RADIAL BRUSH FOR GRINDING AND POLISHING PURPOSES

Abstract

Disclosed is a disk-shaped radial brush for grinding or polishing, including a plate-shaped central body having two side faces and a substantially central opening, and having a plurality of bristles radially extending away from the central body. In order to achieve an assembly of these radial brushes into brush rollers, it is proposed to provide the central body with protrusions on at least one of the side faces and with corresponding receiving members on the other side face. This allows utilizing corresponding radial brushes in brush rollers without slippage of individual radial brushes or without compressing them too much in order to avoid said slippage and thereby deforming them.

Claims

1. A disk-shaped radial brush for grinding or polishing purposes, comprising a plate-shaped central body having two side faces and a substantially central opening, and comprising a plurality of bristles radially extending away from the central body, wherein the central body is provided with protrusions on at least one of the side faces and with corresponding receiving members on the other side face.

2. The radial brush according to claim 1, wherein the protrusions on the one side face and the receiving members on the other side face are circumferentially offset with respect to each other.

3. The radial brush according to claim 1, wherein the protrusions and the receiving members are designed in a substantially elongated shape.

4. The radial brush according to claim 3, wherein the protrusions and the receiving members extend in a substantially radial direction.

5. The radial brush according to claim 1, wherein the protrusions and the receiving members are disposed outside of an annular region surrounding the central opening.

6. The radial brush according to claim 1, wherein the protrusions are combined into groups on the one side face.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

[0027] Further advantages and features of the invention will be apparent from the following description of an exemplary embodiment. Therein:

[0028] FIG. 1 is a top view of a radial brush according to the invention;

[0029] FIG. 2 is a bottom view of the radial brush of FIG. 1;

[0030] FIG. 3 is a side view of a spindle with radial brushes disposed thereon;

[0031] FIG. 4 is a top view of the spindle of FIG. 3.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0032] FIG. 1 is a top view of a radial brush according to the invention. Shown are a central body 1 and a plurality of bristles 2, 3 radially extending from the central body 1. The illustrated bristles 2, 3 have a curved shape with the curvature against the direction of rotation. The bristles 2, 3 extend in planes parallel to a center plane of the central body 1.

[0033] In its center, the central body 1 comprises a round, central opening 4, with which the radial brush is placed onto a rotatable spindle, which will be explained in further detail below.

[0034] On the first side face 5 shown in the top view of FIG. 1, the central opening 4 is surrounded by a circular annular region 6, which is substantially planar.

[0035] Outside of this annular region 6, the first side face 5 is provided with elongated protrusions 7 that are substantially aligned in the radial direction. They protrude with a substantially triangular cross section in the axial direction out of the plane of the first side face 5.

[0036] This triangular cross section is substantially congruent to the cross section of corresponding elongated receiving members 8 that are provided on the other side face 9 of the central body 1 and thus also have a substantially triangular cross section. The other side face 9 is illustrated in FIG. 2 in the bottom view of the radial brush of FIG. 1.

[0037] When two radial brushes are arranged next to each other, when the one of the side faces of the first radial brush abuts the other side face of the second radial brush, the protrusions 7 of the one radial brush engage with the correspondingly congruent receiving members 8 of the other radial brush, whereby the two radial brushes are form-fittingly interconnected in the circumferential direction.

[0038] FIG. 1 also shows, on the first side face 5, which is illustrated here on top, that the central body 1 integrally transitions to bristles 2 that are flush with the top surface of the first side face 5. On the other side face 9, the central body 1 integrally transitions to bristles 3 that are flush with the top surface of the other side face 9. The bristles 2 associated with the first side face 5 and the bristles 3 associated with the other side face 9 each have a thickness corresponding to approximately half of the thickness of the radial brush and are thus disposed on each side of the center plane of the central body and thus of the radial brush.

[0039] There are gaps in the circumferential direction between the bristles 2 associated with the first side faces 5, as described above. The bristles 3 associated with the other side face 9 are substantially centered within these gaps on the other side of the center plane. Viewed from the side, a radial brush thus includes a dense sequence of bristles 2, 3 in the circumferential direction.

[0040] FIG. 3 illustrates how two radial brushes are assembled together to form a brush roller: Shown is a side view of a spindle 10, also known as a mandrel. This spindle includes a radially protruding collar 11, which is integrally connected to the spindle in this exemplary embodiment.

[0041] A first radial brush 12 abuts with an annular region 16 against this collar 11, when the brush is placed onto the spindle 10 through its central opening 4. This annular region 16 surrounds the central opening 4 on the other side face 9 of the radial brush 12. The annular region 16 has a planar shape to enable a planar abutment against the collar 11 and extends outwards substantially to the radially inner edges of the receiving members 8.

[0042] Subsequently, a second radial brush 13 is placed onto the spindle 10 with its central opening 4, whereby the first side face 5 of the first radial brush 12 comes into contact with the other side face 9 of the second radial brush 13. Thereby, the protrusions 7 provided on the first side face 5 of the first radial brush engage form-fittingly with the corresponding receiving members 8 on the other side face 9 of the second radial brush 13, as described above.

[0043] As a result, the radial extent of the protrusions 7 is exactly aligned with the gaps between the bristles 2 associated with the first side face 5.

[0044] Furthermore, the radial extent of the receiving members 8 is exactly aligned with the gaps between the bristles 3 associated with the other side face 9.

[0045] This achieves an exact arrangement of the bristles 2, into which the central body of the first radial brush 12 transitions on its first side face 5, in the gaps between the bristles 3, into which the central body of the second radial brush 13 transitions on its other side face 9, when the protrusions 7 disposed on the first side face of the first radial brush 12 engage with the receiving members 8 disposed on the other side face 9 of the second radial brush 13.

[0046] This is correspondingly repeated, if more than two radial brushes are assembled onto a spindle into a wider brush roller.

[0047] This achieves a uniform distribution of the bristles, both in the circumferential and the axial direction, even when a plurality of adjacent radial brushes is assembled into a brush roller.

[0048] In order to clamp the first radial brush 12 and the second radial brush 13 together, first, the first radial brush 12 is placed onto the spindle 10 with its central opening 4. With its annular region 16, it then abuts the face of the collar 11 disposed on the spindle 10 which faces the first brush. Then the second radial brush 13 is placed onto the spindle 10 with its central opening 4, and finally, a flange disk 14 is threaded onto the end of the spindle 10 that is illustrated in FIG. 3 on the right side, whereby the flange disk abuts against the annular region 6 on the first side face 5 of the second radial brush 13. The annular region 6 extends around the central opening 4.

[0049] The flange disk 14 is embodied in the fashion of a screw and thus comprises a screw slot for tightening it, as illustrated in FIG. 4.

[0050] When tightened, the flange disk 14 is pressed against the second radial brush 13, which is pressed against the first radial brush 12, which in turn is pressed against the collar 11 on the spindle 10.

[0051] Due to the mutual interconnection of the protrusions 7 and receiving members 8 when pressing the first radial brush 12 against the second radial brush 13, it becomes no longer necessary to excessively tighten the flange disk 14 onto the end of the spindle 10 in order to achieve a rotationally fixed connection of a plurality of adjacent radial brushes by means of friction between the radial brushes 12, 13. This is particularly relevant, if more than two radial brushes are assembled into a wider brush roller.

[0052] In particular, this limited clamping also prevents unnecessary compression of the central bodies of adjacent radial brushes 12, 13, which would lead to bending the bristles of axially terminal radial brushes in an axially outward direction, such that the circumferential surface of a corresponding brush roller assembled from a plurality of radial brushes would be barrel-shaped. Such a brush roller would not be suitable for producing planar surfaces.

[0053] At the same time, the mutual interconnection of the protrusions 7 and the receiving members 8 achieves that all radial brushes within such a brush roller are interconnected in a rotationally fixed manner, and individual radial brushes, in particular those disposed in the central region of the brush roller, are not decelerated and thus slowed in their rotation, when the brush roller is pressed against a part when in use.

[0054] Further, FIG. 1 shows that the individual protrusions 7 are combined into groups, in particular, in the illustrated example into three groups of four protrusions. On one hand, as a matter of fact, tool manufacture may be simplified by omitting individual protrusions.

[0055] On the other hand, this grouping of protrusions allows encoding the radial brushes. This allows labeling the radial brush to distinguish the bristle strengths or temperature stability of a radial brush, or also the granularity of the grinding particles used in the radial brush. In addition, thickness, outer diameter or diameter of the central opening or other similar characteristics of the radial brush relevant to a user may be encoded as needed.

[0056] Overall, the radial brush according to the invention is a product with significant advantages in its application.

LIST OF REFERENCE NUMERALS

[0057] 1 Central body [0058] 2 Bristles [0059] 3 Bristles [0060] 4 Central opening [0061] 5 First side face [0062] 6 Annular region [0063] 7 Protrusions [0064] 8 Receiving members [0065] 9 Other side face [0066] 10 Spindle [0067] 11 Collar [0068] 12 First radial brush [0069] 13 Second radial brush [0070] 14 Flange disk [0071] 15 Screw slot [0072] 16 Annular region