Wiring harness construction means and method

Structure for retaining, identifying and arraying wire strands in electrical harnesses and the like, said structure comprising:

• (a) an elongated comb-like strip having a row of teeth on at least one longitudinal edge thereof with elongated slots defined by and between said teeth and extending transversely of the strip;
• (b) said teeth having substantially inflexible shank portions and opposing detent portions adjacent to the ends of said teeth, and said detent portions being at least slightly flexible and capable of accepting and capturing at least one wire strand in each of said slots by resilient deflection in the general longitudinal plane only of said comb-like strip without substantial deflection of said shank portions;
• (c) a keeper securable by said detent portions on said teeth to retain the wire strands;
• (d) the detent portion of each of said teeth defining an arrowhead with a pair of resilient down-sloped barbs to engage said keeper;
• and,
• (e) said keeper being planar and having a plurality of holes to snap over said arrowheads, and each of said teeth defining a narrowed neck above said shank terminating in said arrowhead detent, said neck being of length adequate to leave a space equal to at least the thickness of said keeper between said shank and said barbs when the latter are fully deformed against said neck.

Structure for retaining, identifying and arraying wire strands in electrical harnesses and the like, said structure comprising:

• (a) an elongated comb-like strip having a row of teeth on at least one longitudinal edge thereof with elongated slots defined by and between said teeth and extending transversely of the strip;
• (b) said teeth having substantially inflexible shank portions and opposing detent portions adjacent to the ends of said teeth, and said detent portions being at least slightly flexible and capable of accepting and capturing at least one wire strand in each of said slots by resilient deflection in the general longitudinal plane only of said comb-like strip without substantial deflection of said shank portions;
• (c) a keeper securable by said detent portions on said teeth to retain the wire strands;
• and,
• (d) said keeper defining a wrapper having dual rows of holes securable on said teeth to define a fold in said wrapper between said rows of holes to capture a main bundle of incoming wire strands from which selected wire strands can be diverted through said slots.

Structure for retaining, identifying and breaking out individual strands of wire from a bundle comprising:

• (a) a wrapper having a back flap, a front flap, and a central connector portion hingedly joining said flaps;
• (b) means connecting said flaps at multiple spots separated by intervals along the outside edges thereof opposite the central connector portion to define sequential breakout openings between said flaps at said spaced intervals;
• and
• (c) indicia on said wrapper indexed with said spaced intervals providing routing information correlated to the particular wire strands to be broken out through the respective openings to reduce the dependency of a harnessmaker on outside instruction materials.

A layout board apparatus for temporarily retaining, identifying and arraying strands in electrical harnesses or the like which have a strand bundle with at least one breakout point therealong from which individual strands from said bundle are ordered and diverted from the strand bundle to a connector or the like, said layout board comprising:

• (a) a layout panel;
• (b) at least one breakout station defined on said panel;
• (c) a breakout element for each of said breakout stations, each such element being adapted to independently engage and contain a strand bundle at a breakout point and order and divert individual strands from the bundle;
• and
• (d) said at least one station each having means to temporarily and releasibly engage a breakout element.

A method of laying out a wiring harness having a plurality of strand breakout points along a bundle of strands using a layout board with a plurality of breakout stations and releasible engagement means at each of said layout stations and a plurality of comb-like strips having upright teeth with detent tips engagable by said engagement means, said method including the following steps:

• (a) engaging at least one of said comb-like strips in each of those of said engagement means which correspond to a breakout point of a harness being made;
• (b) on each of said strips engaging a first edge of a flexible wrapper over said teeth and pressing down until said teeth project thru said wrapper;
• (c) drawing sequential strands across said board adjacent each respective one of said comb-like strips and breaking at least one of said strands laterally out through sequential pairs of teeth of each of said comb-like strips;
• and,
• (d) folding said wrapper over said strand bundle and engaging a second edge of said wrapper opposite said first edge over said teeth to be detained by said detent tips.