Patent Publication Number: US-2004040093-A1

Title: Weed-grabber

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
       [0001] This invention relates to a manual hand garden tool with automatic levered clamping feature for grabbing objects out of arms reach and its function further enhanced by manual hand control and made for performing hands-off removal of plants considered as weeds, growing in flower beds or gardens and removal of any other yard debris.  
       [0002] The long tool handle allows for working in most comfortable position standing up or otherwise. The length and tip width of the blade is suitable for cutting away the most stubborn weed or other plants small and big, with various root systems from thick and wide growing over the ground surface or thin and long growing deep into the ground and remove these unwanted vegetations with minimum damage to the soil around it.  
       [0003] The garden tool is tough and light enough and yet functional to simplify the process of removing weeds found growing abundantly everywhere in the hot summer weather on mostly dry and hard soil conditions. Combination featuring: manual and automatic clamping with large open cavity helps grab loose weeds and debris large and small.  
       [0004] As a garden tool, it incorporates multi-functionality even further to facilitate gardening works by four folds.  
       [0005] First: The, blade itself can be used for poking or picking or cutting or slicing or working the soil by pulling back on the blade cover through handy release handle to expose the long blade.  
       [0006] Second: There is a clamp mounted on the blade cover connected to a manual hand control for catching or grabbing or holding objects and other yard debris or trashes  
       [0007] Third: Let the tool work for you by using it the way it is with blade working automatically and interactively in combination with the clamp that can be intercepted by manual hand control.  
       [0008] Fourth: Other attachments can be added on to it to turn it into a gardenhoe or rake or planter or any other tools for garden or otherwise.  
       [0009] The tool comes in variety of pole shaft and length suitable for a person to work effectively in a most comfortable posture for the job at hand that makes the weed removal and gardening a pleasure.  
       BACKGROUND  
       [0010] Gardening work is not an exacting science. To keep beautifully blooming flower gardens or carpet smooth grass yards is also not an easy work. The nature has it that all living things make use of any given spaces according to its genetic voracity. To which we owe this terrible dilemma of improper vegetations growing exactly where we don&#39;t wish having them. The end result being forced labor on our part to keep certain plant species in homogenous groupings appealing to our taste and economics and all others species finding themselves in our long list of pest and weeds.  
       [0011] Typically, those unwanted weed plants have vigorous growth usually outpacing those precious varieties we want to save thereby forcing us to take several drastical measures to have them removed. Historically all gardening therefore was based on manual care taking. Over times, with forward increasing technology developments and conversely shrinking personal available time we found ourselves following closely approaches that are ultimately very destructive and poisonous by resorting to motorized machineries that spews toxic gas or chemical pesticides to do the weed removal.  
       [0012] Lately however conscious of on going deterioration of nature right before our eyes along with finding us the human beings at the top of endangered species, prime example being holes in ozone layer and smog and chemically contaminated water, and finally we started to change our wayward ways. We started to look for ways and means to do it non-chemically or at best to pay more attention to back to nature ways working with hand tools.  
       [0013] Only problem is that many hand garden tools have remained in more or less same antiquated century old designs to this day. Especially those dealing with weed removal. Mostly they are made so the person is in close quarters with the ground, which meant mostly working with bent back or crawling on hands and knees Those few innovations that came forward didn&#39;t quite work well to fend off physical discomfort or tools that came short of being helpful, starting from weed removal to disposal. And more often than not, it requires several tedious and backbreaking efforts to remove weeds off a garden or a yard.  
       [0014] A typical weed removing tools available has been either very flimsy or too much work consuming, not affordable to be used everyday or on the heavily affected spot.  
       [0015] There are many varieties of these tools; some have short hand held metal pokers with V-cut tip that forces you to work on your hands and knees. Some come in fancy metal wire shaped to wrap around weeds that will break off on hard impact to a hard rock and some that can not be used for large grown weeds on hard soil.  
       [0016] Others have well meaning watering snout prong shaped to be hooked up to water hose and then pushed into the ground to wet the soil around weed roots and then manually pull the weed out on your hands and knees  
       [0017] Others have a V-pronged metal with bowl shaped lever for catching the weeds at the neck and pulling the weed that doesn&#39;t work on buds or full-grown weeds. This tool tends to either strip or cut the weeds entirely at it&#39;s neck or cut It&#39;s roots too close to ground surface.  
       [0018] And then there&#39;s a tool utilizing inch size pipe to push down over the weed into the ground few short inches and hope to pull it out along with a hole in the ground that needs to be filled back in creating more work for the gardener, while pushing the compacted dirt back out of the pipe is no easy task either, and the tool is prone to breakage. It is rather a cumbersome approach to removing weed for if there were to be a large numbers of weeds in one small area or gravel soil or full grown weeds there&#39;s just no way to really do anything about it except get a shovel.  
       [0019] All of above shortcomings explained renders these tools totally ineffective and useless. It is found that weeds tend to grow congregated in a small space more often than not. Which makes weed removal such a painstaking work.  
       [0020] As can be noticed from above list of weed removal tools they all have one thing or two in common. They are made to work on a very limited range of weeds and do them very poorly. Either they are built very weak and break easily and not reliable for rough and tough yard work or not practical enough to remove every size or shaped weeds, none have been found to really work on little inch size buds, which left alone, soon in short few days will grow into a full grown weed, tall and wide with thick roots. What to do about it ? 
       [0021] Oftentimes it is far better to turn entire soil over with shovel than trying to remove them with these antiquated and limited tools. Also, it is not possible to do any other garden work with these tools because they are made for one thing and one thing only and do them very badly at that too. And then there are other tools like rakes, hoes, planters, pokers, cutters, gloves, long poles for grabbing or pulling shrubs and debris. And it is therefore necessary to carry around a slew of full size tools to do even a small garden work. Not only it is cumbersome to carry these tools around and store them when finished, it is also costly to have pay for them.  
       [0022] It is with this in mind that this new revolutionary tool was designed To begin with, it&#39;s main tool embodiment alone serves as 11 different and highly useful multi-tool functions all by itself, in that, (1) it&#39;s a bevel edged cutting blade for poking and piercing, (2) it&#39;s a digger with a long blade, (3) it&#39;s blade tip is a scraper, (4) it&#39;s blade tip is fashioned in T shape to enable it for catching and pulling weeds, twigs, vines, twines etc., (5) it has an automatically moving grab-arm complete with clamping grab plates replete with serrated edges for catching and grabbing objects from as small and thin as paper to as large as gallon jug, (6) it&#39;s a return spring loaded catcher and/or grabber for automatic movement connected to a sliding manual control for that extra grabbing power whenever it&#39;s needed, (7) that same said sliding manual control also opens and releases objects caught held in its catching and grabbing plates to free up hands from ever touching the said objects, (8) it&#39;s an extension bar with catching and holding mechanism light weight enough to be held in hands to reach objects out of arms reach, (9) it&#39;s a weed cutter armed with a blade that can cut and pulverize roots deep into the ground, (10) it&#39;s a weed grabber that provides effortless collection of loose weeds immediately after cutting, (11) It&#39;s a literally pick and up and hold and carrying tool.  
       [0023] Moreover it&#39;s a main shaft for any number of handy tool head attachments which will increase further its use as multi-tool potential by many folds. It can be made into different size from 1.5-5.6 foot in length having other combinations of bigger, small, wider, making it a real universal multi-function tool.  
       [0024] There are many types of plants we consider pests such as long rooted Thistles, Dandelions, Crabgrass, Milkweeds, and shallow roots Leafy spurge, Bird weed, Plantains, Azaleas, Rhododendrons, etc. causing concern to all gardeners. Typically these plants grow very fast, from inch size buds to several feet tall and equally wide in a matter of few short hot summer days, and they tend to grow congregated in a small given area making removal particularly a difficult task. Long rooted weeds are troublesome because part of the root can grow back easily if not cut deep enough. Shallow rooted plants are oftentimes too large and wide spread that hand pulling or small tools cannot remove them effectively.  
       [0025] None of existing tools have all around capabilities to remove weeds found in these extreme conditions everywhere. All of these tools are made to work mostly on those weeds growing alone isolated in a soft wet or on sandy loose and soft soil. Most of them have one workable function or the other but in terms of a hand operated garden tool or a yard working tool for removing and/or extracting weeds with minimum disturbance to the grass soil none shows any promise. Some will have cutting ability, some will do the digging, some will catch objects, some will transform and resemble into another tool, and some tries to incorporate several functions into a same tool head that none are practical and most of them will only remove mid size weeds. All of these tools have failed in providing a simple time and effort saving semi-automatic mechanism. None of them is intuitive. None of them provides any type of working blade with some length to give it real digging ability to work the soil and a means to catch what&#39;s been cutoff without creating large holes or cosmetic surface damage.  
       [0026] What&#39;s worse with those tools above is that once weeds are cut there is no recourse to further digging into the ground for more vigorous removal or destruction of remaining roots without creating large soil and grass damage around the subject weed. Because these tools have no apparatus for digging into the ground specifically targeting weed roots that their ultimate use is met with frustration and half finished jobs.  
       [0027] On top of that, once they are cut, there are tedious and possibly harmful secondary manual handling involved. Asides from having to pick loose weeds up for disposal by hands, followed by refilling holes in the grassy ground or largely damaged ground area by such clumsy tools is definitely no fun. In the mean time we risk of having another of greater chance exposure of hands to harms such as prickly thorns from some of hardy plant or sharp and dirty objects in the soil or trash area.  
       [0028] All these maneuvers require a lot of hard works bending down and on your knees. An activity fast becoming very physically challenging often only after few weed removals. So, this unpleasant working environment forces a person to turn to a simpler but more dangerous chemical weed killer sprays. I&#39;ve had to bury many a rabbits I raised in my own back yard that died soon after ingesting some of these unwittingly poisonous grass from neighbor&#39;s yards.  
       [0029] Oftentimes it is far better again, to turn entire section of yard over with shovel than trying to remove them with these antiquated and limited tools. Also, it is not possible to do any other garden work with these tools because they all are non-interactive tools it is with this in mind that any new tool must be designed. The dilemma is how to make a tool that will do a variety of jobs with a minimum effort interactively while providing options of working posture standing up or not  
       [0030] To begin with, what was found to be needed was a long sturdy cutting knife blade attached to a long shafted handle with return spring assisted clamping mechanism that automatically opens and closes to grab cut loose weeds whenever the blade goes into or comes out of ground, and preferably there&#39;s a manual control located near the handle grip to further assist opening or grabbing action. This new tool should be useful for multitasking as well as stand-alone.  
       [0031] Preferably the tool should be able to work with the tool blade only on standalone basis for doing a lot of poking and cutting or scraping or slicing, or use only-its grabbing mechanism to pick up small debris and loose trashes such as bottles, cans, papers, weeds, leaves etc. or other things at out of arms reach, or to use it with both together to cut, slice, and grab, pick up, and in this case, mostly for the job it was intended for, cutting and grabbing weeds, and be able to add on various headpiece attachments so it turns into a rake, hoe, planter, etc. These attachments should also be very easy to put on and take off.  
       [0032] For this reason it can easily be understood the need for minimization of all of the various constraints providing an intuitive but rugged tool system that&#39;s highly portable and very economical for mass usage going into 21st century where we need to cut down on our dependency on poisonous chemicals. And for this end that this novel invention was created.  
     
    
    
     VARIATIONS  
     [0033] This entire device configuration can be made utilizing various types of materials provided it is strong enough to withstand stress encountered in the working environment. Length and width or weight or thickness of the finished components or parts thereof are to directly correspond to users requirements.  
     [0034] There are many different kinds of add-on replaceable attachments to turn it into totally different tool yet maintaining original function of this invention to meet the need of a gardener. Also, there are various attachment methods that can be utilized to secure replaceable units stemming from existing platform of this invention. Plus, any inside components can be made to be on the outside or vice-versa, all depending on users requirements. Although said preferred embodiment methods should lend itself to a useful tool for quick and easy placement and repair.  
     [0035] This device is a multi-purpose tool very useful for gardening plus ability for other simple yard chores but mainly used for removing weeds with minimum damage to the soil without having to touch weeds, even those out of reach by hands.  
     [0036] Various alterations and modifications may be made to the foregoing without departing from the scope of this invention, as set forth following claims.