TOOL FASTENING

MONTURE D'OUTIL

English Abstract

ABSTRACT
A mounting bracket for fastening replaceable earth
engaging tools such as rotary hoe blades or trench digger
teeth in which the shaft of the tool fits within a recess in
the bracket and a spring biased pin is arranged to pass
through both the shaft and the bracket at right angles to
the longitudinal dimension of the shaft. This arrangement
does away with the need to use bolts.

Claims

THE EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION IN WHICH AN EXCLUSIVE
PROPERTY OR PRIVILEGE IS CLAIMED ARE DEFINED AS FOLLOWS:
1. A mounting bracket for an earth engaging tool
comprising a body portion a recess within said body portion
adapted to receive a complementary shaped shaft of an earth
engaging tool a clip attachable externally to said body
portion of said bracket by resilient end lugs and a retaining
pin, secured to. said clip intermediate said ends, said pin
being adapted to seat within aligned holes of the tool shaft
and said body-portion when said tool and said bracket are
assembled, to retain the shaft in said recess.
2. A mounting bracket as claimed in claim 1 in which
the body portion incorporates shoulders adapted to protect
the end lugs of said clip.
3. A rotary hoe wherein the rotary plate carries a
plurality of mounting brackets as claimed in claim 1 or 2
carried by the rotary plate of a rotary hoe with each mounting
bracket in turn supporting an earth engaging tool.
4. Trench digging apparatus which includes an endless
chain having mounted thereon a plurality of mounting brackets
as claimed in claim 1 or 2 each said mounting bracket
supporting an earth engaging tool.

Description

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This invention relates to means for ~astening
earth engaging tools particularly those used with rotary
hoes or trench diggers where the blades are carried on a
chain.
Generally such ~arth engaging tools are si~ply
bolted into position on the rotary plate or drive chain and
consequently after use the bolts are covered in earth and
become encrusted in position and are particularly difficult
to remove. Thus the replaclng of blades on such machines
j can become a maJor task.
It is an object of this invention to provide a
simple means of fastening such tools to enable simple remov-
al of the bladès to be af~ected.
, To this end the present invention provides a mount-
ing bracket incorporating a recess which is adapte~ to
receive the shaft of a tool said bracket and said tool shaft
incorporating complementary holes which are aligned when
said shaft is seated within said reeess and a spring biased
' ' pin removably attached to sald bracket, said pin being
adapted to seat within said holes o~ said shaft and bracket.
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~ The bracket of this invention can either be attach-
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able to or form part of the chain or rotor plate of such
machines as a trench digger or a rotary hos.
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A preferred embodiment of this invention will now
~, be described.
,~ ' , The attached drawings,illustrate a bracket which
~ can be secured to a rotary hoe or to a chain of a trench
'~; ' digger or similar tool.
,,~ Figure 1 is an exploded p~erspective view of the
,~' bracket and
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Figure 2 is an end view of the bracket with the
shaft of a tool secured in position onto a chain of a trench
digger.
- Figure 3 is a view of the bracket of this invent-
ion fitted to a rotary hoe.
The bracket consists of a body portion 4 compris-
ing two plates 5 and 6 which extend between the shoulders 7
of the bracket. Plate 5 includes access holes 17 for bolts
8 and plate 6 includes countersunk holes 18 for accepting
the ends of the bolts B. The bolts 8 are adapted to secure
the bracket to a rotary plate of a rotary hoe or particular-
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ly to the chain 1~ of a trench digger as shown in figure 2.Thus the plate 6 will abut the chain, and thus plate 5 is
exposed. The recess 9 between plates 5 and 6 is complement-
ary in shape to the shaft 10 of the digging tool. Movement
of the chain 19 or rotary plate to which the bracket is
attached is in the direction parallel to plates 5 and 6 and
along the line 7-7.
The spring 11 and its attached pin 12 seat on to
plate 5, where the curved ends 13 of the spring 11 snap over
the~flanges 14 of plate 5. Shaft 10 incorporates a hole
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which~aliens~with~the hole 15 of plate 5 and pin 12 extends
through hole l~ and the co-operating hole of shaft 10. The
ma~or stress forces to which shaft 10 is subjected are borne
by the bracket walls 16 whereas pin 12 merely serves to
retain the shaft 10 in position.
To remove shaf't 10 the spring 11 is flexed to
raise the pin 12 above the surface of shaft 10 and shaft 10
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can then simply be pulled from recess 9. Assembly is
equally simple. The shoulders 7 are shaped to surround the
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ends 13 of the spring 11 and serve to protect these ends 13
and prevent them being dislodged or broken. These protect-
ive shoulders 7 are not essential and in the case of rotary
hoes the brackets may simply terminate in end wall 16 and
end flanges 14.
The pin 12 of spring 11 need not be headed as
shown but is preferably riveted to the spring 11.
In Figure 3 the bracket 22 is welded to a rotary
wheel 23 of a rotary hoe. The hoe blade 24 is secured with-
in bracket 22 by the same spring 26 ~nd pin 27 arrangement
as used in the embodiment of Figures 1 and 2. Once again
the hoe blade can easily be removed în a much shorter time
than was possible in the prior art.
From the above description it can be seen that the
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present invention provides a simple and convenient ~astening
means for earth engaging tools which reduces considerably
the time required to replace such tools.
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