Packaging of hand tools

Abstract: Packaging material for the packaging of a hand tool, said packaging material including a sheet of card (12) to which the hand tool will be secured, and at least one bifurcated resilient clip (14) the ends of the legs of which have respective means, such as peg portions (16) or barbs, by which said bifurcated clip will be secured to said sheet of card in a manner requiring damage to the card to detach it, said bifurcated clip being adapted, when subsequently detached from said card, for securement to a wall to act as a resilient clip for holding the hand tool.

Description: The invention relates to the packaging and display of hand tools, particularly although not exclusively, of small tools such as screwdrivers and chisels. Throughout this specification, the term "hand tools" is to be taken to mean any tool used by hand, not only tools which might be used in a workshop but tools which are used in the kitchen for example, such as knives, whisks and the like. It is becoming an increasingly more important requirement that packaging materials should be bio-degradable, that is to say, made of wood pulp product, for example of paper or cardboard, referred to hereinafter as "card", instead of plastics materials. If they include card and plastics materials in combination, the plastics component should be readily separable from the card. In United States Patent No. 3423059 there is provided a dual-purpose display card mounting including at least one bracket having two resilient gripping fingers and a rigid lug attached perpendicular thereto, the lug including means adapted to secure the bracket to a wall. The mounting includes also a display card having a cut-out therein of a size sufficient to enable insertion of the bracket lug therethrough whereby the resilient fingers extend outwardly from the front face of the display card, an article of merchandise being attachable to the display card by placement within the resilient fingers. Wire means are threaded through the display card and wrapped around the article of merchandise to prevent unauthorized removal of the article from the display card. There are various kinds of packaging devices in use at present which are made only partly of bio-degradable materials, for example having a card backing-sheet with an attached blister of a transparent plastics material for containing the packaged item. In such a case, only the card is bio-degradable. It is another important requirement that packaged items for sale in shops and supermarkets should offer at least a minimum degree of difficulty to the removal of the item from its packaging so that the item concerned is not easily stolen. This is a requirement at least partly in conflict with the requirement that any plastics component of the packaging should be readily separable from any paper or card. The object of the invention is to provide a remedy to the mentioned problems, and to solve the problem of how to package a point-of-sale item in a manner which is inherently environmentally friendly. According to the present invention the packaged point of sale item is defined in the characterising clause of Claim 1. The advantages offered by the invention are, mainly, that it provides a method of and means for packaging a hand tool which deters theft of the tool concerned whilst it is displayed for sale. Also, at least some of the packaging material is of use when the tool concerned is in use by a purchaser. One way of carrying out the invention is described in detail below with reference to drawings which illustrate, by way of example, one specific embodiment, in which:- Figure 1 is an exploded view of a screwdriver being packaged for sale by the inventive method, Figure 2 is a scrap sectional view on the line 2-2 of Figure 1, Figure 3 is a view of the completed package, Figure 4 is a view showing components of the package being re-used for presenting the screwdriver ready for use in a workshop or the like, and Figures 5 to 14 are views which illustrate possible modifications. Referring now to Figure 1 of the drawings, the screwdriver 10 there illustrated is shown about to be secured to a sheet of card 12 so that it can be displayed for sale in a shop or supermarket. A pair of plastics clips 14, 15 of bifurcated form are provided for securing the screwdriver to the sheet of card, the free ends of the legs of each clip being provided with respective peg portions 16 which project from respective shoulders 18. When said clips have been engaged with the screwdriver and the peg portions have been caused to extend through holes 20 in the card, a heating element (not shown) is used to deform the ends of said peg portions as indicated in Figure 2, the amount of deformation being such that only by a determined effort can the clips be wrenched from the card, this being sufficient to deter the removal of the item concerned from the card whilst displayed for sale in a supermarket or shop. The completed package is of a neat appearance, as shown in Figure 3, and it will be understood that, because the clip 14 closely embraces a waisted portion of the screwdriver handle, the screwdriver is unable to be withdrawn from engagement with said clip by sliding it through the clip. A potential purchaser of the screwdriver can, however, grasp the handle in order to test its "feel", that is to say to experience its touch. The arrangement is such that when a purchaser of the screwdriver has removed the clips 14, 15 from the card, at least the clips can be re-used, that is to say can be secured to a wall of a garage or workshop for example (to act as resilient clips the legs of which project from the wall for gripping the screwdriver when not in use) so that the only part of the packaging which needs to be disposed of is the sheet of card, and this is bio-degradable. In Figure 4, the clips are shown to have been secured to a wall of a garage or workshop by means of respective screws 22 which have been passed through holes 24 in said clips. The remains of the peg portions 16 can of course be snapped off if desired but are shown in Figure 4 to be still attached to the clips. Various modifications may be made. For example, in Figure 5 there is illustrated a packaged screwdriver assembly similar to that of Figure 1 but including a length of generally channel section extruded aluminium 26. In the package assembly, respective peg portions of the plastic clip 15 extend through holes in the length of extruded metal section to secure it to the card. However, in this case, when the card has been disposed of, the length of extruded metal section can be secured to a garage or workshop wall by means of screws or nails passed through holes therein. The plastic clip 14 is in this case provided with grooves 28 in its side surfaces to enable it to be slid into position in engagement with inwardly projecting rib portions 30 of the opposed side walls of the extruded metal section, again so that its legs project from the wall. This modification is particularly useful when a range of screwdrivers are to be presented for use side by side. It would therefore be most appropriate to supply the length of extruded metal section with such a range of screwdrivers, all being secured to a common card, as a point-of-sale presentation, in the manner described. A particular advantage of this method of securement is that as a screwdriver handle is forced between the projecting arms of its plastics clip 14, the deformation of the clip is such that it becomes wedged against sliding movement along the length of extruded channel section 26. In Figures 7 and 8 there is illustrated a different embodiment including a length of generally channel section extruded aluminium 26 and a plurality of screwdrivers of varying sizes. As shown, the screwdrivers are located in position by respective plastics clips 14. However, in this case the plastics clips 14, which are grooved in similar fashion to those of Figures 5 and 6, are reversible in the length of channel section. Consequently, the packaged screwdrivers shown in Figure 7 are captive in their inwardly facing respective clips 14 (since the clips encircle waisted portions of the screwdriver handles) and the clips are held captive in the length of channel section by plastics retaining elements 17 which abut against the endmost clips 14 (one only being shown in Figure 7) to prevent the latter from being slid along the channel section. The retaining elements which also slidably engage the length of channel section have respective peg portions 16 which extend through holes in said channel section and in the sheet of card, the ends of said peg portions having either been deformed by a heating element or having been securely fixed in the card by some other means to necessitate the tearing of the card in order to release the useable parts from the sheet of card. In Figure 8, the sheet of card 12 and the retaining elements 17 are shown to have been discarded and the length of channel has been secured in position on a workshop wall or the like by screws 22. The respective clips 14 have been slid out of engagement with said length of channel and reversed so that each clip, having been re-engaged with the length of channel, is outwardly facing that is to say is located with its legs projecting from the wall. The screwdrivers can then be released from their respective clips at will. It will be understood that in all the examples described above, not only is the or each plastics component readily separable from the card but the user has an incentive to separate the two because at least some of the plastics components are to be re-used. The card element may be the only part of the packaging which may be discarded and the packaging can thus be described as environmentally friendly. (In the examples illustrated in Figures 5 and 6, and in Figures 7 and 8, although certain plastics clips are not re-used they have to be removed from the sheet of card 12 in order to release the length of extruded aluminium section). However, it may be that even the sheet of card 12 can be re-used by a purchaser of the screwdriver or set of screwdrivers or other hand tool, as the case may be. For example, one side of the card may be printed as a point-of-sale card but the other side of the card may be printed with information likely to be of use to the purchaser of the item concerned, for example with a chart of screw sizes or the like. In this case, the card, with the useful information presented for easy reference, may be secured to the garage or workshop wall in the same operation by which the bifurcated clip or clips is or are secured in position. Referring now to Figure 9, this illustrates the packaging of a screwdriver in a manner similar to that of Figure 1 but the screwdriver is in this case provided with a sleeve device 32 which, when the screwdriver is in use, can be used in three different ways (as described in my co-pending application for patent filed concurrently herewith). In Figure 10 the sleeve device is shown in use when starting a screw and in this position projects beyond the end of the blade of the screwdriver so that it prevents the blade from sliding sideways out of engagement with the slot in the screw head. (In an intermediate position of the sleeve device along the length of the cylindrical shaft portion of the screwdriver it can be held by the user to provide a steady for the screwdriver. In a third position of use, the sleeve device can be drivably engaged with the handle of the screwdriver, a hexagonal driving nut portion 34 beneath the head of the handle being engaged in a complementary socket part 36 of the sleeve device). When being used in the manner illustrated in Figure 10, it may sometimes be useful to have some visual indication of how far a screw has been driven into a workpiece. Such an indication is shown to be provided by the resilient clip 15, which has previously been used to secure the screwdriver to the sheet of card as shown in Figure 9. The resilient clip can be snapped into position on the cylindrical shaft portion of the screwdriver, spaced from the rear end of the sleeve device by a distance roughly equal to the depth which it is desired to insert the screw. (The resilient clip 15 may also be used to provide a pre-determined degree of resistance to sliding of the sleeve device along the cylindrical shaft portion of the screwdriver). Referring again to Figure 9, in the packaging of the screwdriver and its associated sleeve device, the resilient clip 15 (shown in use in Figure 10) comprises a slotted disc part with peg portions 16 which are to project through the holes 20 in the card before having their ends deformed by a heating element as previously described. When the screwdriver has been detached from its packaging, the remains of the peg portions 16 can be snapped off if desired. In this particular case, when the resilient clip 14 has been secured to a wall of a garage or workshop, with its legs projecting from the wall, it can be used to retain the sleeve device as shown in Figure 11. The screwdriver can then be located within the sleeve device and can be used with or without said sleeve device. In Figures 12 to 14 there is illustrated an alternative method of forming the resilient clip 15, that is to say with a single peg portion 16 which when forming part of the point-of-sale package will extend through a hole in a sheet of card and have its end suitably deformed. As shown, the peg is formed integrally with a portion 32 of the clip which before use of the particular tool concerned can be broken away from the main body of the clip (see Figure 14) by the tearing of frangible elements 34 and discarded, the main body portion of the clip then being useable with the tool in the manner hereinbefore described. It will be understood that the frangible elements 34 of the moulding by means of which the two portions of the clip are originally joined together (see Figures 12 and 13) will be sufficiently strong to defeat any attempt to separate them by hand but will be readily separable by the use of a pair of pincers or the like when the tool concerned is first being put to use by a purchaser. It will be understood that the resilient clip 14 could be formed in a similar fashion, that is to say with a main body portion originally connected to a portion which will subsequently be discarded by means of frangible elements. Various other modifications may be made. For example, it is not essential for the plastics clips to be secured to the sheet of card in the manner described, that is to say by the use of a heating element to deform the ends of the pegs; said pegs could be replaced by respective barb elements which are an interference fit in the holes in the card. The invention is applicable to the packaging of various hand tools of the kind which may be mounted on a workshop or garage wall for example for convenient use. However, the hand tools concerned need not necessarily be workmens tools. They could comprise, for example, kitchen utensils such as knives, whisks, etc.

Claims: A packaged point-of-sale item comprising a hand tool and a sheet of card (12) to which it is secured, characterised in that means securing said tool to said sheet of card comprise at least one bifurcated resilient clip (14) closely embracing a waisted portion of said hand tool so that the tool cannot be removed from the card by sliding it through the clip, free ends of the legs of the clip having peg portions (16) or barbs adapted for securement to the sheet of card in a manner requiring damage of the card to detach it therefrom, or said free ends of the legs of the clip being engaged with an elongate element (26) of channel section which is itself secured to the sheet of card by retaining elements (17) having peg portions (16) or barbs, adapted for securement to the sheet of card in a manner requiring damage of the card to detach them therefrom, said bifurcated clip being adapted, when detached from the card, for securement to a wall in a manner presenting the legs of the clip projecting from the wall, whereby the projecting legs can act as a resilient clip for holding the hand tool. A packaged point-of-sale item according to Claim 1, including an elongate element (26) of channel section and having interengagement means whereby, for holding the hand tool, the tool user can engage the at least one bifurcated clip (14) therewith with its legs projecting therefrom. A packaged point-of-sale item according to Claim 2, in which the interengagement means comprises inwardly projecting rib portions (30) of opposed side walls of the elongate element with which grooves (28) in side surfaces of the at least one bifurcated clip (14) can subsequently be engaged. A packaged point-of-sale item according to any one of the preceding claims, in which the hand tool is a screwdriver (10) having a sleeve device (32) which, when the screwdriver is in use, may be located on the screwdriver blade to project beyond the end of said blade to prevent the blade from slipping off a screw head. A packaged point-of-sale item according to Claim 4, including, in addition to the screwdriver (10) and sleeve device (32), a visual indicator device (15) connectable to the screwdriver for indicating the depth by which a screw has been inserted into a workpiece, said indicator device comprising a further bifurcated clip which together with the resilient clip (14), secures the screwdriver (10) and sleeve device (32) to the sheet of card (12), said further bifurcated clip also having peg portions (16) or barbs by which it is secured to the sheet of card in a manner requiring damage of the card to detach it therefrom. A packaged point-of-sale item according to any one of the preceding claims, in which the sheet of card (12) forming part of said item is printed on one side as a point-of-sale card and printed on the other side with information of use to a purchaser of the item concerned. Packaging material for the packaging of a hand tool, said packaging material including a sheet of card (12) to which the hand tool will be secured, and at least one bifurcated resilient clip (14) the ends of the legs of which have respective means, such as peg portions (16) or barbs, by which said bifurcated clip will be secured to the sheet of card in a manner requiring damage to the card to detach it therefrom, said bifurcated clip being adapted, when subsequently detached from said card, for securement to a wall in a manner presenting the legs of said clip projecting from the wall and acting as a resilient clip for holding the hand tool.

Inventors: BETTS GEOFFREY, BETTS, GEOFFREY
Applicants: BETTS GEOFFREY, BETTS, GEOFFREY
Application year: 1993
Main classification: B65D73
IPC codes: B65D73