Articulated tractor-paint striper for two-layer striping

Abstract

This invention provides for painting a second coat upon a set of parallel striped lines in exact registration in one pass of a motorized painting vehicle for such applications as painting aircraft taxi stripes at airports. Beads are also registered on one of the lines in the same pass. Provisions are made for maintaining registration about curved lines by steering around curves with a shortened wheelbase vehicle and by extending paint nozzles for striping a plurality of parallel lines, typically a center twelve inch wide yellow line between two six inch wide black lines, outboard from one side of the painting vehicle. The vehicle comprises two four wheeled units articulated together by a universal articulation joint permitting vertical articulation so that the leading and trailing wheels may be lifted off the ground to reduce the wheelbase for steering around curves. Balance for articulation is established by paint tanks being moved forward and rearward on the two units for starting balance, with dynamic balance being retained by feeding equal weights of beads and paints respectively from the front and rear unit tanks. The rear unit contains a transaxle drive unit with constant torque drive for maintaining a straight line without operator steering. With this striper system the closedown time at airports for striping runways is reduced significantly at great savings.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.