HANGING STACK & ROLLING RACK

PILE SUSPENDUE ET PILE ROULANTE

English Abstract

A roller supported cabinet which may be moved upon the rollers along the
wall behind it. One end of the cabinet normally rests in a corner of the room.
When the cabinet is moved away from the corner, complete and ready access
is had to the shelves and drawers of the end portion which was in the corner
behind an adjoining cabinet along the adjacent wall. With the cabinet
extended from the corner the usually wasted corner cabinet space may be
fully utilized. When the cabinet is returned to the corner location, it takes
up
a minimum of space in the room.
This patent has no overlap with claims #2 or #3. The overlap question arises
with regard to claim #1. Both inventions perform the action of moving a
stack of drawers sideways but the two inventions perform that action on
different entities to different destinations with different mechanisms.

Claims

Claims
The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege
is claimed are defined as follows:
5. Rolling a standalone stack of drawers out of the blind corner with
minimal effort. The concept of rolling a stack of drawers out of the
blind corner is already patented and is not being claimed here.
However, that patent is based on the notion that the shelves are part of
a cabinet so large it may require an electric motor assist. This invention
moves just an unencumbered stack of drawers by hand.
6. Establishing a space under the counter that the stack borrows when
needed and leaves empty for other use the rest of the time.
7. Employing a rolling mechanism that:
a) ensures the stack remains aligned as it rolls back and forth within
tight clearances.
b) provides stability when heavily loaded drawers are extended.
c) permanently occupies a minimum of that time-shared space. It
requires only the track be permanently installed. Wheel-cars,
drawer-frame and drawers can be removed and replaced by
hand.
Prior Art
There is a great variety of solutions to the blind corner problem and many
aspects of them are patented. However, most of these patents do not overlap
this invention for one or more of the following reasons:
1. Rather than ordinary wooden shelves they move circular (3600, 270 or
1800) shelves, trays or baskets.
2. Rather than ordinary drawer slides with linear motion they use rotary or
complex combinations of rotary and linear motions.
3. Their drawers are unusual shapes and operate at unusual angles
4. Rather than off-the-shelf hardware such as drawer slides and folding-
door track systems they use complex, special purpose mechanisms.
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Date Recue/Date Received 2020-12-07

Description

Invention Title
"Hanging Stack & Rolling Rack" is a descriptive title for this invention. It
is a
method for attaching a set of drawers stacked, one above the other, in a
frame hung from a rack that rolls.
Technical Field
This invention does not involve any advanced technology, only carpentry,
specifically cabinet carpentry. The only components not used in standard
cabinet assembly can be obtained in any big-box home improvement outlet.
The modest amount of carpentry required can be performed by a person with
ordinary skills in the field.
Invention Description
The Requirement
In kitchens, the space under the counter-top in corners is difficult to
access.
If both adjacent cabinets were to have full sets of drawers the space would
be completely inaccessible. This has led to the term "Blind Corner". The least
cost method to provide some access is to install shelves in one of the
adjacent cabinets and extend them sideways throughout the blind corner.
These shelves are so deep that getting to items in the back corner requires
unpacking most of the items in front before attempting an uncomfortable
stretch. Then, one by one, the unpacked items must be returned.
Some cabinet designs use Lazy Susan's, which alleviate the deep shelf
problem by rotating the back corner items to the front. But accessing the
Lazy Susan requires space in the adjacent cabinet, the larger the items, the
bigger the adjacent space needed. This space usually sits empty and idle
most of the time. In practice, that space does not always remain empty.
Large objects can appear there that the user must be shuffled out to fully
access the Lazy Susan.
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Date Recue/Date Received 2020-12-07

Invention Overview
This invention uses, but does not dedicate, space in one of the adjacent
cabinets. A stack of drawers is installed in the blind corner space. The frame
containing the drawers is suspended from a system of tracks and little wheel-
cars. When access is needed the stack of drawers is rolled sideways into a
temporarily borrowed space in the adjacent cabinet. Whatever was in that
space first had to be moved out. While the stack of drawers is in this OUT
position the individual drawers can be opened just like any other drawers.
Items that were stored in the lowest, deepest part of the blind corner are
presented for top-down access. When the drawers are closed the stack is
rolled back into the IN position in the corner and whatever was in the space
can be moved back in. The temporarily borrowed space is called the shuffle-
space. Whatever is moved out and later moved back is called the shuffle-
partner.
Hanging the stack from a system of wheel-cars in tracks has advantages.
1. Gravity ensures that the wheels remain properly positioned in their
tracks, free of dirt or clutter so that the stack can be reliably rolled in
and out within close tolerances.
2. The tracks are the only mechanism permanently installed in the shuffle
space and occupy less than the top 3".
3. A modest amount of space under the tracks is available on a part-time
basis for a shuffle-partner. The flooring of this space is a smooth
continuation of the regular kitchen floor.
4. It is inexpensive. The sets of tracks and wheels are designed to
suspend folding doors and are available at any home improvement
outlet. The drawers and drawer slides are also standard and widely
available . The carpentry needed is modest.
The essential feature of this design is that it does NOT permanently dedicate
the shuffle-space to a single purpose. It makes available a general-purpose
space. Whatever is done to exploit the shuffle space is not part of this
design. Descriptions of various possibilities are included as an appendix to
show the value of exploiting this space.
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Date Recue/Date Received 2020-12-07