GB2134028A - Hand held pallet for mixing hardenable materials - Google Patents

Abstract

A board 11 has a handle 12 and supports a tear-off pad 13 of thin flexible plastic sheets on its non-handle region. Each sheet adheres to the next sheet below and the hardenable material is mixed on the topmost sheet. When the hardenable material has hardened such that that sheet can no longer be used, the sheet is torn off to expose a fresh sheet for further mixing. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Hand-held pallet for mixing hardenable materials The invention relates to a hand-held pallet for mixing paint, filler or other initially stirrable and subsequently hardening materials.

Such materials are widely used. In recent years, especially, the quantity of quick-hardening filler materials in both private and commercial use has increased enormously. Home handymen use the well-known decorative fillers such as POLYFILLER, whilst professional car body repairers use modern two-component mixable fillers such as PLASTIC PADDING or ISOPON (POLYFILLER, PLASTIC PADDING and ISOPON are trade marks). The last two products can fill relatively substantial dents without the need for panel beating before filling.

The home handyman typically tends to overmix, i.e. to mix far more filler than is needed in any one filling operation. The filler subsequently hardens, and cannot be used again. Indeed, the mixing pallet must be scrupulously cleaned, if it is to be used at all, so that no hardened filler bits contaminate the next mix.

The professional car body repairer will not overmix to same degree, but because he is mixing relatively large quantities of filler to occupy what might be a substantial dent in a vehicle's bodywork he will, inevitably, tend to over-mix rather than to under-mix. It is virtually impossible to clean away the hardened residue of this kind of filler.

The home handyman may go to some lengths to clean his mixing surface, if for no better reason than that it frequently comprises a plate or saucer which is wanted by the household for continuing use. The professional body-repairer by contrast is forced to discard whatever he has used as his mixing surface, once the filler has dried.

Both classes of filler user would benefit from having available a mixing pallet which could be re-used without the need to try to clean it after each mixing operation.

The typical mixing pallet is either a plate or saucer for the home handyman, or a circular lid which happens to be handy for the professional body repairer. In each case, it is all too easy for the user to spread the filler over his fingers when handling the mixing pallet, because there is no proper provision for a handle.

The invention, arising from these practical considerations, is thus based on the concept of providing a mixing pallet which can be re-used without the need to attempt to clean the mixing surface and which also has positive provision for a handle.

To that end, and in its broadest aspect, the invention provides a hand-held pallet for mixing paint, filler or other initially stirrable and subsequently hardening materials; the pallet having a defined material-mixing region and being provided with, or adapted to take, a handle; and in which the mixing region comprises a substantially flat and relatively rigid board supporting a tear-off pad of thin flexible plastics sheets.

With such a pallet, the material is mixed on the topmost sheet of the pad; and when it has subsequently hardened, and can no longer be used, the topmost sheet is simply torn off the pad to expose the next sheet. The previously-used sheet together with its residue of material can then be discarded.

A pallet embodying the invention can be made light in weight, and need not be expensive to produce. It could sell to the home handyman and also to the professional body-repairing shop. When all the sheets initially bought with the pallet have been used up, replacement pads of sheets could be bought rather than having to buy a pallet. One pallet with its initial pad of sheets would last the home handyman, a relatively infrequent user, for a long time. The ability to use replacement pads makes such a pallet equally attractive to the fastusing professional. In either market, the invention lends itself to repeated use in a cost-effective manner.

In practical embodiments of the invention, the tear-off sheets would be liquid-repellent. They would also be made up into a pad which, whilst carrying a reasonable number of sheets superimposed one upon another, is thin enough overall for the topmost sheet still to present a relatively firm mixing surface. A too-thick pad of flexible plastics sheets could be undesirably resilient.

There may for example be 50 sheets in any one pad.

The so-called "board" supporting the pad need not necessarily be made of wood. It could be a rigid plastics sheet. The term "board" is used to define a support which is relatively rigid and thick in comparison with the flexibility and thinness of the sheets it supports.

The plastic sheets could be clear, or could be coloured. They could each carry advertising material on their base for example the name and/or trade mark and possibly other material relating to a particular filler or paints manufacturer. Each advertising message would be exposed anew when a sheet was torn off, and a pallet embodying this aspect of the invention thus has distinct advantages over any other pallet containing a single advertising surface which, after one mixing, has its advertising message largely obliterated.

Alternatively, or additionally, advertising -material could be printed on one or more walls of the pad. Such printing is familiar from desk top notepads. However, such desk pads do not normally find their way on to the shop floors of commercial filler-mixing premises, and so it is by no means obvious to apply the pad-wall-printing concept to a pallet embodying the invention.

The tear-off pad itself is of course an essential element of the invention. The invention thus includes within its scope a tear-off pad of thin flexible plastics sheets suitable for use, or specifically intended for use, as part of a pallet embodying the invention.

The accompanying drawings each show, by way of example only, different pallets embodying the invention. They are currently the best ways known to the applicant of putting the invention into practice. They will now be described in sequence.

In the drawings: Figure 1 shows a first pallet in perspective, and Figure 1 A shows the same pallet in side elevation; Figure 2, again drawn in perspective, shows a second pallet; Figure 3 is another perspective view showing a third pallet; Figure 4 again is drawn in perspective and shows a fourth pallet; and Figure 5 is yet another perspective view showing the final pallet.

In Figure 1, a hand-held pallet consists of a substantially flat wooden board 11 incorporating a handle 12 and supporting a tear-off pad 13 of thin flexible plastics sheets on its non-handle region.

There are fifty clear plastics sheets in the pad 1 3.

Each of them adheres to the next sheet over its entire surface. All the sheets are liquid repellent, and the board 11 itself is similarly treated - for example by varnishing it - to resist any liquids seeping into it.

Each sheet of the pad 1 3 is substantially square, but has a tab 1 4 projecting from one edge.

As Figure 1 A shows, the sheets are so stuck to one another that the pad 14 of the topmost sheet for the time being can readily be grasped and used to strip the sheet from the rest of the pad.

The non-handled region of the board 11 is also square, but is substantially bigger than the area of the pad 1 3. The pad 1 3 sits in the centre of the board 11. Because of the difference in size, and the central positioning, there is then less chance of any mixed material over-flowing the edges of the board 11.

The bottom sheet of the pad 13, like every other sheet has a layer of adhesive on one surface. That layer of adhesive fixes the bottom sheet, and hence the pad as a whole, to the board 11.

When the last sheet of the pad has been torn off the board 11, a refill, i.e. a new pad, can be bought. The bottom sheet of this pad has its layer of adhesive covered by a peel-off backing sheet.

When the refill is ready for use, the peel-off backing is removed, and the pad can be stuck direct to the board 11.

In Figure 2, the board 11 is circular, and the handle 12 projects at right angles from the underside of the board 11 and can, if necessary, be unscrewed from it The sheets of the pad 13 are again stuck one on top of another, and are provided with tabs 14 to enable them to be torn off in succession. In this embodiment, however, each sheet is rotated slightly in relation to the sheet below it, so that the succession of tabs 14 is spaced circumferentially around the edge of the board 1 This makes the individual tabs easier to locate and grasp when the sheets are to be torn off.

The plastics sheets could be colour, and/or the tabs 14 could be sequentially numbered, to save time in otherwise having to device which tab to grasp in order to tear the top sheet off at any one time.

In Figure 3, the board 11 and its handle 12 are identical to those of Figure 1. In this case, however, the succession of sheets in the pad 13 are not stuck to one another. A single stud 14 fastens them at one corner to the board 11.

Individual sheets are torn away from the stud 14 as the pad is gradually used up.

There are no tabs on the sheets in Figure 3.

Instead, the sheets become progressively larger as the pad is used up, so that the topmost sheet can always readily be identified.

In Figure 4, the pad-supporting handled board 11, 12 is again identical to that of Figure 1.

Similarly the sheets in the pad 1 3 are all the same size. However, they are all stuck to one another along one common edge 14 so that, like the sheets of Figure 3, they need only be torn off rather than having to be positively stripped away from one another In Figure 5, the sheets of the pad 13 are again secured only along one edge 14; but in this embodiment the sheets are arranged in a decorative "helix" pattern. They are skewed relative to one another, like the sheets of Figure 2, but unlike those latter sheets their edges are made to define a continuous curve.

In Figure 5 also, the handle 12 is defined by a series of finger-indentations which serve as handgrips.

The embodiment illustrated in Figure 1 uses FABLON clear vinyl sheets (FABLON is a trade mark) each of which self-adheres releasably to the sheet beneath. The adhesive covers the whole of the underside of each sheet, but does not cover any portion of the tabs 14. Each sheet is between 0.003" and 0.005" thick.

Although the sheets illustrated are smaller in area than the board, they could advantageously extend right to the edges of the board and perhaps extend slight beyond those edges. Similarly the tabs 14 could extend above the handle region of the board. The first of these features ensures a completely clean "next" mixing surface, whilst the second keeps the tabs out of the way of the filler being mixed.

The invention is of course applicable primarily to the mixing of inherently relatively viscous materials. The body fillers previously mentioned, and such things as two-component glues, are ideally suited to mixing thus. Power fillers which have to be mixed with water are not inherently so suited, although the now-available premixed versions of such fillers could certainly be handled by a pallet embodying the invention.

Claims (8)

1. A pallet for mixing initially stirrable and subsequently hardening material comprising support means provided with or adapted to be provided with handle means, said support means including a mixing zone defined by a pad of thin flexible sheets of plastics material, each superimposed on another and removabie therefrom.

2. A pallet as claimed in claim 1, in which the pad comprises sheets of plastics material which are liquid repellent.

3. A pallet as claimed in either claim 1 or claim 2 in which the pad comprises between 40 and 60 sheets of plastics material.

4. A pad as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, in which the sheets of the pad are adhered together over their entire surface.

5. A pallet as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 3, in which the sheets of the pad are adhered one to another along a single edge thereof.

6. A pallet as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 3, in which the sheets of the pad are adhered together by means of a stud means passing through all the sheets.

7. A pallet as claimed in any of the preceding claims in which each sheet is provided with a projecting tab to enable it to be grasped for removal from the next succeeding sheet.

8. A pallet for mixing initially stirrable and subsequently hardening material substantially as described herein with reference to any one of the accompanying drawings.