GB2118087A - Trimming tool - Google Patents

Abstract

A trimming tool (1) provided for cutting wall or ceiling paper along the line of an internal corner defined between two surfaces comprises a hand-holdable body (10, 12) which carries a cutting blade (2) and is so formed as to enable the tool to be stably seated in a corner with the blade (2) coplanar with the line of the corner and convergent therewith. In one embodiment, the body comprises a central blade-carrying portion (10) and two wings (12) which project from respective sides of the central body portion (10) to contact respective ones of the corner-defining surfaces. The front end (25) of the central body portion (10) is preferably rounded and projects right into the corner to smooth down paper about to be cut. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Trimming tool The present invention relates to a trimming tool for cutting along the line of an internal corner defined between two surfaces; in particular, but not exclusively, the invention relates to trimming tools for trimming wall and ceiling paper along internal right-angled corners.

When hanging a length of wall paper, it is generally necessary to trim the paper at its upper end where the wall being papered meets the ceiling. The most commonly employed method of carrying out this trimming is to push the paper well into the wall-ceiling corner so As to crease the paper and then pull the paper away from the wall to enable it to be trimmed with scissors along the crease line. This method is not only lengthy but also prone to inaccuracy. Another method of trimming the paper is to nun a razor blade or sharp knife along the corner line; this method is, however, also prone to inaccurracy and poor results as the guiding of the cutting blade is difficult and requires substantial skill.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a trimming tool for facilitating the trimming of wall and ceiling paper along intenal corners.

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a trimming tool for cutting along the line of an internal corner defined between two surfaces, said tool comprising a hand-holdable body carrying a cutting blade and so formed as to enable the tool to be stably seated in said corner with the body in contact with both said corner-defining surfaces, the tool when so seated having its blade so positioned that its cutting edge is coplanar with the line of the corner and converges therewith in a progressive manner in a direction opposite that of the intended direction of movement of the tool along the corner.

By stable seating of the tool is meant that when the tool is pushed into a corner, it will adopt a predetermined orientation relative to the cornerdefining surfaces.

To trim a length of wall or ceiling paper along a corner using the tool, simply requires the paper to be pushed firmly into the corner and the tool run along the corner. Preferably, the body is itself formed with a rounded part forwardly of the blade, which extends into the corner and serves to ensure that the paper is fully pushed into the latter prior to the blade effecting its cutting action.

Stable seating can be achieved by relying on contact of both the blade and the tool body with the corner-defining surfaces or solely on contact between the body and corner-defining surfaces.

This latter arrangement is preferred.

In one embodiment, the tool body comprises a central blade-carrying portion, and two wings extending from the central portion on respective sides thereof to contact respective ones of said corner-defining surfaces. Contact between said surfaces and the wings may be by way of guide faces formed along the outer edges of the wings, in which case stable seating of the body is achieved without further provision, or by way of line contact along the outer edges of the wings, in which case it is necessary to provide the body with a centralising element projecting into the corner if the body is to be self stabilising in a corner. Such a centralising element can double as the aforesaid rounded part for pushing paper right into a corner.

The wings can be so angled relative to the central body portion that the outer edges of the wings diverge from the corner line towards the rear of the tool so as to leave a substantial space around the operative portion of the blade cutting edge and effect a spreading action on paper to be cut as the tool is advanced.

A wallpaper trimming tool embodying the invention will now be particularly described, by way of the example, with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic drawings in which: Figure 1 is a perspective view of the component parts of the tool in a disassembled state; Figure 2 is a side elevation of the assembled tool; Figure 3 is a rear view of the tool when positioned to trim wallpaper along the corner formed between a wall and a ceiling; and Figure 4 is a front view of the tool in the same position as in Figure 3.

As shown in Figure 1, the trimming tool 1 is made up of three components, namely a blade 2 with a cutting edge 3, and two snap-together body halves 4 and 5 which are mirror images of each other.

The body halves 4 and 5 which are formed from a plastics material, are arranged to snap fit together with their surfaces 6 in contact; to this end, the two body halves 4 and 5 are provided with cooperating snap-engageable pins 7 and apertures 8 respectively. The surface 6 of one of the body halves is formed with a recess 9 which is shaped to locate the blade 2 such that the latter is retained in a predetermined position once the body halves 4 and 5 have been snapped together.

It would, of course, be possible to arrange for the body halves to inter-engage in some other manner, for example, by a sliding in the plane of their mating surfaces.

As can be seen in Figures 2 to 4, the two body halves 4 and 5 when assembled together form a tool body having a central body portion 10 serving as a handle, and two wings 11 and 12 which extend laterally on respective sides of the central portion 10. The outer lateral edges of these wings 11 and 12 are formed with elongate guide faces 13 which lie in mutually-perpendicular planes. As can be seen in Figures 3 and 4, the guide faces are so arranged that when the tool 1 is pushed into a right-angled corner defined between the two surfaces 20, 21, the faces 13 contact respective ones of the corner-defining surfaces 20, 21 to stably seat the tool 1 in a predetermined orientation in the corner.

In the example illustrated in Figures 3 and 4, the tool 1 is to be used to trim the upper end of a length of wall paper 22 being hung on a wall 23.

This trimming is to be effected along the line of the corner formed between the wall 23 and a ceiling 24 and to this end, the tool 1 is first pushed into the corner where it is set in said predetermined orientation by the contact of its guide faces 13 with the surfaces 20, 21 The predetermined orientation of the tc '.1 ? in this position is such that its central body portion 10 and the blade 2 carried thereby, lie in a plane angled at 450 to the planes of the surfaces 20,21 with the cutting edge 3 of the blade 2 penetrating at one end into the corner crease of the wall paper 22.

In use, the tool 1 is intended to be drawn along the line of the corner in the direction indicated by arrown A in Figure 2; the tool 1 thus has a forward end (shown in Figure 3) and a rear end (shown in Figure 4). When the tool is in said predetermined orientation in a corner, the blade 2 is located towards the rear of the tool 1 with its cutting edge 3 converging rearwardly at a shallow angle (preferably between 50 and 200) towards the line of the corner such that as the tool 1 is moved in the direction of arrow A, the blade 2 is correctly set to meet and cut into the wall paper 22.

To ensure that the wall paper 22 has been pushed right into the comer prior to be cut by the blade 2, the forward end of the central body portion 10 is formed with a rounded part 25 which projects into the corner (see Figure 4) and serves to properly locate the paper 22 as the tool 1 is drawn along the corner.

The wings 11 and 12 are so angled that the guide faces 13 diverge from each other away from the region of the part 25 of the body portion 10.

This angling of the wings and faces 13 has a number of advantages, including that it leaves the zone of cutting of the paper 22 by the blade 2 unobstructed and that a progressive paperflattening action away from the corner line is achieved as the tool 1 is advanced in the direction of arrow A.

By forming the wings 11 and 12 from a resilient plastics material, it is possible to arrange for increased pressure on the tool 1 to result in the cutting edge 14 of the blade 2 being pushed further into the corner. This is useful in situations where the wall 23 and ceiling 25 meet at an angle of slightly under 900 since in such situations, the faces 1 3 would normally serve to space the blade 2 out of contact with the paper 22; however, by exerting sufficient pressure on the tool, the wings 11 and 12 can be caused to deform sufficiently to bring the blade 2 into contact with the paper 22.

For reasons of safety, the tool 1 can be provided with a protective cap (not shown) for covering the exposed portions of the blade 2.

Replacement of a worn blade 2 can be readily and simply effected by snapping apart the body halves 4 and 5, substituting a new blade from the worn blade and snapping the body halves 4 and 5 back together. Although a straight-edge blade 2 has been illustrated, it will be appreciated that a curved-edged blade can be used instead. In fact, a circular blade rotatably mounted by the tool body also can be used, the advantage of such a blade being that any tendency to tear the paper being cut is reduced. Similarly, the fixed part 25 could be replaced by a rotatably mounted smoothing wheel.

Furthermore, although the provision of guide faces 1 3 of significant width is desirable inasmuch as the faces 1 3 are alone sufficient to stably orientate the tool 1 in a corner, it is in fact possible to achieve this result simply by relying on edge contact of the wings 11 and 12 with the surfaces 20 and 21 together with the centralising action produced by the body part 25. Indeed, even if the body part 25 were omitted, stable seating can be achieved by relying on edge contact of the wings 11, 12 and the centralising action provided by the blade 3 itself; such an arrangement is not, however, preferred.

The described tool can be of course, be used in applications other than decorating where it is desired to cut paper (or other material) along the line of an internal corner. Although the illustrated tool is inteded for right-angled corners, it would equally be possible to make a tool suitable for corners of a different angle by forming the wings accordingly. Furthermore, an adjustable tool suitable for a range of different angles is also envisaged; in this case, the wings of the tool would be variable settable.

Claims (16)

1. A trimming tool for cutting along the line of an internal corner defined between two surfaces, said tool comprising a hand-holdable body carrying a cutting blade and so formed as to enable the tool to be stably seated in said corner with the body in contact with both said cornerdefining surfaces, the tool when so seated having its blade so positioned that its cutting edge is coplanar with the line of the corner and converges therewith in a progressive manner in a direction opposite that of the intended direction of movement of the tool along the corner.

2. A trimming tool according to Claim 1, wherein the body is so formed that upon the tool being pushed into said corner, the body by its contact with both said corner-defining surfaces serves to stably seat the body independently of any contact between the blade and said surfaces.

3. A tool according to Claim 2, wherein the body comprises a central blade-carrying portion, and two wings extending from the central portion on respective sides thereof to make contact'with respective ones of said corner-defining surfaces.

4. A tool according to Claim 3, wherein stable seating of the body in the corner is provided for by arranging for the wings to contact said cornerdefining surfaces along guide faces formed along the outer edges of the wings.

5. A tool according to Claim 3, wherein stable seating of the body in the corner is provided for by arranging for the outer edges of the wings to make line contact with the corner-defining surfaces and be providing the central body portion with an element which projects right into the - corner when the tool is pushed into the latter.

6. A tool according to-any one of Claims 2 to 5, wherein the tool body is provided with a rounded part which is located forwardly of the blade with respect to the intended direction of tool movement and which, in use.of the tool, extends into the corner to ensure that a length of paper to be trimmed along the line of the-corner is fully pushed into the latter prior to the blade effecting its cutting action;

7. A tool according to Claim 6, wherein said rounded part is constituted by a wheel rotatably mounted by the body.

8. A tool according to Claim 6 or Claim 7, when dependent on Claim 5, wherein the, said element of the central body portion is constituted by the said rounded part intended to ensure that paper to be trimmed is fully pushed into the corner.

9. A tool according to any one of Claims 3 to 5, wherein the wings are so angled relative to the central body portion that the outer edges of the wings diverge from the corner line, towards the rear of the tool so as to leave a substantial space around the operative portion of the blade cutting edge.

10. A tool according to any one of claims 2 to 9, wherein the body is made of a resilient material and so formed that increased pressure ori the tool is effective to push its cutting edge further into the corner.

11. A tool according to any one of Claims 2 to 10, wherein the cutting edge of the blade rearwardly terminates just beyond its point of intersection with the corner line when the tool is fully pushed into the corner.

12. A tool according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the tool is arranged to stably seat in a right-angled corner with its blade lying at an angle of 450 to the comer-defining surfaces and the blade cutting edge converging with the line of the corner at an angle of between 5 and 20 degrees.

13. A tool according to any one of Claims 1 to 11, wherein the blade is a circular blade rotatably mounted by the body.

14. A tool according to any one of Claims 2 to 5, wherein the tool body is formed in two interengageable components which are substantially mirror images of each other and are each made up of one wing and half the central body portion, this latter being divided along its length in a plane parallel to that of the blade, the blade being arranged to locate between the mating surfaces of the components.

15. A trimming tool for cutting wall or ceiling paper along the line of an internal corner defined between two surfaces, said tool comprising a hand-holdable body carrying a cutting blade and so formed as to stably seat in said corner, the body having a central portion and two wings extending from respective sides of the central portion to contact respective ones of said comer-defining surfaces when the tool is pushed into the corner, the central body portion being formed at a forward end thereof with a rounded nose which is arranged to project right into said corner to ensure that the paper to be cut along the corner line is pushed fully into the corner, and the central portion being arranged to carry the blade such that its cutting edge is coplanar with the line of the corner and converges therewith in a direction opposite that of the intended direction of movement of the tool along the corner.

16. A trimming tool substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.