Compound tools – Weeding – gardening – or light agricultural or earthworking use – Spade or shovel
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-14
2001-09-18
Hail, III, Joseph J. (Department: 3723)
Compound tools
Weeding, gardening, or light agricultural or earthworking use
Spade or shovel
C007S159000, C030S308100, C015S141100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06289540
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to fighting outdoor fires and particularly to a tool set useful for fighting fires in different types of terrain and vegetation.
With increasing movements of U.S. wildfire firemen from one geographic region to another the need for a better firefighting hand tool has evolved. Certain developments regarding such hand tools are disclosed in Lugtenaar U.S. Pat. No. 5,105,493, which discusses several of the problems faced in fighting wildfire fires in the naturally occurring vegetation.
For wildfire firefighters to be ready to do their work, they need to have all the necessary tools readily available when they are transported to a fire in any type of terrain likely to encountered in the geographical region where they are to be working. In places where heavy layers of grass roots and the like are found, shovels, grub hoes, and scrapers may not be very useful and fire may have to be beaten down to be extinguished. In other situations trees and brush need to be cut to prevent spreading of fire, and a firefighter may need an axe to be effective. However, cutting small low brush with an axe usually results in quick dulling of the axe blade as it encounters dirt and stones on the ground beneath thin branches.
Once flames have been extinguished the “black line” around a burned area has to be checked, using rakes, grub hoes, or similar tools, to discover, extinguish, and cool embers, to prevent rekindling of the fire. Tools such as the Pulaski firefighting tool, while popular, have a grub hoe blade whose weight is dominant over the opposite axe blade usually on the same handle. When such blades become worn through use, replacement of the entire Pulaski head is undesirably expensive. When firefighters have tried to improve the Pulaski tool by increasing the width of the grub hoe blade, the revised shape has made the tool more dangerous because of the increased unbalancing effect of the larger blade. Additionally, the prior art Pulaski tool has been undesirable heavy and therefore tiresome to use.
Adjustable shovels have been known previously and can be carried more safely than shovels with fixed blades. The adjustment mechanisms previously known, however, have been less secure than is desired.
While the multipurpose firefighting tool disclosed in earlier U.S. Pat. No. 5,105,493 included an effective direct contact tool for beating down flames, it is desired to have such a tool in a form which is less tiring to use for sever a 1 hours continuously.
What is desired, then, is an improved multipurpose tool for fighting wildfires that can be manufactured and maintained at a reasonable cost, that is not unduly heavy, that is well-balanced, and that is safe both in use and during transportation to a wildfire, including transportation by aircraft and during parachute drops.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention attempts to provide answers to some of the aforementioned shortcomings of the prior art firefighting tools and provides a set of firefighting tools including a handle useable interchangeably with different heads.
A first aspect of the present invention provides an improved cutting tool head for use in a set of firefighting tools. Such a cutting tool head in one preferred embodiment includes a body defining a socket to receive an end of a handle, first and second blade support structures each including respective blade seats, and replaceable blades attached to the body and supported by the blade seats, each blade including an edge, with the edges being oriented perpendicular to each other, and with the tool head having a center of mass located within the socket defined by the body.
In one preferred embodiment of this aspect of the invention the blade seats are arranged for holding one blade in grub hoe position and the other in an axe blade position.
A second aspect of the present invention provides a shovel with an improved multi-position latching mechanism for holding a shovel blade in a selected position of rotation about a pivot axis oriented transversely with respect to the length of the tool handle.
In a preferred embodiment of this second aspect of the invention, a spring-loaded locking body is biased into engagement with a mating aperture when the shovel blade is in any of a plurality of useful positions of rotation about a pivot axis. In one embodiment of this aspect of the invention, the shovel blade can be latched either in a first position in which the shovel blade is oriented at an angle in the range of about 20° to 25° with respect to an extension of the tool handle, a second position in which the shovel blade is oriented approximately perpendicular to the handle, or a third position in which the blade lies closely alongside the handle.
In one preferred embodiment of this second aspect of the invention a swivel head included mounted on a handle extension is located between a pair of ears attached to the shovel blade, and an elongate locking and pivot shaft extends through the ears and the swivel head. The locking and pivot shaft is moveable longitudinally, but is not rotatable with respect to the swivel head, and a spring biases the shaft to a locking position in which a locking body portion of the shaft engages both the swivel head and an aperture in one of the ears and prevents the shovel blade from rotating about the pivot axis. The locking and pivot shaft may be moved longitudinally to an unlocked position in which the ears are rotatable about the pivot axis with respect to the shaft.
As a third aspect of the present invention a fairly stiff but resiliently flexible outer portion is provided in a handle for a direct contact fire extinguishing head including a number of flexible straplike members, so that the resiliently flexible outer portion of the handle can flex as the handle is swung during use, to impart speed to the extinguishing head and protect the user from mechanical shock from the impact when the direct contact fire extinguishing head comes into contact with a stationary object.
In one embodiment of this aspect of the invention the resiliently flexible outer portion of the handle has a length of at least about 10 inches.
It is a feature of one preferred embodiment of the invention that a female coupling for receiving a male handle coupling can also receive a wooden handle.
The foregoing and other objectives, features, and advantages of the present invention will be more readily understood upon consideration of the following detailed description of the invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
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Chernoff Vilhauer McClung & Stenzel LLP
Danganan Joni B.
Hail III Joseph J.
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