US3251571A - Soap holder and adjustable loop - Google Patents

Description

May 17, 1966 F. E RNEST 3,251,571

-' Q SOAP HOLDER AND ADJUSTABLE LOOP Filed May 20, 1963 INVENTOR.

Q/VEST United States Patent SOAP HOLDER AND ADJUSTABLE LOOP Fred Ernest, 5468 Alvern Circle, Los Angeles 45, Calif. Filed May 20, 1963, Ser. No. 281,590 1 Claim. (Cl. 248-359) This invention pertains to means for fastening a cord to a bar of soap so that the cord and soap may hang from a fixture or from the neck of the user when not actually being used for lathering, and it relates also to a cord and fastening means having other analogous uses.

When showering, the cake of soap frequently slips from the hands of the bather to the floor of the tub or shower stall, requiring that he stoop over to' pick it up. If he is not wearing a bathing cap, this may result in his getting his'hair wet when he wants to keep it dry. Furthermore, it is a convenience not to have to place the soap in a soap dish if the bather wants to use both hands for the shower controls or perhaps one hand on a shower control while holding a sponge or wash cloth in the other.

Various means have been proposed in the past for attaching a cord to a bar of soap. If the cord is embedded in the soap, even when the end of the cord is knotted, the. cord often pulls out due. to the softening of the soap under action of the moisture that runs down the cord.

One object of the present invention is to provide means whereby the cord may be attached to the soap without having to be embedded therein.

A further object is to provide means whereby the connection between the cord and the soap may be adjusted to hold the soap moresecurely as it gradually wears away during use.

An additional object is to provide a device that may be slipped over both ends of the cord after an intermediate portion of the cord has been looped around the soap in a manner hereinafter to be described, the device then acting, when moved against the bar of soap, to tighten its grip therearound.

Still another object is to provide a peripheral groove or series of peripheral grooves in the soap so that the looped cord will be held in place and so that the groove originally formed will act as a guide whereby the cord itself will deepen the groove as his tightened around the soap to compensate for the portions that have been used or dissolved away from the original groove. The action of the slightly moving cord in the groove is much like the action of a river stream in deepeningits channel.

In accordance with these objectives, another object is to provide a configuration and arrangement for the groove or grooves to make certain that the bar of soap is firmly held and that the groove will deepen in use in the manner hereinbefore described.

This invention possesses many other advantages, and has other objects which may be made more clearly apparent from a consideration of one embodiment of the invention. For this purpose, there is shown a form in the drawing accompanying and forming a part of the present specification, together with a modification in one portion of the embodiment. This form will now be described in detail, illustrating the general principles of the invention; but it is to be understood that this detailed description is not to be taken in a limiting sense, since the scope of this invention is best defined by the appended 3,251,571 Patented May 17, 1966 FIG. 4 is a cut-away view of a device that tightens the cord around the soap, showing a suitable formation of the hole that passes through the tightening device;

FIG. 5 is 'a section taken substantially on line 55 of FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 shows the arrangement of the cord with respect to itself when it is looped twice around the bar of soap;

FIG. 7 shows a modification in which the groove for guiding the cord extends all around the bar; and

FIG. 8 is a side View of the bar of soap shown in FIG. 7. 3

Although the cord that attaches to the soap may be hung from a hook or other projection, the use of my invention is illustrated by showing the cord placed ove the head of the bather.

While it is essential to the use of my invention that two adjacent portions of the cord pass through the tightening device 2, it is not essential that the cord be endless in order that it may be looped over the bathers head or over such hook as may be provided, perhaps on the wall of the shower, for hanging the soap; for example, a knot may be tied in the cord at position 3 indicated in FIGS.

1 and 4 and an independent loop formed on the other end of the cord.

In the presently preferred embodiment of my invention, the bar of soap 1 is provided at each of its corners with a recess 4, these recesses all lying in essentially the same plane between the two faces of the bar. Each of the four recesses extends at an angle substantially as shown in FIG. 2.

The tightening device or cramp 2, in the presently preferred embodiment, is provided with an opening 7 therethrough which tapers from the upper-to the lower end when the cramp is disposed in the position in which it is used, as shown in FIG. 4. Preferably, the edges of both the upper and lower openings to this tapered hole are radiused or chamfered, as shown in FIG. 4, with the upper radius 8 being longer than the lower chamfer 9.

In assembling the cord and cramp, both ends of the cord may be inserted through the smaller end of the hole so that there will be a loop in the portions of the cord below the cramp when these parts are disposed as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2; but the threading is easier if the loop is formed by first inserting one endof the cord through the larger end of the hole, then pulling enough of the cord through the smaller end to form the loop, and final- 1y threading the cord back through the hole so that it will be doubled within the cramp. Because of the restricted space available between the side of the hole and the portion of the cord already passing through the cramp, it is advisable to pull on the part of the cord adjacent the larger end of the hole while reinserting the cord from the small end, as the movement of the cord already passing through the cramp tends to entrain the reinserted end with it.

The loop may then be placed in the groove or grooves around the soap. When the cramp is pushed down over the two sides of the cords 6 and 6' toward the soap, as shown in FIG. 2, the tension of the two portions of the cord at right angles to the hole at positions 5 and 5 tend to press the adjoining portions of the cord together within the hole thus tightening the cramp. As a consequence, the tension on the cord does not cause the cramp to back ofi; but if the cramp is purposely pushed away from the soap in order to release the bar, the larger end of the hole permits the cramp to slide easily over the cord.

If the cord is wrapped twice around the bar in the manner'indi'cated in FIG. 6, the bar is even more firmly held in position than When the cord makes only one convolution about the bar. This is because a given degree of loosening of the cord around the soap requires the same amount of cord to move past a given point in each of the two convolutions, and as a consequence twice as much cord must move through the cramp when the cord is wrapped around the soap twice, as indicated in FIG. 6, than when it is wrapped around only once as shown in FIG. 2. This action is very much the same as that which takes place when a pulley is attached to a load that is lifted by means of a cord fixed at one end, then passed around a pulley, and raised from the other end, the force required being only half as much as would be needed if the weight were being lifted directly by a cord attached to the weight itself.

It will be clear that my cramp 2 with the cord arranged either as in FIG. 2 or FIG. 6 may be used for tying bundles together, such as bundles of sticks or tubes, or stacks of books.

In FIG. 7, the bar or cake 11 has an annular groove all around the bar. The cord of course functions in this annular groove the same as in the discontinuous groove arrangement shown in FIG. 2. Various other modificati-ons may of course be made in the guiding means for the cord around the bar of soap.

.Modifications may likewise be made in the cramp.

The cramp and cord may also be used for binding various articles together, such as books or bars or sticks, in which case the cord may be wrapped around them either once or twice, depending upon the degree of security desired.

Various other changes in the structure and manner of using the invention are possible, and substitutions, rearrangements and transpositions may of course be made Without departing from the broad spirit of my invention as succinctly set forth in the appended claim.

The inventor claims:

A combination comprising: a cake of cleaning compound having peripheral groove means therein for receiving a cord; an endless flexible cord; a cramping member slidably mounted on the cord and dividing the cord into two contiguous loops, one of the loops extending circumferentially about the cake and seated in said groove means; said cramping member being operative to cinch the cord around the loop; said cake being substantially uniformly water soluble so that as the cake is used, the

groove means are renewed as the cramping member is repeatedy tightened about the cake.

MORRIS KAPLAN, Primary Examiner.

CHARLES A. WILLMUTH, RICHARD NEVIUS,

Examiners.

PHILIP ARVIDSON, Assistant Examiner.

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