DE29607429U1 - Shaped body treated with fragrances - Google Patents

Description

Description Formed body treated with fragrances

The invention relates to a shaped body treated with fragrances, which is intended for introduction into the interior of the winding core of a toilet paper roll.

Such fragrance dispensers - also called air fresheners - serve to reduce or cover up and/or eliminate unpleasant odors and are already known in various versions. In particular, it is known to integrate these fragrance dispensers in a suitable form into a toilet paper roll or into a toilet paper holder.

For toilet paper holders in which the toilet paper roll is held by a cylindrical support rod that is pushed through the free space in the axial area of the toilet paper roll, according to DE2529051, the support rod designed as a hollow cylinder serves to hold the fragrance dispenser. The hollow cylinder has openings on its outer surface to allow room air to access the fragrance dispenser or to allow the active substances of the fragrance dispenser to escape. This invention requires the use of a special support rod. However, it cannot be used for the very common roll holder variants without a support rod, in which the toilet paper roll is placed in a container.

From DE2755332, the proposal to directly impregnate the toilet paper or the cardboard forming the core with air fresheners is known. However, this would require expensive, aroma-tight packaging of each individual toilet paper roll in order to prevent unwanted premature evaporation of these agents, e.g. during transport or storage in sales rooms or at the consumer's premises. From DE2755332, it is also known to arrange air fresheners in a dispenser sleeve, the ends of which are closed by an aroma-tight film, with the dispenser sleeve being firmly engaged with the inside of the core of the paper roll. This aroma-tight film is only pierced immediately before a new toilet paper roll is inserted into the existing holder, so that no premature escape of fragrances occurs. However, it is disadvantageous that the dispenser sleeve and the cardboard sleeve forming the core of the paper roll must be firmly engaged. This is possible, for example, by gluing both sleeves together or by fitting the dispenser sleeve tightly into the winding core. However, both variants require additional manufacturing steps and require compliance with relatively narrow dimensional tolerances for the sleeves to be joined.

From DE2755332 it is also known to apply liquid agents for air freshening to a flat carrier that is firmly connected to the inner wall of the dispenser sleeve described. Such carriers can be made of foam, nonwoven fabric or cellulose, for example. Due to these relatively complex manufacturing steps, however, toilet paper rolls that are manufactured according to DE2755332 with integrated air fresheners prove to be too expensive to achieve long-term market success.

A modification of the solution described in DE2755332 is known from the utility model DE8903212. According to this, a tubular tear-open container is arranged in the cardboard sleeve forming the winding core of the paper roll, which contains agents for improving the air or carrier materials soaked with such agents. The tubular tear-open container is provided with a tear thread. This enables the container to be opened if necessary and thus the fragrance to be released. However, compared to the solution according to DE2755332, this variant does not offer any significant advantages, since here too the connection of the tubular tear-open container to the cardboard sleeve requires additional manufacturing steps that incur costs.

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Since these solutions usually require a poorly recyclable material composite made of cardboard and plastic or film, they hardly meet today's ecological requirements.

According to the state of the art described in this respect, the problem therefore exists of equipping toilet paper rolls with air fresheners at low cost. In particular, as with already known solutions, a suitable carrier material containing these air fresheners should be arranged in the winding core of the paper roll in such a way that existing toilet paper holders can be used unchanged. However, very significant additional problems must be solved. On the one hand, the current manufacturing processes for toilet paper rolls should remain as unchanged as possible. On the other hand, the solution should lead to an easily recyclable product, so that material composites made of cardboard and plastics or adhesive composites in particular should be avoided. Furthermore, the air fresheners should be arranged sufficiently permanently in the winding cores of the toilet paper rolls without additional manufacturing effort.

According to the invention, this problem is solved by a molded body treated with fragrances, which is intended for introduction into the interior of the winding core of a toilet paper roll, according to the characterizing part of the main claim.

According to the basic idea of the invention, the molded body made of peeled wood (also called veneer wood) and acting as a fragrance carrier is first removed by the consumer from an aroma-tight container, which preferably contains a supply of several of the molded bodies according to the invention, and is slightly compressed and placed in the interior of the winding core of the toilet paper roll. In view of the low mechanical load on the molded body placed in the winding core, a simple clamp connection between the winding core and the molded body by means of elastic restoring forces generated in the molded body is completely sufficient.

In one of the simplest embodiments of the invention, the molded body according to the invention consists of a piece of peeled wood with a predetermined edge contour, which only has the natural curvature in the direction of the fibers that occurs during the peeling process. The respective pieces of this peeled wood are punched out of a peeled wood strip of a predetermined thickness using a punching process and then soaked in a fragrance solution, for example using a dipping process. The dimensions of the individual pieces produced and treated in this way are to be dimensioned according to the clear width and length of conventional winding cores so that these pieces - based on the clear width of the winding cores and taking into account any curvature that may occur after the peeling, punching and impregnating process - have such an excess that they can be easily deformed by hand within the elastic range of the type of wood used to a size that ensures both insertion into the winding core and a sufficient distance between the concave side of the shell-shaped deformed peeling wood and the support rod of the toilet paper roll that may be used.

If the market demands it, the molded bodies made from rotary-cut wood can be given a defined shape using known wood technology processes. For manufacturing reasons, it is advisable to limit the deformation to uniaxial curvature, but this restriction is not mandatory.

In this way, for example, open, shell-shaped molded bodies are created, the curvature of which can be varied within the specified limits. The geometry of these molded bodies corresponds approximately to that of a slit hollow cylinder, whereby it should be emphasized that the geometry of the molded body according to the invention is described by the term "hollow cylinder" used above.

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should not be restricted to those shaped bodies which can be conceived as being made from a slit hollow circular cylinder.

One possible embodiment can, for example, also have the shape of a half-shell, whereby, according to the invention, it is permissible for the radius of curvature of the shell to vary locally. Another embodiment can also have the shape of a loose roll of material, similar to the shape of a loose roll of paper, with a number of turns that lies between approximately 1 and, for example, 2-3. In these two embodiments, the transverse dimensions of these parts are selected so that they can be reduced by hand force to a value suitable for insertion into the interior of the winding core of the toilet paper roll.

When manufacturing the molded bodies according to the invention from types of wood and/or with material thicknesses that would result in insufficient inherent rigidity of the molded bodies, it may be necessary to improve the inherent rigidity of the molded bodies by means of at least one bead incorporated into the peeled wood. The longitudinal orientation of the bead essentially corresponds to the grain direction of the peeled wood. However, other orientations, particularly in the case of intersecting beading, are not excluded.

For storage, transport and distribution of the molded articles according to the invention, known sleeve-like or can-shaped packaging containers can be used, which can be made aroma-tight in accordance with the state of the art.

The invention can be implemented without any problems using known wood technology systems. Further features of the invention result directly from the protection claims.

A significant advantage of the invention is that it leaves the manufacturing process for the toilet paper rolls completely unchanged, so that the previously necessary, costly manufacturing steps for connecting the fragrance carrier and the toilet paper rolls are no longer necessary. At the same time, the need for complex, aroma-tight packaging of each individual toilet paper roll, which was required in previously known solutions, is also eliminated. The manufacturing tolerances for the fragrance-treated molded bodies according to the invention are subject to very low requirements, since deviations from the ideal size can easily be compensated for by appropriate elastic deformation. By separating the fragrance carrier and the toilet paper rolls until the time of actual use, the consumer-specific application possibilities for air fresheners are also significantly expanded. In particular, the customer can now easily combine different types of the air fresheners according to the invention, which differ, for example, in their fragrance, with the type of toilet paper they prefer, as they wish.

The complete separation of the fragrance carrier and toilet paper rolls in terms of production technology means that production and sales can be adapted more flexibly to market requirements, as production volumes and sales areas, for example, need to be coordinated with the traditional manufacturers of toilet paper rolls far less than before. Last but not least, the molded body made of natural wood meets the requirement of production that is oriented towards ecological objectives, as it can be easily removed from the used toilet paper rolls and can be disposed of without adversely affecting the environment or, if necessary, can be reused by the consumer after re-soaking.

Further features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description of an embodiment with reference to the drawing.

Fig. la is a perspective sketch of a first embodiment of the molded body according to the invention with a bead whose longitudinal orientation runs essentially in the grain direction of the peeled wood,

Fig. Ib is a side view according to Fig. la,

Fig. Ic is a view of the rolled up piece of paring wood according to Fig. la,

Fig. 2a is a perspective sketch of a second embodiment of the molded body according to the invention with a bead whose longitudinal orientation runs essentially transversely to the grain direction of the peeled wood,

Fig. 2b is a side view according to Fig. 2a,

Fig. 2c is a view of the rolled up piece of paring wood according to Fig. 2a.

The molded body treated with fragrances shown in Fig. la and 1b consists of a piece of peeled wood that was punched out of a peeled wood strip made from poplar wood, for example, and then soaked in a fragrance solution. The molded body has approximately the shape of a slit hollow cylinder, whereby in this case the slit runs approximately perpendicular to the natural grain of the wood. The length of this slit hollow cylinder does not exceed the length of the usual winding cores of toilet paper rolls. During production, the dimensions of the piece of peeled wood and its shape are chosen so that the transverse dimension of the molded body in the unloaded state is larger than the clear width of the winding core of the toilet paper roll. However, this excess is only so large that the elastic molded body can be deformed by hand force and in this state can be inserted into the interior of the winding core.

To improve the dimensional stability, the molded body has a bead in the middle section, the longitudinal direction of which runs essentially in the direction of the grain of the peeled wood. To identify the product, the molded body is provided with an embossed or printed company logo of the manufacturer.

Fig. Ic shows the molded body according to Fig. la and Fig. Ib in the rolled-up state. This corresponds to the processing stage after punching out the peeled wood strip and inserting the bead.

The molded body shown in Fig. 2a to Fig. 2c corresponds essentially to that in Fig. la to Fig. 1c. However, here the natural grain direction of the peeled wood runs perpendicular to the curvature of the molded body and therefore also perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the bead.

Claims (6)

Protection claims 1. Fragrance-treated molded article intended for insertion into the interior of a winding core of a toilet paper roll, characterized in that • the molded body consists of a one-piece, elastically deformable peeled wood part with a predetermined edge contour, which is designed as a flat part, as a part that essentially retains its natural curvature, or as a defined curved part, and • such a part, the transverse dimensions of which in the unloaded state are larger than the clear width of the winding core of the toilet paper roll, can be deformed by means of manual force and can be introduced into the interior of the winding core in this state and, after the manual force is removed, is resiliently engaged with the inner wall of the winding core. 2. Shaped body according to claim 1, characterized in that the curved part consists of a substantially uniaxially curved piece of peeled wood, the curvature of which runs substantially in the grain direction of the peeled wood. 3. Shaped body according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the bent part is designed as a slit hollow cylinder or as a loose roll of material, the transverse dimension of these parts being selected such that it can be reduced by hand force to a value suitable for insertion into the interior of the winding core of the toilet paper roll. 4. Shaped body according to at least one of the preceding claims, characterized in that at least one bead is introduced into the peeled wood. 5. Shaped body according to claim 4, characterized in that the longitudinal direction of at least one bead runs essentially in the direction of the grain of the peeled wood. 6. Shaped body according to at least one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it is packaged individually or in several pieces in an aroma-tight manner before its intended use.