Penn Engineering & Manufacturing Corp.

James Sutcliffe

Brian G Bentrim

Trevor Stephen Fahy

Jonathan Brunk

David Quinn

Thuan Huu Chau

Jennifer Lake

A floating fastener comprises a retainer and a captive nut held within a cavity of the retainer. The nut is star-shaped with four points spaced equally apart and with four valleys on the periphery of the nut between the points creating the overall star-shape of the nut. Likewise, the cavity in the retainer corresponds to the shape and contour of the nut but sized so that there is a substantial gap between them. Permissible lateral float of the nut can be maximized by employing a particular angularity of the sides of the valleys in relation to other dimensions of the fastener.

Self-clinching floating fastener

A clinching or swaging fastener for securely mounting a secondary article, such as a magnet, flush to a surrounding surface. An interference fit fastening feature holds the secondary article flush by using a deformable center knob on the end wall at the bottom of the retainer. Alignment features on the outer portion of the retainer body can fixture the magnet in a desired orientation. A radial flange surrounds the mouth of the bore which has a peripheral lip that extends upwardly. Clinch attachment means comprising a circular peripheral undercut is located on the outside of the body just below the flange for attaching the body to a host object. The article may have a peripheral chamfer at the top which receives the lip as it is deformed against the article to provide a flush alignment to the host object.

Flush-mount, article-retaining fastener

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Warminster, PA, United States of America

James Sutcliffe