Articulated earmuff-to-headband attachment construction
AssigneeCabot Corporation
InventorsRoss Gardner, Jr., Robert Falco
Life of this patent
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Abstract
There is disclosed an acoustic earmuff device wherein there is provided an articulated earmuff-to-headband attachment construction which is readily fabricated and assembled and which provides sufficient freedom of pivotal motion of the earmuff relative to the headband as to allow each earmuff to readily assume the proper wearing position with respect to the head of the user. The invention utilizes a soft resilient grommet fitted through an aperture in the back wall of a rigid earcup to articulatingly capture a rigid stud extending inwardly from an end portion of a resilient headband.
Claims10
An articulated earmuff-to-headband construction for acoustic earmuff devices which comprises:
- a rigid stud having an outboard shaft portion for interiorly directed fixation to an end portion of a resilient headband and an expanded free end inboard portion of substantially greater maximum diameter than said shaft portion;
- an acoustic earmuff comprising a rigid earcup element having a back wall, said back wall having an aperture therethrough;
- and
- a grommet composed of a soft resilient material and comprising (a) a internal bore, the diameter of said bore, in the unconstructed state, being not substantially less than the maximum diameter of said expanded free end inboard portion of said stud, and (b) a circumferential external groove of a size and shape to receive said aperture of said earcup;
- the diameter of said aperture being sufficiently less than the diameter of said grommet taken at the bottom of said groove such that, upon said receiving of said aperture in said groove, the material of said grommet underlying said groove is inwardly deformed to define an indwelling ridge on said internal bore of sufficiently lesser diameter than the maximum diameter of said expanded free end inboard portion of said stud as to lockingly and articulatingly capture said stud with said expanded free end inboard portion thereof being inboard of said ridge.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.