Amusement devices: games – Aerial projectile game; game element or accessory therefor... – Target
Patent
1983-11-30
1986-06-17
Pinkham, Richard C.
Amusement devices: games
Aerial projectile game; game element or accessory therefor...
Target
273 73D, A63B 5112
Patent
active
045952019
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is with respect to a racket, such as racket for tennis or squash, having a generally elliptical frame, a handle fixed thereto and at least one string length strung across the frame in the form of crossing strings that are generally parallel to each other and are trained round at points on the frame with a low degree of friction.
THE PRIOR ART
In the case of well-known forms of tennis racket the lengths of string are stretched across the frame with an even or differential tension and fixed at their ends in the frame. Because the playing properties of a racket are dependent on a great number of different factors, that in some cases have opposite effects, such a stringing system will only, at the most, have good tension and impact loss properties at the so-called "sweet spot", that is to say the best point on the racket for hitting the ball. If the racket is so strung as to have the optimum properties at the sweet spot it is generally not possible for other parts of the strings to be given optimum properties. This being the case, the player will have a generally poor control of balls which are not hit at the sweet spot and this will put a strain on the wrist.
In an earlier design, see the British Pat. No. 380,915, the strings of a racket were to be trained over pulleys in the frame, which was to have a number of tensioning means for separately tensioning the strings. While this design did make minor trimming of the tension properties of the strings possible to a limited degree, there was still trouble with certain factors, such as stretching of the strings and placing them in the desired position, making it hard to get an optimum distribution of tension.
The French Pat. No. 784,057 has an account of a tennis racket strung with a single length of string that was trained over pulleys and joined with a tensioning means placed where the handle and frame are joined together (this part being named the "heart" of the racket) so that the player himself was to be able to make a change in the overall tension of the strings. Quite in addition to the fact that this did not make it possible for the tension of separate strings and the tension gradient to be changed in the racket, the performance of the racket was poor inasfar the effect of the large amount of friction at the crossing points of the strings was that it took some time before the tension produced by adjustment of the tensioning means became distributed over all the strings by a sort of slow slipping process.
Designs like this using guide pulleys in the frame and a tensioning means in the handle are furthermore to be seen in the British Pat. No. 2,029,241 and the U.S. Pat. No. 4,057,249, that as well are open to the same objections noted.
OVERVIEW OF THE INVENTION
The purpose of the invention is that of making for better elastic properties of the strings, more specially in respect of off-center ball contact.
This purpose is effected in the present invention inasfar as in at least part of the system of strings, parallel strings placed next to each other are parts of different lengths of string and the distance between strings forming part of one and the same length of string is at least equal to a ball radius.
In the case of such a stringing system the stretching of the strings directly impacted on contact with the ball is responsible for an increased tension of those parts of the same length of string that are at the edges of the ball contact spot or zone. This gives a distribution of tension, that is marked by a high elasticity in the ball contact spot, whereas the string array in a part forming a ring round this spot is more strongly tensioned and less pushed out of place so that there is a better control of the ball on hitting it. While on the one hand with a normal racket the position of the sweet spot is fixed once and for all, with a racket in keeping with the present invention one may say that, in a certain sense, the sweet spot will always be at the position of ball contact.
In a preferred form of
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Pinkham Richard C.
Schneider Matthew L.
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