US2289062A - Safety razor receptacle - Google Patents

Description

J. MUROS SAFETY RAZOR RECEPTACLES July 7, 1942.

2 She'ts-Shet 1 Filed Jan. 18, 1941 mY N. NN MN w wh@ July 7,A 1942. J. MLJRos SAFETY RAZOR RECEPTACLES I Filed Jan. 18, 1941 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Eff'- 5 27 "a2 22 2e 29 24 25 5/ l m W W M YQ 27 .a2 2a 22 22 e 24 25 INVENTOR. BY fm2 2M.

Patented July 7, 1942 SAFETY RAZOR RECEPTACLE Joseph Muros, Cambridge, Mass., assigner to Gillette Safety Razor Company, Boston, Mass., a

corporation of Delaware Application January 18, 1941, Serial No. 375,049

2 Claims.

The present invention consists in a new and improved receptacle for safety razors, so constructed and arranged as to provide an enclosure for the safety razor and at the same time a sharpening or stropping device for a blade in the safety razor.

It is a domestic problem to provide a neat Vand attractive receptacle where a stropping device and a safety razor may be safely maintained in the home at all times conveniently accessible to the user, where the razor will be fully protected from dust, from rusting and from damage to the keen edge of its blade. Injury to safety razors by falling upon the tile floors is the cause of thousands of damaged safety razors being returned each year to manufacturers. The danger of accidental cutting from a carelessly placed safety razor is also serious.

The object of the present invention is to meet all these difficulties by providing a receptacle for safety razors constructed and arranged to provide a complete enclosure and eicient guard against the dangers above discussed. To this end, the receptacle of my invention is characterized by means for holding a safety razor securely in stationary position therein, together with blade stropping means which are brought into operative relation with the blade of the razor when the receptacle is closed and provided with external operating means whereby the blade may be stropped in the enclosed safety razor.

As herein shown the receptacle comprises a bottom portion having means for supporting a safety razor with its blade holder and blade in an extended position and having also mounted therein one of a pair of co-operating stropping rolls. With this is combined a cover portion arranged to be secured in closed position and which has means for holding down the razor and in this portion of the receptacle is mounted the other member of the pair of stropping rolls. One or both of these rolls may be provided with operating means extending outside the receptacle. Accordingly when the user has completed shaving he has only to place his razor in the receptacle of my invention, close the cover and then, by giving a few turns to the stropping rolls, the shaving edge of the blade may be cleaned and stropped preparatory to subsequent use. The razor is thereafter maintained and safeguarded in this condition of readiness as long as the receptacle remains closed-for a day or month as the case may be.

As herein shown the receptacle of my invention is designed particularly to receive a safety 55 razor having a pivotally mounted blade holder or carrier that may be swung into extended position when desired, that is to say, it may be swung so that the blade edge is located substantially outside or above the razor head. Accordingly, the lower stropping roll is located in the lower enclosure member beneath the blade edge. When the cover is removed there is complete clearance so that the razor may be freely removed or replaced. The cover, however, contains the upper stropping roll of the pair and this is located, when the cover is closed, in position above the blade edge. The organization of the stropping rolls may be such that they operate simultaneously on both sides of the blade edge but, as herein shown and in accordance with an optional feature of my invention, means are provided for pressing the blade edge alternately against one roll and then the other, One satisfactory mechanism for effecting this function comprises a cam orcams on the lower roll shaft arranged to lift the blade against the upper roll during a portion of the cycle and to permit it to be moved into engagement with the lower roll during another portion of the cycle. This insures a more advantageous stropping contact between the blade edge and one roll at a time than it is practical to secure when the simultaneous action of the rolls depends upon accurately adjusting the blade with both sides of its edge in the bite of the rolls.

These and other features of my invention will be best understood and appreciated from the following description of a preferred embodiment thereof, selected for purposes of illustration and shown in the accompanying drawings, in which- Fig. l is a plan view of the receptacle showing a safety razor in place therein and with the cover raised;

Fig. 2 is a view of the closed receptacle in longitudinal section;

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary view corresponding to Fig. 2 but showing the blade edge in contact with the upper stropping roll;

Fig. 4 is a corresponding view showing the blade edge in contact with the lower stropping roll; and

Fig. 5 is a fragmentary view of the lower stropping roll with its operating crank.

The receptacle of my invention is not limited to any specific type'of safety razor. For example, the razor hereinshown is of a well-known commercial type comprising a fluted handle 20 having a reduced neck and a head 2l provided W1th a pivotally mounted blade holder 22 in which is frictionally retained a blade 23. The head includes a blade seat which terminates in a guard 24, and is provided at each corner with a hooked lug 26. A finger piece 25 is provided for temporarily rocking that portion of the head which carries the blade holder away from the blade seat to rel-ease the blade from the hooked lugs 25 when it is desired to place the razor in its receptacle. A razor of this general type is disclosed in co-pending application Ser. No. 352,388, filed August 13, 1940,

The receptacle may be made of mouldable material, such as Bakelite or of metal, such as aluminum. It is rectangular in form and includes a lower portion lil having side and end walls and a cover l! of similar shape hinged to the bottom portion at one end to swing about the axis of a hinge pin l2. is provided with an internal walled enclosure I3 which has two functions. defines areas in the bottom portion l0 for containing a pair of blade magazines affording the user a convenient supply of fresh blades. These magazines are not herein shown since they form no part of the present invention. In the second place, it comprises part of the means for holding the safety razor securely in a stationary position. To this end the longitudinal walls of the enclosure i3 are spaced to engage the handle of the razor while its end walls M and I5 are provided with concave sockets shaped to fit transversely upon the body of the handle and upon the neck of the handle just below the razor head.

At its hinged end the side walls of the bottom portion l0 are thickened inwardly to form shoulders and in these thickened side walls are provided bearings for a transverse shaft i8 carrying a lower stropping roll Il which consists of a rubber composition impregnated with an abrasive material. One end of the shaft I3 as shown in Fig. 5 is forked and provided with a pivotally connected crank arm and handle i9. When this crank arm is in operative position as shown in Fig. l it may be used to drive the stropping roll Il. When it is not in use it may be swung 180 so that it lies in a recess i6 in one side wall of the portion lil while its handle I9 enters the cover through an aperture 3| provided therein for that purpose.

The cover H, as already stated, corresponds in shape and dimensions to the bottom portion l0 and is provided within its hinged end with journals for a shaft carrying the upper stropping roll 21. When the cover is closed these two stropping rolls I'I and 2 are located vertically one above the other, engaging each other directly in a flattened contact ar-ea and partially enclosing between them the sharp edge of the razor blade 23. When the lower roll is driven by turning the handle I9 of the crank the upper roll is driven therefrom by frictional contact.

The cover ll carries internally a casing '32 of spring sheet metal which is fast to the forward end wall of the cover and encloses the upper stropping roll 1 on three sides, leaving its lower side free and unobstructed for contact with the lower stropping roll. The casing 32 has the additional function of a hold-down and to that end is provided with a straight edge arranged to bear upon the blade 23 along a line just in advance of the edge of the blade holder 22. When the cover Il is shut the spring member 32 is brought into position to press the lower face of the blade edge against the surface of the lower stropping roll Thebottom portion lil In the first place, it

fifi

Il thus insuring effective strapping action when the roll is rotated.

The shaft I8 is provided at each end of the lower roll Il with a cam 33 reduced in diameter throughout 180 of its circumference and shaped throughout the remaining 180 of its circumference to engage the two corners of the blade 23 and swing the blade in its holder upwardly against the yielding pressure of the hold-down member 32 and into stropping engagement with the face of the upper stropping roll 2l. The cams 33 act upon the blade in the same corner areas where the lugs 25 engage the blade in the razor. As the crank I9 is turned, therefore, the lower edge of the blad-e is stropped against the lower roll I1 during one-half its revolution and is then raised by the cams 33 and stropped upon its upper face against the upper roll 21 during the other half of its revolution. The cams 33 operate to lift the blade 23 against the yielding pressure of the spring hold-down 32, and, when permitted to do so by the cams 33, the hold-down swings the blade downwardly into engagement with the lower roll. The provision of blade presenting cams, such as the cams 33, insures effective stropping action without requiring such precise location of the blade-edge as is required in stropping both edges of the blade simultaneously without vertical adjustment between the two stropping rolls.

The cover l! is provided also with a deep ransverse flange 2S and a shallow transverse flange 29, the former being arranged to engage the handle 26 of the razor adjacent to the socket in the wall it! and the latter being arranged to engage the guard 2Q in the razor head. These two flanges accordingly act as hold-down members and co-operate with the sockets of the lower portion i6 in holding the whole razor securely in i stationary position. At their free ends the bottom portion Hl and cover l of the receptacle are provided with co-operating catch members arranged to engage automatically and to be released by pressure upon a button 3G connected to the lower catch member and extending outwardly through complementary recesses in the end walls of the lower portion and cover. Accordingly, when the cover is closed it is latched in closed condition with the razor held under appreciable pressure and these conditions continue until the latch is released by pressure upon the button 3D.

The blade carrier 22 is free to swing about its transverse axis when the blade is not locked to the blade seat by engaging with the hooked lugs 23 of the head. Accordingly, when the blade is released. and the razor placed in the receptacle the under edge of the blade rests on the lower stropp-ing roll il. Then, when the cover is closed, the upper edge of the blade is located beneath the upper stropping roll 21 and the blade is thereby maintained in strapping position between them. The inner wall of the end compartment containing the lower roll I'! is shaped to guide the blade 23 or limit its movement so that it cannot dig into or cut the roll il' but merely lies flat upon surface. The razor itself is held against shifting by the longitudinal walls of the enclosure I3 and by the sockets in the walls i4 and I5 into which it is pressed by the flanges 2G and 2S of the cover. It will be noted that this is so regardless of whether the blade occupies the position shown in Fig. 2 or whether it is positioned on its blade seat and the razor closed.

Having thus disclosed my invention I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent:

1. A receptacle for a safety razor having a pivotally mounted blade holder, the receptacle having a lower enclosure member in which is journaled a stropping roll located beneath the edge of a Vblade in the holder, a cam movable with the roll intermittently to lift the blade, a cover in which is journaled an upper stropping roll, and a spring guard for said upper roll constructed and arranged to engage the blade and move it in opposition to said cam.

2. A receptacle for a safety razor having -a JOSEPH MUROS.

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