US 6,782,834 B2Granted

Lawn seed and chemical dispenser with sub-soil rock detector

OwnerLes R. Winninventor

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Abstract

A hand-held tool for not only placing granular materials such as grass seed, granular chemicals, or a combination thereof into soil but also aerating it and detecting near surface rocks and the like. The tool includes a hopper, a shaft which terminates in a soil-piercing spike, and a spring-actuated sleeve slideably mounted on the shaft. The shaft defines a partially hollow bore and an orifice, the orifice being disposed on a sidewall of the shaft distal from the hopper and proximate with the juncture between the shaft and the spike. The bore and the orifice fluidly communicate with each other and with the hopper. The spring-actuated sleeve normally blocks the orifice, so that seed and/or chemicals cannot spill out of it. Granular materials are dispensed by dropping them by gravity out of the orifice whenever the spike can be driven into the soil far enough. A ground-engaging flange on the spring-actuated sleeve must be thrust upwardly along the shaft, simultaneously as the spike penetrates the earth, to uncover the orifice.

Claims3

Dependent claims

A hand-held tool for dispensing granular materials into soil and detecting hard objects buried just below ground surface, which comprises:

(a) a hopper;
(b) a ground-engaging flange;
(c) an elongated shaft, the shaft being rigidly attached to the hopper and defining both a hollow bore and an orifice;
the shaft having a cylindrical sidewall and a closed wall disposed perpendicularly to the sidewall, the hollow bore extending longitudinally from the hopper to the closed wall;
the orifice, which is disposed in the sidewall proximate with the closed end, fluidly communicating, via the hollow bore, with the hopper;
(d) a soil-piercing spike which is rigidly attached to the closed wall and extends longitudinally from the shaft;
(e) a spring-actuated sleeve, the sleeve being slideably mounted on the shaft and spring biased away from the hopper, the spring-actuated sleeve normally blocking flow of any granular materials stored within the bore from the orifice;
and
(f) means, including the ground-engaging flange which is rigidly mounted on the sleeve, for partially overcoming the bias of the spring, so that granular materials stored within the bore flow by gravity out of the orifice whenever the spike is driven into the soil far enough that the flange is simultaneously thrust against the ground.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.