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US 4,453,471 AGranted
Panel retaining clamp for collapsible pallet containers
AssigneeHB Clip-Lok Industries Ltd.
InventorsJames V. Harrington, Edward G. M. Baldwin
Life of this patent
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AssigneeHB Clip-Lok Industries Ltd.
InventorsJames V. Harrington, Edward G. M. Baldwin
Estimating the term…
A pallet container system having strap-like clamping devices to retain five or more rectangular panels in either an erect box-like condition or in a collapsed condition in which the panels are compactly stacked for handling and storage during non-use. The panels are provided with recess formations spaced from each peripheral edge by a common marginal distance related to the combined thickness of five panels. The clamps are preferably L-shaped in configuration to define legs differing in length from each other by the thickness of one panel. In the erect condition, the short leg extends about the edge of one panel and along the surface of another panel oriented at right angles to the one panel so that clamping projections at the ends of the legs engage in the recessed formations. In a collapsed condition, the panels are stacked and the clamp engaged about the edges to retain the panels in an overlying stacked relationship and also to retain a complete set of clamps with the stacked panels. The floor panel of the system is provided with alternately spaced slots so that by selection of either the short or the long leg of the clamps, the number of panels retained by the clamps in a stacked condition may vary between five and six in number.
A clamp for retaining panels each having opposite planar surfaces spaced by a given common panel thickness and joined by at least one linear edge, each of the panels having recessed formations to define a clamping surface spaced by a common distance to the respective linear edges, said clamping surfaces facing oppositely from the linear edges in each panel, respectively, said clamp comprising a strap-like member of material having the characteristics of tempered steel, said member having generally continuous side edges lying in parallel planes perpendicular to the thickness thereof and including a central bight portion and a pair of clamping flange projections struck out from the ends of said bight portion at acute angles from the bight portion so as to lie in converging planes perpendicular to the planes of said side edges, said clamping flange projections having rounded lips at the free ends thereof spaced from each other by a total distance along said bight portion corresponding to the distance between said clamping surfaces on two panels in which the linear edge of at least one of the two panels is in abutment with the other of said panels, and a locking tang cut from said flange projection and displaced out of the plane of said flange projection to engage a surface of said recessed formations opposite from said clamping surface.
A reusable and collapsible pallet container comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.