Tools – Hammer – Having plural striking faces
Reexamination Certificate
2003-02-27
2004-12-14
Meislin, Debra S. (Department: 3723)
Tools
Hammer
Having plural striking faces
C081S023000, C081S044000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06829966
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to hammers, more particularly to hammers having a nail placer, and most specifically to hammers having a nail placer for driven type fasteners.
2. General Background
Lengths of metal channels, commonly known as ‘tracks’ as used in construction, are typically fastened to concrete substrates with the use of driven type fastening pins possessing an outer collar that is shorter than the central steel member and typically possesses a radially symmetric configuration, most typically or a longitudinal set of exterior radial splines of substantially uniform diameter but also characterized by a shoulder at an upper end with an enlarged diameter. The central steel member has an outward flange or head at the top end presenting a flat circular top impact surface. The maximum diameter of the collar is slightly greater than the diameter of the impact surface of the head. This structure is considered to be ideally suited to use in powder actuated and fuel cell type guns as the radially symmetric collar facilitates feeding or guiding of the fastening pin. Use of radial ribs on the most typical type of fastener, as opposed to a solid cylindrical shape, and provision of the shoulder with radially spaced small outward protrusions or buttons, are both intended to avoid jamming in powder actuated or fuel cell type guns.
Building construction workers typically use powder actuated or fuel cell type guns specifically for driving fastening pins through metal tracks and into concrete substrates typically forming walls or floors and use other hand tools such as a conventional hammer and or drywall hatchet in constructing interior walls typically braced at ends to poured concrete slab walls by the fastened metal tracks. Conventional, clawed, hammers typically used by workers in building construction are considered to be well known. The head has a bifurcated claw end opposed to a generally cylindrical end presenting the substantially flat, circular, impact surface applied to the heads of conventional nails for the purpose of fastening wood members. The claw is used to pry a poorly hammered nail from the wood. In a heavier version with a comparatively shallow claw the same is generally known as a wrecking hammer for self explanatory purposes.
It considered that hammers of other configurations are known including tack hammers for tacking or light work, ball peen hammers for metal work, et cetera. Most pertinently to the problem addressed herein a variety of hammers having nail placers are known. A nail placer allows one to place a nail with the hammer as opposed to holding the nail with one hand against a surface and directing the blow of the hammer toward the same. A hammer with a nail placer allows one to start the nail without placing the fingers of a hand in the path of the impact surface of the hammer head. The benefit derived is elimination of a potential hazard to the fingers of the hand holding the nail.
Track fasteners are generally too short and of too awkward a shape to be easily held by one's fingers, particularly at the bottom of a relatively narrow channel which prohibits flattening of the hand. The impact necessary to start a track fastener in metal track is much greater than that necessary to start a nail in the wood used in construction and placing a track fastener with one's fingers for starting the same with the blow of a conventional hammer is considered to impose an unacceptably high level of hazard upon the task.
A hammer that might be used to start a track fastening pin of the kind described therefor necessarily must possess a nail placer suitable to the specific shape and configuration of the typical track fastening pin as described in some detail above. And the prior art considered pertinent to the present invention is hence defined by this characteristic coincident with the language used by the U.S. Patent Office Classification System found in the ‘Field of the Invention’ above.
Patent #
Inventor
Date
Title
References Cited
1. U.S. Pat. No. 661,198
Thurston
6 Nov., 1900
Hammer For
Straightening
Saw Blades
2. U.S. Pat. No. 2,517345
Pies
1 Aug., 1950
Shingle
Gauge
Attachment
For
Hammers
3. AU 164,189
Miller
5 Aug., 1954
Improve-
ments in or
relating to
carpenter's
hammers
4. U.S. Pat. No. 4,073,327
Pearson
14 Feb., 1978
Magnetic
Head
Hammer
5. U.S. Pat. No. 4,732,058
Chung
22 Mar., 1988
Measuring
Hammer
References Noted
1. U.S. Pat. No. 96,061
Warner
19 Oct., 1869
Lasting
Hammer
2. U.S. Pat. No. 175,322*
Avery
28 Mar., 1876
Tack
Hammer
3. U.S. Pat. No. 239,777
Hepfinger
5 Apr. 1881
Tack
Hammer
4. U.S. Pat. No. 392,515
Hoover
6 Nov. 1888
Tack
Hammer
5. U.S. Pat. No. 812,947
Molkenthin
20 Feb. 1906
Combination
Tool of
the Hammer
Type
6. U.S. Pat. No. 1,960,390
Nadelman
29 May 1934
Nail
Setting
Tool
7. AU 141,678
Miller
6 Oct., 1949
An improved
hammer
*Note. Full copies of all twelve references cited and noted above were reviewed but only the face sheet of Avery was found in the stacks of the U.S. Patent Office Public Search Room and only the references cited are discussed below.
DISCUSSION OF THE REFERENCES CITED
The presumed brothers Thurston disclose a hammer with the shaft connected to an end of a heavy, longitudinally tapered, head having a blind cavity, of cylindrical, oblong, square, or of triangular shape, centrally located and open to the impact face on the opposed, thicker, end of the head. The impact face is necessarily convex, sloping backward in a radially outward direction from the central cavity, in order to avoid deformation of the teeth on the saw blade adjacent to the tooth avoided by the blind cavity during straightening of the blade with the hammer.
Pies discloses a ‘shingle gage attachment for hammers’ having an externally threaded extension with a distal flange threaded into a tapped bore through an end of the hammer head connected to the shaft bore and opposed to the end having the impact face. The threaded extension has a ‘gauging abutment 16’ or flange on its end and is fixed by means of a lock nut at any desired extension thereby providing a gauge convenient to someone laying roof shingles and obviating the need for a chalk line for each successive row of shingles.
Miller discloses a claw hammer having a deep smooth walled cylindrical blind cavity open to the back, claw equipped, end of the head having an arcuate thin strip of steel disposed therein shaped to exert downward pressure upon the length of a nail inserted in the cavity thereby retaining the same therein. A tapered V shaped groove centered at the bottom of the open cavity centers the length of a nail disposed therein. The steel strip is fastened to the blind end of the cavity with a semi-spherical head bolt screwed into a tapped aperture behind the blind end which shape ensures, together with the centered groove, that the center of the impact surface of the nail head is contacted during the blow using the bolt head as a striking point for delivery of impact.
Pearson discloses a conventional claw hammer having a cylindrical magnetic insert made of high carbon hardened steel heat treated prior to magnetization press fitted into a cup shaped sleeve or ‘magnetic shield thimble 6’ in turn press fitted into a cylindrical blind cavity formed in the impact face of the head of the hammer thereby “presenting a flush face which may then perform the combined functions of magnetic pick-up and driving over long periods of time without impairing the function of the magnet.” (Abstract)
Chung discloses a ‘measuring hammer’ having a scale incised along the steel shank integral to the head above the rubber sleeve handle further possessing a round cavity, or nail holding aperture 16 which is adapted to receive a nail” open to the surface opposed to the end with the impact surface, below the base of the claw, and disposed to retain the head of a common nail extending backward through the wedge shaped gap between the bifurcated claws while starting a nail.
Note
The ‘nail holding aperture’ co-operating with th
Gibson Peter O'Donovan
Meislin Debra S.
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