Furniture structure

[0001] This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/376,891 filed on May 1, 2002 whereby the entire application is incorporated in its entirety herein.

[0002] This invention relates generally to outdoor patio type furniture and more particularly to interlock connections between the occupant engageable portion of the furniture and the support for such portion of the furniture.

[0003] Furniture is bulky in the assembled for use state. Transportation thus becomes a problem and as a result thereof many pieces of furniture, particularly patio and outdoor furniture, is manufactured and shipped in a flat knock down state and then assembled at the place of sale or end use. The applicant has for several years designed and made furniture that can be readily assembled when shipped flat. Applicant has successfully for a number of years marketed furniture covered by U.S. Pat. No. 5,387,027 issued on Apr. 1, 1993. The furniture disclosed therein requires no tools or hardware for assembly. The instant application describes and claims improvements providing means for resilience or variable resilience. There are several patents relating to outdoor patio furniture which is considered pertinent to the instant disclosure.

[0004] Hsiao's U.S. Pat. No. 6,056,367 issued May 2, 2000 discloses a seat strap made soft by filing with foam but not variable thickness and or width. Holbrook's U.S. Pat. No. 5,769,500 issued Jun. 23, 1998 discloses non-structural slats that have common edges but requires structural members in addition. Kita's U.S. Pat. No. 4,910,817 issued Mar. 27, 1990 discloses a resilient seat locked to the chair frame via a metal rod insert. Golzer's U.S. Pat. No. 4,730,872 issued Mar. 15, 1998 discloses triangular in cross section straps joined to common supports rather than integral. There is edge support only at the top and bottom and not from side to side. Apissomian's U.S. Pat. No. 4,456,301 issued Jun. 26, 1984 discloses a quick method of attaching straps in pairs only. Dublasky's U.S. Pat. No. 3,590,901 issued Jul. 6, 1971 and discloses resilient slats held in place individually by a common rod. Hehn's U.S. Pat. No. 3,399,926 issued Sep. 3, 1968 and discloses common seat elements with a joining bar inserted into a pocket in the seat element.

[0005] Disclosed herein are new furniture structures that increase comfort, enhance durability and to do so in ways which can be incorporated in a wider variety of styles. The combination, in seats and backs, of seating, of resilience for comfort with sufficient structural rigidly is of great importance. Doing so in combination with durable, low cost means of connections is important in this work. Lowering cost results from these novel combinations.

[0006] Most of the furniture disclosed herein has been built and tested by the applicant. The pieces for the furniture are either molded or machined from flat sheets of plywood, plastics material including a titanium resin alloy sold under the Trademark ANDURE® and other sheet goods. Applicant's experience has led to further innovations to increase quality, broaden compatibility with different styles of furniture, increase durability and/or reduce cost. The titanium resin alloy referred to above is a special formulation of polypropylene developed by the present applicant and which gives long term durability for furniture in outdoor weather conditions. It combines the structure and surface finish of and is essentially identical from the outside to the center of the board.

[0007] A particular object of applicant's developmental work in this field of furniture design has been to find new ways to interlock the various components which make up the structure of the furniture, to minimize the need for fasteners, welds and the like, and to find new ways to utilized materials having low flexural modulus (stiffness).

[0035] Referring to the drawings, there is diagrammatically illustrated in FIG. 1 an assembled piece of furniture 10 comprising a plurality of load bearing straps or slats 11 on which a person or other object exerts force 12, i.e. by sitting or resting thereon. At least some or all of the slats, as will become more apparent hereinafter, have the opposite ends thereof snap fittingly connected to respective ones of a spaced apart pair of supports 13 that maybe legs, rails or the like portion of a piece of furniture. The interconnection comprises an end portion of the slat projecting into a cavity in the support and with respective inter-engaging formations cooperate to provide a self locking snap in interconnection upon assembly. The cavity in the support shown in FIG. 1 comprises an elongate groove 15 extending horizontally and a cavity or groove 16 that is vertical or has a vertical portion extending downwardly from the slat forming seat portion of the piece of furniture. If desired the groove 16 can be a continuation of the groove 15 (see FIGS. 14 and 19). The groove 15 can be a straight line as illustrated in FIG. 1 or have a curvature thereto as illustrated by way of example in FIGS. 14 and 19.

[0036] The slats 11 have sufficient resiliency to provide an enhanced degree of comfort by conforming to the anatomy of a person sitting thereon. This results in part from use of a low flexural modulus, relative to wood, material for the construction of the slats. Central to the invention is the simultaneous ability of these resilient slats 11 to provide the necessary structure to keep the supports adequately oriented to carry out their support function. The slats thus provide both resilience and side-to-side structural support. Popular strap seat furniture requires, for example a pair of aluminum sides held in the proper relation to one another by several horizontal structural bars typically welded to the sides. Contrary to this the invention herein provides either or both of those functions. When one slat is deployed at an angle from the sit on slats, i.e. off-set from the plane of the sit on slats, for example slat 17, additional stiffening of the support sides 13 is accomplished.

[0037] Shown in FIG. 2 are two spaced apart parallel slats 11, machined or molded, and interconnected to provide a single unit in which the two are joined at the ends thereof by an integral or applied connector 18. The connecting portion illustrated at 18A is of reduced thickness i.e. thinned or reduced to such thickness, taking into account the rigidity of the material, as to provide the ability of tilting one strap relative to the next whereby a series of the straps can be bent around a corner for comfort of the occupant and/or accomplish the said additional stiffening. The unit described in the forgoing may have spacers 19 appended to facilitate the spaced relationship of the strap units.

[0038] FIG. 3. is a plan view of a seat, or back, as the case maybe, manufactured as a single unit 20 and comprising a plurality of spaced apart parallel slats 11 joined at opposite ends providing respective edges 21 and 22. The edges maybe integrally formed with the slats or separate side rails attached thereto as for example illustrated in FIGS. 5A, 5B, 5C, and 13 and to be described hereinafter. Connectors 18A that are of reduced thickness (obviously in pairs) facilitate tilting one slat relative to the next adjacent slat permitting contouring the unit as maybe desired. An important feature of this invention is the ability to design various portions of seats and/or backs and related surfaces, to have different degrees of resilience and/or contour. By varying the width and/or depth of the slats 11, different degrees of resilience can result when a whole seat/back unit is machined or molded with uniform thickness. Half inch thick slats, one inch wide are far more resilient than slats of the same thickness which are 1.5 inches wide. By this means the thighs of an occupant can be supported firmly while the same person's buttocks encounter a more yielding surface and the upper back can be supported less firmly than the lower back of the occupant. Fine tuning can achieve a variety of ergonomic benefits.

[0039] FIG. 4, a side view of a portion of the unit shown in FIG. 3 illustrates a connector 18A that is of reduced thickness between two adjacent slats and which interconnects the same.

[0040] FIGS. 5A, 5B, and 5C are vertical sections through a slat support 13 that maybe a rail or other structural support and in the illustrated form maybe considered a rail. The groove 15 in the support is seen in cross-section and from which it will be noted the throat into the groove is narrower than the groove due to a downwardly projecting lip 15A. The slat 11 has a finger 11A projecting outwardly from the end thereof. The finger is U-shape in side elevational view and terminates in a free upper outer end 11B. At the beginning of insertion of the finger 11A into the groove 15, as seen from FIG. 5A, there is an interference fit because of the depth of the folded finger 11A being greater than that of the throat opening. Upon further insertion the folded over finger 11A is depressed as seen from FIG. 5B. When the end of the slat is fully inserted into the groove, as seen in FIG. 5C, the folded finger 11A snaps back and the finger terminal end 11B is in engagement with the bottom face portion of the rail forming a longitudinal rib 14 extending the length thereof whereby the lateral edge of the rib forms an edge or lip 15A cooperatively engaging the groove 15 thereby locking the slat in the groove 15 of the support. The resiliency of the material causes the formation on the end of the slat to a snap back into a locked position. At the juncture of the finger 11A and slat 11 there is a step down providing a recessed flat face 11C. In an assembled state, as seen in FIG. 5C the flat face 11C engages a lower face of the rib 14.

[0041] The member 13 shown in FIG. 5 maybe the support illustrated in FIG. 1 or the marginal edges 21 and 22 of the unit shown in FIG. 3.

[0042] FIGS. 6 to 10, illustrate a cavity, for example, cavity 16 in FIG. 1, in a slat support structure 13. The cavity has a lip 15A providing a restriction at the entry into the cavity. The end of the slat has a reversely bent or U shaped finger portion 11A intermediate a pair of flat planar faces 11D. FIG. 6 illustrates the slat end and support in an assembled inter-locked state and FIG. 7 shows the end of the slat prior to insertion into the cavity. FIGS. 8 to 10 illustrate different forms of a folded upon itself finger on the end of the slat. The central finger is a catch deployed between two flat faces 11D the latter of which stabilize the joint. FIG. 8 illustrates the crush lock methodology.

[0043] Referring to FIG. 11 there is illustrated a slat 11 having simply a groove 11E disposed transverse to the length of the slat and in one face thereof. There is one such groove adjacent each of the opposite ends of the slat. The groove 11E is suitably dimensioned and so located such that the end of the slat can slidably fit into the groove 15 with the groove 11E receiving therein the lip 15A in the groove 15.

[0044] Referring to FIG. 12 there illustrated a unit 30 that is a combined seat and back for a piece of furniture. The unit comprises a plurality of spaced apart slats 31 joined together at marginal edges 32 and 33. Projecting outwardly from these marginal edges and at positions spaced longitudinally therealong are attachment fingers 11A as shown in FIG. 5 or 7 or the equivalent there of.

[0045] FIG. 13 is a perspective of the unit shown in FIG. 12 but in which the common edge 32 (only one of the two marginal edges is shown but both would be the same) is replaced by a separate rail 34 having a series of slat spacers 35 projecting therefrom.

[0046] FIG. 14 is a vertical side elevational view of a chair portion 40 showing a front leg 41 and seat support unit 42 detached from a vertical member that provides a rear leg 43 and back support 44. There is a groove 45 in a side face of the seat support portion 42 suitable for receiving the connecting end portion of seat slats. At the juncture of the rear leg 43 and back support 44 there is a mortise 46 to receive a tenon 47 on the end of the seat support 42. There is a groove 48 (corresponding to groove 15 previously described) in a side face of the chair back support 44. When groove 48 is filled with a common set of slats, the lower most one fills a locking notch 49 to lock the tenon 47 into the mortise 46.

[0047] FIG. 16 is a perspective view looking up under a seat 50 and a portion of a seat support rail 51 illustrating a further embodiment of a locking relationship between slats and a support therefore. The locking portion of the support 51 of a seating structure such as a chair, chaises lounge, bench, table, chest, etc. has a locking groove 52 to capture and hold captive locking fingers 53 on the edge of the seat. There is a notch 54 in the seat member 50. The seat member has slits 59 appropriately located for appearance and/or providing a desired selected resilience. In this optional embodiment of the invention, the common locking edge of the seat and/or back or other support structure is interrupted with indents 55 providing spaced apart projections or support blocks 58 which engage blocks 56 on support 51 when the parts are assembled and in a locked into position state. This accomplished by inserting seat 50 sideways until locking fingers 53 enter into locking notches, are then pushed upward until locking notch 53 occupies the upper portion of locking notch or groove 52 after which the seat 50 is slid horizontally until support blocks 58 rest on top of blocks 56 thus to comprise a fully lock relationship between the seat and the seat support 51.

[0048] FIG. 17 is a plan view of the seat 50 shown in FIG. 16, with corresponding numbers, showing the locking notch 54, locking fingers 53, slits 59, side notches 55, and adds a view of a connector 18A of reduced thickness which permits easy bending of the two slates shown on the right side of the part to a different angle such as vertical when the seat is horizontal or to the horizontal when the part is configured as a primarily vertically oriented chair back.

[0049] FIG. 19 is an elevational view of the chair leg/rail 41, 42 of FIG. 14 differing therefrom in that there are alternating notches 57 as in FIG. 16 for a seat support member.

[0050] FIG. 20 is a plan view of the tenon 47 on the end of the seat support 42 shown in FIG. 19 and is essentially the same as FIG. 14.

[0051] FIG. 21 is a perspective view of an arm chair 60 comprising a space apart pair of members 61, each of which is substantially planar, providing arms, legs, back support and leg stretcher. Each of these members is either machined from a single panel of sheet goods or is assembled from individual components. A unit 62 of slats provides the seat and back for the chair and maybe assembled and connected to the supports in a manner as described in the foregoing.

[0052] FIG. 22 is a perspective view of a unit 70 which is a chair back 71, chair seat 72 and a seat support rail 73. The unit attaches to the support structure by a slat 74 at the top, a slat 75 in the middle and optionally a slat 76 at the front of the seat and one below the member 73. These slats attach via pins 77 or by any of the means described herein. The novelty here is that these straps form a relatively small portion of the surface making up the seat or back of the structure. Most of the contact points with the body are sling members which are substantially perpendicular to said slats. The result is a sling configuration which offers a different approach to comfort and make possible the use of the present invention in designs which requires this orientation for any reason.

[0053] FIG. 23 is a perspective view of an elongate chair 80 known as a chaise lounge. There is a seat portion 81 that is contiguous with a back member 82. At the juncture of the seat and back there is a thinned portion that functions as a continuous hinge 83 permitting the raising and lowering of the back to various angles without the use of other pivoting hardware and to provided bending of other element during assembly.

[0054] FIG. 24 shows the seat 81 and back 82 of FIG. 23 in plan view but with added integral back support flaps 84 connected via areas of reduced thickness functioning as a continuous hinge 85 and an end flap 86 connected via hinge line 87. The arrangement is one of simplicity for manufacture especially when cut from sheet goods using a CNC router.

[0055] FIG. 25 is a plan view of a structural storage compartment unit 90 for an elongated seating unit like the chaise lounge 80 of FIG. 23. The unit 90 has a series of slats joined by integral locking edges 91 that are indented on both sides as at 92 to permit space for the wheels 93 of the chaise lounge. A series of slats also serve as a lockable storage compartment below the back of the chaise lounge when flaps 95 are bent up along their thinned hinge lines 96 and installed as seen in FIG. 26.

[0056] FIG. 26 is an elevational view of a portion of a chaise lounge having the unit 90 of FIG. 26 in place thereon with the flaps 95 upturned. There is a downward bulge as at 97 giving valuable structural rigidity creating stiffening between the two sides of the chaise. With the added rigidity the cost of having a wheel to wheel axle can be avoided. The storage area is closed when the chaise back is fully down and suitable locking means can be readily attached.

[0057] The foregoing detailed description is given primarily for clearness of understanding and no unnecessary limitations are to be understood therefrom, for modification will become obvious to those skilled in the art upon reading this disclosure and may be made upon departing from the spirit of the invention and scope of the appended claims. Accordingly, this invention is not intended to be limited by the specific exemplifications presented hereinabove. Rather, what is intended to be covered is within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.