Chairs and seats – Bottom or back – Contoured bottom
Patent
1994-11-15
1997-03-18
Nelson, Jr., Milton
Chairs and seats
Bottom or back
Contoured bottom
297DIG2, A47C 702
Patent
active
056116020
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUD OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to seats for swings of the type used by children, in playgrounds, for example.
2. Discussion of Related Art
It has long been recognized that the seat of a swing can cause serious injury on impact, particularly if a child is struck on the head by such a seat.
One approach to improving the safety of such swings has been to make the seat extremely light, for example, by making the seat in the form of a flexible belt (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,897,056) or by making a rigid seat using only lightweight plastics material (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,225,737). Unfortunately, the flexible belt type swing seat is not very popular with users and is susceptible to vandalism, and an all-plastics rigid seat can cut and bruise because of its hardness and is again susceptible to vandalism.
Another approach to improving safety has been to provide a rigid reinforcing structure surrounded by a cushioning structure. That is, a cushioning structure is interposed between a rigid core member and an impacting object. Such structures conform more closely to the traditional wooden swing seat and are more popular with users and more resistant to vandalism than the belt type and lightweight plastics seats just mentioned. Early examples of such an approach are to be found in United U.S. Pat. No. 1,975,262 dated 2nd Oct., 1934 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,225,737 dated 24th Dec., 1940.
More recently, attempts have been made to make the cushioning structure still safer in impact, for example, as described in our British patent No. 1,535,728. Swing seats made in accordance with our British patent No. 1,535,728 have proved very successful in test and commercially.
Another example of the same approach is to be found in British patent No. 2,207,344.
Old car tries when used for swings have sometimes been provided with a rigid wooden center and so provide yet another example of a cushioning structure surrounding a rigid member.
Cushioning surrounding a rigid member is not, however, in itself sufficient to make a safe swing seat as the seat may well have too much mass to be safe in impact and/or take up energy too quickly. The mass may arise from the quantity of material required in the cushioning and/or the quantity of material required to impart sufficient strength to the rigid member. The old car tire provided with a wooden center is an example of such a seat that is too massive to be truly safe.
Thus, for more than fifty years attempts have been made to devise a form of cushioning that will render a swing seat safe in impact,it is an object of the invention to provide a swing seat of the traditional bench type that has greater safety than known types of seats of that type with safety cushioning.
SUMMARY
The present invention provides a seat for a child's swing, the seat comprising a plate-like substantially rigid member to bear the weight of a user sitting on the seat, and resilient polymeric material secured to the plate-like member, the resilient polymeric material extending beyond the outline of the plate-like member to form a border around the edges of the plate-like member, and forming a peripheral dependent skirt of substantial thickness, wherein the border includes a hinge-like portion of the resilient material, in that the plate-like member in the region of the hinge-like portion is configured to provide room for the dependent skirt to hinge beneath the plate-like member, and in that, in use, in an impact between the edge of the seat adjacent the hinge-like portion and an object, the skirt is progressively deformed and forced to hinge inwards against the resilience of the hinge-like portion.
Such a seat reacts in the impact by the skirt deforming progressively and being forced to hinge inwards against the resilience of the hinge-like portion rather than the skirt being compresssed between the impacting object and the plate-like member. We have discovered that in an impact this progressive deformation and hinge-like action gives a dramatic improveme
REFERENCES:
patent: 1964903 (1934-07-01), Bronson
patent: 1975262 (1934-10-01), Evans et al.
patent: 2225737 (1940-12-01), De Vaney
patent: 3758159 (1973-09-01), Morris
patent: 3897056 (1975-07-01), Hock et al.
patent: 3905643 (1975-09-01), Lamkemeyer
patent: 4066258 (1978-01-01), Yates
patent: 4524966 (1985-06-01), Shannon et al.
patent: 5269590 (1993-12-01), Carilli
Jr. Milton Nelson
Sutcliffe Leisure Limited
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