US 4,776,296 AGranted

Mounting for audible signal valve knob

AssigneeRegal Ware, Inc.

InventorThomas W. Heermans

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Abstract

A knob for a cooking vessel is a whistle which gives an audible signal that cooking temperature has been reached, and has a valve slide assembly including a separate leaf spring for shutting off the whistle. Inside and outside knob parts incorporate halves of a resonance chamber which makes the knob extremely simple to mold, assemble, clean, and disassemble. The inner knob is comprised of two parts: a top having a whistle orifice and a base which has two arc segments portions which extend through the lid of a cooking vessel and allow the top to be snapped into place abutting the cooking vessel lid. Because the inner knob is comprised of two parts in this fashion, the central opening in the cooking vessel top can be made small enough so that it will be difficult for a user to catch his or her fingers in the opening when the knob is dissasembled for cleaning. The valve slide rests in guides and is overlaid by a knob cover. The leaf spring biases the valve slide against the top wall of the resonance chamber so that when the slide valve is closed the passage from the resonance chamber to the ambient air is effectively blocked.

Claims5

Dependent claims

In a knob for a cooking vessel having a top:

an inner knob provided with a first whistle orifice and a surrounding lower resonance chamber portion;
an outer knob having a surface abutting the vessel top, said outer knob being removably secured to said inner knob and disposed outside the vessel top, said outer knob comprising an upper resonance chamber wall having a second orifice therein, said lower resonance chamber portion and upper resonance chamber wall together enclosing a resonance chamber, the improvement comprising:
a two piece inner knob comprised of an inner knob base and an inner knob top;
said inner knob base having an opening in its center and arc segment portions projecting through the vessel top, said arc segment portions having means on their exterior surfaces capable of engaging said outer knob, said arc segment portions having means on their interior surfaces capable of engaging said inner knob top;
said inner knob top being provided with a first whistle orifice and a surrounding lower resonance chamber portion, said inner knob top having a skirt portion extending longitudinally from said resonance chamber portion, said skirt portion having a means on its exterior surface capable of engaging with the interior surface of said arc segment portions of said inner knob base.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.