Rag bucket

Details Rag bucket Rag bucket

1999-02-12

2001-05-08

Cronin, Stephen K. (Department: 3727)

Receptacles

Drain pan or drip pan

With means to attach pan to bucket or paint can

C220S572000, C220S801000, C220S372000, C206S508000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06227401

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to buckets. More specifically, this invention is directed towards a rag bucket with a screen lid.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
As is common and unavoidable in the painting industry, painters' equipment and work product is often splattered with paint in the course of a job. Over time and numerous painting jobs, splattered paint left to dry on equipment or projects becomes extremely difficult to remove. In order to combat this war against splattered paint, professional painters are constantly cleaning their equipment and work with inexpensive and commercially available rags.
The rag industry is typically supplied with the raw material for the rag product from clothing companies' surplus or discard stock of cotton cloth. As is very often the case, rag raw material from the clothing companies is dyed various colors and undesirable to professional painters in this state. Professional painter generally prefer rags with bleached white or a uniform neutral color in order to discern that when equipment or paint projects need to be wiped clean of fresh paint, the rag that they are grabbing is, indeed, clean and will not bleed color onto the object they are attempting to clean.
In order to provide professional painters with a rag having white or a uniform neutral color, the rag industry bleaches their raw product with extremely strong and nocuous smelling bleach. Even after the rag raw material has been bleached and processed into generally uniformly sized rags to be packaged and sold, a residual nocuous odor from the bleach remains embedded therein. The rag industry has generally simply bagged the processed rags in plastic bagging which, when ripped open by a painter, releases bleach fumes to be inhaled by the painter. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide bleached rags so that a purchaser would not be overwhelmed by bleach fumes upon opening a plastic bag containing rags.
Another problem faced by professional painters these days is that, while paint is generally less expensive to purchase, it is also of lesser quality. This inexpensive paint often has impurities, e.g., coagulated paint, that must be removed by a painter before the paint may be used. If the impurities are not removed, a painter may have to apply multiple coats of paint, thereby increasing the job costs, or possibly even lose painting jobs because of customer word-of-mouth relating unsatisfactory work.
OBJECTIVES OF THE INVENTION
It has therefore been an object of the present invention to provide a rag container for professional painters which is usable by a painter and still allows bleached rags to continue to release the residual bleach odor after they have been packaged.
It has been a further object of the present invention to provide a rag container in the form of a paint bucket and strainer lid which may be used to separate paint from impurities contained therein after the rags sold in the bucket have been removed from the bucket.
Still another objective of this invention has been to provide a paint bucket and strainer lid combination useful as a shipping container for bleached painter's rags and which may be stacked for storage or shipment.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The objects of the present invention are achieved by providing a rag bucket that has a lid adapted to allow bleached rags captured in a bucket or tub to “breathe” with the outside environment. The lid has an aperture covered by a captured screen. The bleached rags are packaged in the rag bucket so that residual bleach fumes may pass through the screen when the lid is sealed to the rag bucket.
Air outside the rag bucket is allowed to pass through the screen and, thus, allows rags contained therein to “breathe”.
After the rags have been removed from the bucket, the lid may be replaced and the rag bucket may be used to strain impurities from paint. The screen is recessed from the lip of the lid down into the tub, providing a dam to keep paint from easily overflowing the lip of the lid. “Good” paint passes through the screen and into the tub, and paint impurities are trapped on the screen to thereafter be discarded. The screen is also recessed inwardly from the side walls of the lid such that buckets having lids located therein may be stacked one atop the other without placing any weight upon the relatively weak screen.


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