Vertical blind controls

Abstract

Vertical blinds having commonly housed and traversely movable controls for controlling the traverse and rotation of the vanes are disclosed. In a disclosed embodiment, the vanes are supported by carrier members, and a rotation rod extends through the carrier members. The carrier members are slideable along the rotation rod. A control assembly is mounted to slide along and also rotate the rotation rod. Sliding of the control assembly along the rotation rod slides the carrier members to thereby traverse the vanes, and actuation of the control assembly rotates the rotation rod and the vanes. The control assembly includes meshing bevel gears, one of which is coupled to an actuating rod or wand and the other to the rotation rod whereby rotation of the wand causes rotation of the vanes. The control assembly is slid by means of the wand which is universally connected to the control assembly. The wand is thus a unitary control for actuating both traverse and rotation of the vanes.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.