Penda Corporation

Alltrista Corporation

William L Dresen

Phillip L Emery

William F Price

Philip L Emery

Harlan W Breezer

James P Hart

Karl A Niemi

Robert R Holmes

David G Grunow

Multiple legs elevate a central ring bearing, to which a ring-shaped rotatable plastic sheet support carousel is mounted. The carousel is fitted with a ring gear which engages with a drive system to position the carousel and the thermoplastic sheets supported from it. A multi-post vertical press is positioned with two posts extending upwardly interior to the ring bearing, and two posts extending upwardly exterior to the ring bearing. The ring bearing thus extends through the press, allowing the carousel to supply and remove plastic sheets to and from the press. An upper platen and a lower platen are mounted for vertical displacement to the posts, thereby ensuring a high degree of parallelism between the molds mounted to the platens, and accurate twin-sheet thermoforming. A plurality of rollers are mounted to the outer ring, and an elevated ring track is positioned beneath the outer ring, wherein the rollers engage with the elevated track to support a portion of the loads of the outer ring and the inner ring, the elevated track being positioned between the vertical press exterior posts and the vertical press interior post.

Track-supported rotatable sheet support structure for twin-sheet

A thermoformed thermoplastic truck bedliner has at least one pair of under-cut load restraint pockets formed by portions of opposed bedliner sidewalls. The pockets are recessed from the sidewall so that a load restraining member such as a 2.times.4 beam may be pressed downwardly to be snapped into engagement with the pockets. The pockets support the boards in a horizontal orientation, with the wide dimension of the board extending from front to back within the liner to give greater board stiffness against loads shifting from front to back. The pockets may be formed in either under the rail bedliners or in over the rail bedliners. In an alternative embodiment, each under-cut pocket is formed in a cross shape such that a board may be positioned horizontally or vertically.

Bedliner with load restraining wall structure

Multiple legs elevate a central ring bearing, to which a ring-shaped rotatable plastic sheet support carousel is mounted. The carousel is fitted with a ring gear which engages with a drive system to position the carousel and the thermoplastic sheets supported from it. A multi-post vertical press is positioned with two posts extending upwardly interior to the ring bearing, and two posts extending upwardly exterior to the ring bearing. The ring bearing thus extends through the press, allowing the carousel to supply and remove plastic sheets to and from the press. An upper platen and a lower platen are mounted for vertical displacement to the posts, thereby ensuring a high degree of parallelism between the molds mounted to the platens, and accurate twin-sheet thermoforming.

Rotatable sheet support structure for a twin-sheet thermoformer

A thermoformed thermoplastic truck bedliner has at least one pair of under-cut load restraint pockets formed by portions of opposed bedliner sidewalls. The pockets are recessed from the sidewall so that a load restraining member such as a 2.times.4 beam or a cylindrical pipe may be pressed downwardly to be snapped into engagement with the pockets. The pockets support the boards in a horizontal orientation, with the wide dimension of the board extending from front to back within the liner to give greater board stiffness against loads shifting from front to back. The pockets may be formed in either under the rail bedliners or in over the rail bedliners.

Bedliner with load restraint pockets

Bedliner with pockets for load restraint

Bedliner with snap-in load restraining member

A structural reinforced injection-molded fiberglass visor shell has a laterally extending upper member which extends frontwardly above and provides shade to a vehicle windshield. Three attachment pods extend downwardly from the upper member and have pod floors which conform to the geometry of a vehicle cab upper surface. Side walls extend upwardly from the pod floors and are connected to the upper member. Access holes are provided in the upper member for the insertion of fasteners through the pod floors into the vehicle cab surface. Alternatively, the pod floors may be adhesively attached to the cab by means of structural adhesive tape or bolt-retaining strips adhesively taped the cab surface. The same visor shell may be economically manufactured for a wide variety of vehicles by substituting different pods configured for a particular make of vehicle.

Motor vehicle windshield visor

A pickup truck cargo bed liner is disclosed which is vacuum formed of unitary plastic and adapted to fit within and protect the contours of a pickup truck cargo bed. The liner has a bottom wall, wheel wells, and a front wall and side walls connected to and extending upwardly from the bottom wall, the front wall being connected to the side walls. An elastomer material having an effectively high co-efficient of friction is co-formed with and integrally adhered to the plastic forming the liner to provide an anti-slip surface thereon for restraining movement of cargo on the liner.

Truck cargo bed liner with anti-slip surface

A pickup truck cargo bed liner is disclosed which is particularly constructed for efficiency in shipment and storage, and so that the liner can easily be installed in trucks having top caps. The truck bed liner has a liner bottom wall adapted to fit on and substantially cover the full width of the truck cargo bed floor, the liner bottom wall having a width substantially as great as the width of the truck rear opening. Two liner wheel wells are formed in the liner bottom wall at opposite sides thereof and adapted to accommodate the truck cargo bed rear wheel wells. A liner front wall is connected to and extends upwardly from the liner bottom wall, the liner front wall having an upper margin adapted to fit snugly against the truck cargo bed front wall. Two liner side walls are connected to the liner bottom wall and wheel wells and the liner front wall at opposite sides thereof, the liner front wall substantially limiting the distance between the liner side walls at the front end of the liner. Each liner side wall projects upwardly from the liner bottom wall and adjacent wheel well and has an upper margin which fits snugly against the corresponding truck cargo bed wall beneath the corresponding truck cargo bed side rail, thereby providing an optimum volume of usable cargo space. The liner side walls are inclined outwardly from the liner bottom wall and permit multiple nesting of identical truck cargo bed liners in space efficient relation wherein the bottom walls of the nested liners are in proximity.

Truck cargo bed liner

A pallet (10) is disclosed which is particularly adapted for being constructed of moldable thermoplastic materials. The pallet includes a load-bearing surface (12) supported by a plurality of feet (32) with the load-bearing surface (12) being constructed of a pair of sheets of the thermoplastic material (13, 15) located in spaced parallel relationship to each other. Respective top (22, 24) and bottom (26) channels are formed in the upper and lower sheets of material (13, 15) with the bottoms of each of the channels (22, 24, 26) being joined to the bottom of the channels from the other sheet of material to securely and rigidly fix the two sheets of material (13, 15) together. The feet (32) include alternating solid (40) and hollow (38) portions which serve to make the feet (32) extremely strong. An alternative embodiment of the present invention includes a self-draining feature so that the channels (122) on the top surface of the pallet drain into the feet (132) with the fluid entering the feet (132), draining from a hole (143) provided in the bottoms thereof.

Growing community of inventors

Baraboo, WI, United States of America

William L Dresen