Gencorp, Inc.

Mossberg Industries, Inc.

Terry L Farber

Rodney Hardesty

Christopher J Hollingshead

An embossment for a plastic panel is provided. The embossment projects out from the panel and can secure the panel to an object or support the panel away from the object as a standoff. A plurality of support legs are integrally formed to both the embossment and the panel which separates the embossment from the panel and provides stability to the embossment. While attaching the embossment to the vehicle, such as by rotationally inserting a screw, the support legs prevent the embossment from rotating and/or disconnecting from the panel. In this manner, the panel is maintained in a proper location during installation. The support legs have a reduced contact area with the panel such that abnormalities on the show surface that would be created by the embossment are eliminated.

Embossment for plastic panels

A reel, alternately called a spool, may be manufactured in a fully assembled, single, homogeneously molded piece. Processes may include injection molding, blow molding, and other suitable molding processes adapted to polymeric resins. The apparatus and method are well adapted to manufacturing processes using olefinic resins, such as polypropylene and polyethylene. The resulting reel or spool may serve as a take-up reel for receiving, storing, transporting, and dispensing stranded materials wound thereon. The barrel may fit within a cylindrical envelope extending between hub portions of flanges disposed at opposite ends. An arbor hole extends along the longitudinal axis of rotation for supporting the reel. Flanges extend radially from the barrel, substantially orthogonally thereto, on a smooth, inside face of each flange. Flanges may be tapered, ribbed, and so forth in order to obtain proper stiffness with minimum weight, while still remaining moldable in a single process not requiring post-molding assembly. Apertures serving as drive holes for a drive pin, start holes for stranded (e.g. wire) material, and tie holes may be provided by pins of sufficiently small dimension to not interfere with hydraulic and cooling channels in the molds. Certain methods may use large core pulls, but certain embodiments may be made from two piece molds having 'pull pins' only for the arbor hold and the aforementioned apertures. Tooling slides may be used but are not required.

Growing community of inventors

Columbia City, IN, United States of America

Terry L Farber