by a moulding process, in engagement with the said engagement parts such that the engagement between the said engagement parts and the m

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