Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Methods – Surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-24
2001-06-12
Thomas, Alexander S. (Department: 1772)
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Methods
Surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
C156S226000, C052S741400
Reexamination Certificate
active
06245179
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a process for sealing doublewide manufactured homes and modular homes sections together and especially to a process of making a sealing material having a thick foamed polymer material wrapped with a flexible polymer material. This patent application is a division of patent application Ser. No.09/428,860, filled Oct. 28, 1999which is a continuation-in-part of my prior patent application Ser. No. 08/999,198, filed Dec. 29, 1997, which application is a division of U.S. Pat. No. 5,720,146, issued Feb. 24, 1998.
Manufactured homes are those in which a home or building is manufactured at a central location or factory where it can then be loaded onto a tractor-trailer and hauled to a purchaser's home site. At the home site, the manufactured home can be mounted onto a prepared foundation. Manufactured homes, in contrast to custom homes, have the advantages of mass production at one factory site where they can obtain the benefits of volume purchasing, more efficient assembly through standard jigs, fixtures, and machinery, and can have a more advanced engineering design. One of the problems with manufactured homes has been in making a home of a size and shape that can be hauled over a highway. This limits the width of the home and thus limited the homes to smaller elongated units. To overcome this limitation, double wide manufactured homes were developed which use a pair of manufactured home sections, each of which can be the same size as one manufactured home but without one wall so that doublewide manufactured home sections can be individually hauled to a home site where the two sections can be brought together and attached to form a manufactured home which does not have the customary elongated shape of a typical manufactured home. This allows for larger homes which can have additional design features to make the home look more like a custom home.
In recent years, doublewides have become increasingly popular but have also had various problems attached with them including the proper attachment of the doublewide sections together to form one unit which attachments must appear seamless and at the same time need to be well sealed from the exterior weather elements. Common doublewides today are attached together and are caulked around the perimeter of the attaching line or, alternatively, are shot with an expanding polymer caulk to seal the perimeter. One of the difficulties in sealing a pair of doublewides is that the seam around the attached sections tends to vary in width on the outside so that conventional caulk is not always satisfactory and expanding foam tends to weather and does not always give a weatherproof seal.
The present invention improves the sealing in doublewide manufactured homes along the perimeter of the attached sections which not only gives a good seal against the weathering elements but also will not deteriorate in the manner of other materials currently being used.
Prior art sealing strips for forming a variety of seals, but not seals for manufactured home doublewides, can be seen in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,084,348 to Hast, for a sealing strip which has a cylindrical shape having a resilient core of foamed plastic surrounded by a foil of PVC or polyethylene and an outer covering of textile fabric and in which the outer covering and the foil are attached together to form a flange which also has an adhesive strip attached thereto. The L. N. Williams et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,170,967, and R. A. Footner U.S. Pat. No. 3,413,389, each teach a method of making a sealing strip using a polyvinyl foam having a polyvinyl resin skin outer layer. In the Burkhalter U.S. Pat. No. 2,827,280, a resilient bumper is made of a cylindrical rubber resilient core having a tubular sheath closure and which are attached together with a grommet therebetween. These prior art seals are not suitable for use in sealing doublewide sections which requires a much thicker sealing strip with greater flexibility and with a more flexible cover in order to be able to give a seal with wide variations in the spacing between the doublewide sections at different points around the perimeter of the assembled doublewide home.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a process of sealing doublewide manufactured home sections together with a selected sealing material custom formed for sealing doublewides which can be rapidly attached to one section of the doublewide before the doublewide sections are attached together. A polyurethane polymer of approximately 1.2 density is enclosed with a woven polypropylene which is attached with one edge folded over the other and sewn together to form the flange with one sewing strip giving greater strength to the flange.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A process for making a sealing material for sealing doublewide manufactured homes includes the steps of selecting an elongated seal core made of a foamed polymer and selecting a flexible polymer covering sleeve for loosely covering the selected seal core and covering the seal core with a loose fitting covering sleeve. The covering sleeve is then shaped to form a skin over the seal core by forming a pair of flanges from the slack material in the covering sleeve with a folded portion of the covering sleeve and attaching the folded portions together to form flanges. A seal for a doublewide manufactured home is formed by the process and has an elongated polymer foam core covered by an elongated flexible polymer sleeve and having a pair of elongated flanges formed with folded slack material in the flexible polymer sleeve which folded flange portions are attached together, such as by sewing. A predetermined density foam core material of a larger size is covered with a woven polypropylene material.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1675844 (1928-07-01), Dennis
patent: 1742195 (1930-01-01), Bosley
patent: 2028253 (1936-01-01), Spafford
patent: 2827280 (1958-03-01), Burkhalter
patent: 3170967 (1965-02-01), Williams
patent: 3413389 (1968-11-01), Footner
patent: 4084348 (1978-04-01), Hast
Arnold Gregory A.
Arnold Jamie C.
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