FR2741679A1 - FIXING DEVICE WITH REVEALED TAIL OF REMOVABLE STRIPS FOR TRANSFORMABLE BILLIARDS - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a device for fixing removable bands (5) on the frame (8) of a billiard table (1) intended to be alternately transformed from a French game to an Anglo-American game or vice versa, comprising a flat slate. (3) to constitute the playing area (2) which is correctly cut to form the pockets (15) of the Anglo-American game and which is surrounded by a frame (8) secured to the upper surface of the edge of the slate (3) so as to receive the bands (5) integral with a support (6) coming to rest on the slate (3) by a horizontal bearing face (62) and lean against the frame (8) by the at least one vertical support face (63, 64), each support (6) being fixed to the slate (3) by a screw (10) passing through it, cooperating with a threaded insert (11) embedded in said support (6) ), characterized in that the band support (6) is backed against the frame (8) by means of a half-dovetail notch (7, 81) such that the replacement of the bands (5) can take place. perform pa r the top of the billiard table (1).

Description

FIXING DEVICE WITH A DIFFERENCE IN A DIFFERENT TAIL
REMOVABLE STRIPS FOR TRANSFORMABLE BILLIARDS
The present invention relates to a device for fixing removable game strips on the frame of billiards intended to be alternately transformed from a French game into an Anglo-American game and vice versa.

 French billiards are well known, which essentially comprises a flat slate covered with a felt determining the rolling area of the billiard balls either struck directly by the user's cane, or propelled by the impact of a another ball; in their movement, the billiard balls bounce off on lateral bands framing the playing area, said bands being made of rubber in order to promote the rebounds of the balls while losing as little of their momentum as possible.

 It is well known that such rebounds must be carried out without any vibration of the frame supporting the game bands, which requires a firm fixing of the band supports on the band support frames.

 One of the objectives of the invention is to be able to easily transform a French billiard into a so-called Anglo-American billiard, which differs from the first game in that it has six pockets making it possible to swallow balls as and when 'they appear at the four angles of the game and in the middle part of the long length of the billiards table; for the most part, the rules of the game of American billiards consists in sending in the six holes balls marked with a number of points, the largest sum of which will determine the winning player.

 Such a transformation only requires the removal of the four game bands conventionally fitted to French billiards and replacing them with six bands determining at their ends suitable access for the pockets of Anglo-American games.

 It is easily understood that such a transformation must be made as quickly as possible and above all as easily as possible while retaining its essential quality at play, namely the rigidity of fixing these parts relative to the slate of the game.

Many solutions have already been proposed in the past. This is for example the case of the French patent
FR-2.692.160 which proposes to attach on the faces of the strip-carrying frame delimiting the playing area, strip supports, the fixing of which is obtained by a plurality of screws coming horizontally through the strip-carrying frame, even rigidly fixed to the slate; such an assembly, if it ensures good rigidity between the strip and the frame, has the drawback of being not very easy to handle and of requiring peripheral covers to erase the screw heads which, otherwise, would appear all around the billiards. Incidentally, all this increases and complicates the fixing device and therefore greatly penalizes the transformation operations.

 According to another previous embodiment and in accordance with French patent FR-2,704,444 a solution is proposed which is clearly more advantageous than the previous one, in that the band support to which the rubber band itself is fixed, is shaped to cooperate with the strip holder frame surrounding the slate, according to an assembly of the straight-cut type, that is to say that each piece has an identical heel coming to fit together; it then suffices with a simple screw passing through the slate and the heel of the fixed frame to be screwed into a threaded recess in the heel of the band holder, to secure the band, band support and band holder frame to the The surface of the game. We understand the advantage of such an assembly since a single screw is enough to dismantle the assembly and therefore to modify a game of the French type in American game for example or the reverse. that such a solution has many drawbacks; at each game modification, it is almost compulsory to separate all the parts forming the game table which is extremely unfavorable for the precision of the assembly, insofar as it will be difficult to simply obtain a suitable parallelism between the bands being face for example; Likewise, mounting with a straight toe-in is uncertain since the support on the vertical faces of the band support and of the band support frame can be obtained either on the lower heel of the fixed frame, or by the upper heel of the band support, and this as a function of the functional and compulsory clearance between the fixing screw and its passage in the slate on one side, in the fixed frame on the other side.

This insecurity of horizontal support is further aggravated during tightening of the screw without any vertical support having been produced, so that such tightening results in the rebound of the billiard balls in a repositioning of the bands. which inevitably generates very harmful vibrations.

 To overcome all these drawbacks, it is proposed according to the invention, a device for fixing removable game bands on the band-holder frame of a billiard designed to be alternately transformed from French game into an Anglo-American game and vice versa , comprising a flat slate normally covered with a felt mat to constitute the playing area which is correctly cut to form the pockets of the Anglo-American game and which is surrounded by a band-carrying frame secured in abutment on the upper surface of the edge of the slate so as to receive the adequate play strips and integral with a strip support coming to rest on the slate by a horizontal support face and lean against the strip holder frame by at least one face of vertical support, each strip support being secured to the slate by a screw passing through it, cooperating with a threaded insert embedded in said strip support, device characterized in that the supports s of bands are leaned against the band-holder frame by means of a half-dovetail groove such that the replacement of the game bands can be carried out from above the billiard table.

 It is therefore understandable that such a device for fixing the strip support which is fitted over the top of the billiard table on the projecting part of the dovetail coming from the inner lateral face of the strip holder frame previously fixed to the slate of the game, first presents the advantage of a self-alignment of the bands at the time of the vertical embedding holding on the inclined plane of the half dovetail between the support piece and the band holder frame fixed, and then in very firm contact between the band support and the slate by mounting the screw directly in the face of the band support coming into contact with the slate or carpet covering it.

 All these advantages naturally contribute to the rigidity of the assembly, thus avoiding any problem of vibration at the time of the shocks or of the rebound of the billiard balls while allowing a quick and easy transformation of the games by a simple change of the game bands.

Other advantages will emerge better and the invention will be better understood from the description which will now be given by way of nonlimiting example, and with reference to the drawing in which
- Figure 1 shows a top view of a transformable billiard equipped with removable strips according to the invention to form, according to the upper half-view, a French billiard, and the lower half-view, a billiard of the American type.

 - Figure 2 is a vertical section II / II of Figure 1, schematically assembling the band support part to the band holder frame previously fixed on the slate.

 In accordance with FIG. 1 where there are shown in two half-views from above the two main configurations of billiards 1 according to the invention, namely above configuration in French game, and below configuration in Anglo-American game, billiards 1 is essentially composed of a playing surface 2 generally formed from a slate plate 3 covered with a felt mat 4 intended to promote the almost perfect and noiseless rolling of billiard balls , the number of which varies with the type of game desired.

 According to the French game, the playing area 2 is delimited on its entire periphery by uninterrupted rubber bands 5; these rubber bands ensure the rebound of the billiard balls propelled directly by the user's cane or indirectly, by successive shocks.

 The rubber bands 5 are mounted, conventionally by gluing, on a band support part 6, having for this purpose a longitudinal face 61 inclined upwards on which the front face of the playing band 5, including the conventional one, adjusts triangular section offers billiard balls at the time of the rebound a very limited support surface so that the ball keeps as much as possible its momentum in shock.

 According to the representation of section II-II given in FIG. 2, the band support 6 comprises a horizontal base 62 and two vertical bearing faces 63, 64 respectively offset upwards (63) and downwards (64); the two faces 63, 64 are parallel and connected by an inclined re-entrant plane 65 to form the female part of a dovetail half 7. Incidentally, the strip support 6 and the strip 5 are covered by a piece of textile analogous to that of carpet 4; this cover is shown in Figure 2 in long dotted lines; a first end of this cover is embedded in a housing 66 provided on one of the bearing faces 63 of the part 6, the other end being fitted between the horizontal bearing face 62 of the part 6 and the carpet 4 covering the slate 3.

 The support 6 is backed by a fixed band holder frame 8 secured to the slate 3 with conventional screw means 9 for example. Of course, the strip-carrying frame 8 is provided on its entire vertical face facing the play area 2, with a half-dovetail 81 projecting from the lower part of the frame 8 which is in contact with the carpet 4. This half dovetail 81 is exactly homothetic to the part 7 provided in the hollow on the rear part of the strip support 6 so that said support 6 cooperates with the rigid frame 8 to provide, as will be said more far a self-alignment of the strip support 6 on the frame 8 and better security of contact between these two parts, avoiding, as has already been said, harmful vibrations during the impact or the rebound of the billiard balls.

 The strip support 6 is secured to the slate 3 by means of a vertical screw 10 coming to cooperate with a threaded insert 11 embedded in the lower part of the support 6 extending upwards from its horizontal support surface 62. A bore 12 made in the slate 3 in line with the insert 11 allows a counter-tightening of the screw 10, the head of which is blocked on the lower part 31 of the slate 3 by means of a washer 13.

 According to an accessory claim of the invention, the clamping screws 10 of the removable band supports are advantageously provided with ear cups 14 or any other similar means to facilitate handling of mounting and dismounting the removable bands 5.

 It will now be understood that in order to set up the band support 6 on the fixed band holder frame 8, it suffices to bring vertically as shown in thin dashed lines in FIG. 2, said support 6 so that the inclined plane 65 of the female half-dovetail 7 provided on the rear part of the support 6 comes into contact with the corresponding inclined part 85 of the male half-dovetail 81 of the fixed frame 8.

 When the part 6 is in contact with the inclined plane 85 it is automatically engaged until one of the two vertical faces 63 or 64 comes into contact with the corresponding faces 83, 84 of the fixed frame 8, which has the effect advantageous to create a self-alignment of the bands 5; thus the user is sure of the parallelism of said bands when they change them.

 Of course when the support 6 is completely embedded on the half-dovetail 81 the horizontal face 62 is almost in abutment on the mat 4 of the slate 3. The lateral wedging of the band supports makes it possible to make the insert coincide threaded 11 with the vertical holes 12 provided in the slate 3 in such a way that a screw 10 can be engaged from below the billiard table which it will suffice to tighten by means of the atria 14 in the threaded insert 11. This tightening vertical will definitively force the support between the vertical faces 63,83 or 64,84 by cooperation of the inclined planes 65,85 of the dovetail joint and the functional play necessarily existing in the bore 12 of the slate 3 , allowing the screw 10 a sufficient horizontal clearance to follow the engagement movement of the 65.85 inclined planes of the dovetail. Of course tightening the screw 10 will create an intimate connection between the band supports 6 and slate 3 what con will still help to avoid all the vibrations of billiards 1 during the impact of the balls on the rebound strips 5.

 It is clear from the description which has just been given of the mounting of the playing strips 5 that the transformation of a French billiard table into an Anglo-American billiard table presents no difficulty and can be carried out in very short times while respecting rigorous precision. in the parallelism of the bands.

Recall that it is thus possible, in accordance with FIG. 1, to pass from the upper configuration in continuous bounce bands 5 to a lower configuration of so-called Anglo-American games in which the game bands 5 are provided with cutouts at the ends making it possible to release pockets 15 which of course pre-existed under the bands 5, in the French version.

 It will be noted very incidentally that if it is essential that the band supports 6 are assembled to the fixed band-holder frame 8 by a cut-out 7.81 in half-dovetail, the angle of inclination relative to the horizontal of the inclined part 85 or 65 is not fundamental, even if for purely practical reasons, an angle of 45 "is preferred. Finally, it should be noted that all the data concerning the materials used in the various rooms or their mutual geometric proportion are apparent from the field of the skilled person who knows the construction of such billiards; therefore all the forms which could be considered equivalent to obtain the function and the result of the device for fixing strips of removable game as described above would not depart from the scope of the invention.

Claims (5)

 1 - Device for fixing removable game strips (5) on the strip holder frame (8) of a billiard table (1) designed to be alternately transformed from a French game into an Anglo-American game and vice versa, comprising a flat slate (3) normally covered with a felt mat (4) to constitute the play area (2) which is correctly cut to form the pockets (15) of the Anglo-American game and which is surrounded by a door frame -band (8) secured in abutment on the upper surface of the edge of the slate (3) so as to receive the adequate play bands (5) and integral with a band support (6) coming to rest on the slate (3) by a horizontal support face (62) and lean against the band support frame (8) by at least one vertical support face (63,64), each band support (6) being fixed to the slate (3) by a screw (10) passing through it cooperating with a threaded insert (11) embedded in said support (6), device characterized in that the support band (6) is backed by the band frame (8) by means of a half-dovetail cutout (7,81) such that the replacement of the play bands (5) can be carried out by the above the pool table (1).  2 - Device for fixing game bands (5) according to the preceding claim characterized in that the clamping inserts (11) of the band supports (6) are embedded, vertical axis, from the horizontal bearing face ( 62) which is in contact with the slate (3) normally covered with its carpet (4).  3 - Device for fixing play strips (5) according to any one of claims 1 or 2 characterized in that the male part, projecting (81), of the half-dovetail groove is provided on the strip holder frame (8) and the corresponding female part (7) and on the strip holder (6) so that it is self-aligned with the strip holder frame (8) at the time of locking said support (6) on the slate (3) by the screws (10).  4 - Device for fixing play strips (5) according to claim 3 characterized in that the angle made by the inclined face (65,85) of the half dovetail (7,81) is 45 " with respect to the horizontal plane.  5 - A device for fixing play strips (5) according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that each screw head (10) is provided with a manual tightening button such as for example tightening ears (14 ).