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US 8,465,639 B2Granted
Pin based method of precision diamond turning to make prismatic mold and sheeting
AssigneeOrafol Americas Inc.
InventorXiao-Jing Lu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system, and corresponding method for use, for providing a mass-producible retroreflective material, or sheeting, featuring full cube corner pins is presented. The full cube corner shaping may be provided with the use of a diamond turning tool. The diamond turning tool may be used to simultaneously manufacture a number of pins. The pins may be used to form a mold featuring a triangular or full cube corner surface formation.
Claims14
A method for making a mold for forming a retroreflective sheeting, the method comprising:
- forming a pin bundle from a plurality of pins;
- leveling a top and a bottom surface of the pin bundle;
- machining the top surface of the pin bundle with a diamond turning tool to provide predefined shapes for each pin on the top surface, wherein machining further comprises cutting three sets of parallel lines, each set being in a different axial direction, with a pitch of at least two of the sets being of equal value, and the pitch of the three sets being larger than the dimensional cross section of each pin in the pin bundle;
- selecting a sub-set of pins from the pin bundle to form a sub-set bundle, each pin in the sub-set bundle having a same predetermined shape;
- and
- electroforming the sub-set bundle to provide the mold.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.