Flexible swabbing tool

Abstract

A swabbing tool with a telescoping handle and a flexible tubular extension ending in a socket within which a variety of attachments can be inserted, to take swab samples of remote and distant surfaces, without someone having to actually climb up or go down to the surfaces, to determine whether a surface has been adequately cleaned. The clamp attachment has pivotally connected upper and lower members, which each have a jaw extending beyond a recess. There is a notch in the center of the jaws for holding swabs with narrow cylindrical handles. There are also attachments having a template with a hole of a known area. A swab on another handle must be used to take a sample within the hole of a surface which the template is held against. Extending from the rear of either kind of attachment is a cylindrical member, which fits inside the socket. Extending from the cylindrical member is a fixed peg, and a depressible peg which is biased outward by a spring in the cylindrical member, but which is pushed inward when the cylindrical member is inserted into the socket. The socket has a curved notch, within which the fixed peg of a cylindrical member fits. The outward bias of the depressible peg helps retain the fixed peg in the curved notch, and thereby helps keep the cylindrical member in the socket.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.