Other

James R Needham

Glenn C Smith

William T Turnbull

A wood joint connector plate is formed of a thin, rigid metal sheet having numerous narrow, elongated, struck-out openings. The struck-out sheet material is bent perpendicularly at each end of each opening to form a pair of opposing reverse-oriented mirror-image teeth. Each tooth is bent about a lengthwise bend line that is offset relative to the central longitudinal axis of its opening to divide the tooth into a narrow portion and a wide portion along its length. The free end of each tooth is formed as an asymmetrical V-shaped tip, whose apex coincides with the bend line, to provide a short leg terminating the tooth narrow portion and a long leg terminating the tooth wide portion. Each tooth is twisted around its bend line so that its tip short leg extends approximately parallel to the axis of the opening and towards its opposing tooth. The tip long leg extends away from its opposing tooth and its opening at an acute angle relative to the longitudinal axis of the opening. The wide portion of each tooth is divided into a tip outer part and a base part by a crease extending from the free end of the tip long leg to about the point where the base of the tooth is intersected by the longitudinal axis of the opening. The base part generally extends at an angle in the general direction of its opposing tooth, and the tip part is formed with a dished depression.

Wood joint connector plate

A truss plate for connecting together wood members forming trusses, joists, beams and the like construction parts, formed of stiff sheet metal having struck-out teeth extending perpendicularly to the body of the plate. The teeth are struck-out in pairs, leaving an elongated slot between each pair of teeth. The slots, and their teeth, are aligned in numerous longitudinal rows. The rows form groups whose slots are also transversely aligned, but with the slots of one group being longitudinally offset relative to the slots of its adjacent group. The teeth are V-shaped in cross-section and are axially twisted. Their free ends form asymmetrical V-shaped tips. A pair of such plates are arranged in face-to-face contact with the teeth of the uppermost plate extending through the slots in the lowermost plate for closely positioning together adjacent teeth to form a double thickness plate with pairs of double teeth.

Growing community of inventors

Orange, CA, United States of America

James R Needham