US2859454A - Collapsible bed rail - Google Patents

Description

Nov. 11, 1958 G. BECKWELL COLLAPSIBLE BED RAIL Filed Feb. 20, 1957 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 GEOQG'E BECEZEZL INVENTOR.

RTZU/QA/EV 11, 1958 G. BECKWELL COLLAPSIBLE BED RAIL 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Feb. 20, 1957 INVENTOR.

,QTTOQA/EV COLLAPSIBLE BED RAIL George Beckwell, Aurora, 111., assignor to The Cal-Dak fCompany, San Gabriel, Calif., a corporation of Caliornia Application February 20, 1957, Serial No. 641,350

3 Claims. (Cl. -331) This invention relates to portable bed rails, and more particularly to bed rails which may be folded into a compact position, whereby they may be more easily transported or stored.

The use of a foldable or collapsible bed rail has several advantages. They are used especially on large or adult size beds to prevent young children from falling out of bed. This for the reason that this practice is generally preferred to the expensive practice of purchasing so called youth beds which are used only temporarily because they are longer and wider than cribs but lower than adult size beds. It is also advantageous to use collapsible bed rails for small children when travelling or staying over night at a dwelling not provided with youth beds, but only provided with adult size beds.

However, whether or not portable bed rails are employed to avoid the use of yout beds for small children or while traveling, since the bed rail is a relatively temporary expedient it is desirable to make portable bed rails collapsible in order that they may be more compact when folded or collapsed and thereby being more easily transported and stored.

To the present time many collapsible bed rails comprise a frame member and two legs hinged at the bottom of the frame member to swing outwardly and downwardly of it in parallel vertical planes. The two legs are then inserted between a mattress and a mattress support such as a set of boxed springs. However, the legs tend to slip outwardly from the space between the mattress and mattress support. This means that the frame member will collapse toward the side of the bed. Locking means then must be provided to prevent the collapse of the frame member. Such locking means are of course undesirable both because they are troublesome to operate and because they add to the cost of a portable bed rail.

It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a collapsible bed rail having two support legs requiring no means to lock them in position for stability while the bed rail is in use.

The present invention achieves this object and overcomes this and other disadvantages of the prior art by providing a collapsible bed rail for use with a bed having a mattress covered with a selected material and an underlying support for the mattress, the bed rail including a frame member to extend along the side of the bed, the frame member having two downwardly vertically extending mounting means, and two legs extending in a horizontal plane from the position of each of the mounting means, the mounting means including first means for both rotatably connecting the legs to the frame member and for preventing movement of the legs out of the horizontal plane, whereby the legs may be rotated to a position perpendicular to a straight line extending through each of the mounting means, and subsequently inserted between the mattress and support to maintain the frame member in an appropriate position along the side of the bed. It is thus seen that no locking means need be provided for the rotatable legs of the bed rail of the present invention because they rotate 2,859,454 Patented Nov. 11, 1958 "ice in a horizontal plane. This means that the frame member cannot collapse toward the side of the bed. Furthermore, means are additionally provided to prevent any rotational movement of the legs in a horizontal plane.

For example, the mounting means described above mayinclude stop means to prevent rotation of the legs beyond two extreme positions, one of the extreme positions being between each of the mounting means on the straight line extending through them, and the other of 'the extreme positions being perpendicular to the straight line.

In addition, enlargement means may be additionally provided on the legs both to prevent them from sliding outwardly between the mattress and support and to prevent substantial rotational movement thereof relative to the frame member.

According to another feature of the invention the second. means described above may have a relatively high coeflicient of friction with the mattress covering material provided on the legs to prevent both rotational and translational movement thereof between the mattress and support.

According to an aspect of the invention, preferably the above-described second means includes specifically a rubber cap to fit over each end of each corresponding leg.

Actually in this case, the pair of rubber caps to fit over It is to be noted further that it is an advantage of the invention that the bed rail of the invention is mechanically stable while in use but is just as compact as collapsible bed rails of the prior art in view of the fact that theheight of the frame member is substantially the same 1n either case.

The above described and other objects and advantages of the present invention will be better understood when considered with the following description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings made a part of this specification, wherein several embodiments are illustrated by way of example. The device of the present invention is by no means limited to the specific embodiments illustrated in the drawings since they are shown merely for purposes of description.

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a mattress and a set of boxed springs with a pair of bed rails of the present invention mounted thereon;

Fig. 2 is a plan view of one of the bed rails;

Fig. 3 is a front elevational view of the bed rail shown in Fig. 2;

Fig. 4 is a broken away sectional view taken on the line 44 shown in Fig. 2;

Fig. 5 is a sectional view taken on the line 5-5 shown in Fig. 4; and

Fig. 6 is an exploded view of the structure shown in Fig. 4.

In the drawing in Fig. 1 a bed 10 is shown comprising a mattress 12 and a set of boxed springs 14, with legs 16 mounted thereon. A pair of bed rails 18 and 20 constructed in accordance with the present invention are provided, bed rail 18 comprising a frame member 22 having mounting means 24 and 25 at its lower end to rotatably mount a pair of legs 26 and 28 to fit between the mattress 12 and set of boxed springs 14. Frame member 22 comprises simply an inverted U-shaped member 30 made out of a hollow tube with a hollow tubular brace 32 extending across and connected to each leg of the U-shaped member 30.

As shown in Fig. 2, rubber caps 34 and 36 are cupped over the ends of bed rail legs 26 and 28, respectively, both to provide enlargement means to prevent the bed rail 10 --from slipping outwardly'from the space between mattress 12'and set of boxed springs 14, and to provide a high friction surface for the cloths covering both mattress 12 and set of boxed springs 14. It is to be noted from Fig. 2 that legs 26 and 28 may be rotated to positions indicated by dotted lines 38 and 40 respectively outlining the shapes of rubber caps 34 and 36 when legs are rotated to a position pointing toward each other in-line with a straight line through mounting means 24.

From Fig. 3 it can be seen that the ends of brace 32 are fixed to the legs of the U-shaped member 30 by means of rivets '42.

U-shaped member 30, brace 32, rivet 42 and leg 23 are shown in Fig. 4. Member 30 is provided with a washer-like member 44 fixed to the end of U-shaped member 30 to enclose a notched disc 46 contained inside the interior of member 30. Disc 46 is also fixed to member 30 to provide stop means for a wedge shaped member 48 fixed to the end of leg 28. As can be seen from both Figs. 4 and 6, leg 28 is tapered at 50 at its upper end. At the end of the taper 50, wedge-shaped member 48'is fixed thereto to slide in a horizontal plane from the position shown in Fig. to a position 90 to the right shown in Fig. 5. Apertured disc or ring 44 with disc 46 provides stop means to prevent vertical movement of leg 28 with respect to frame member 22,

Disc 46 is notched at 52 as shown in Fig. 6 to permit rotational movement of wedge-shaped member 48 fixed to the end of leg 28. Notch 52 thus provides stop means to prevent rotation of leg 28 from its extreme position shown in Fig. 2 to the extreme position denoted by dotted lines 40 of rubber cap 36.

Although one specific embodiment of the invention has been shown and described, it is to be noted that the invention is not limited thereto since the scope of the invention is not defined thereby but only defined in the appended claims.

I claim:

1. A collapsible bed rail for use with a bed having a mattress and a material-covered support for said mattress, the said bed rail comprising: a frame member to extend only vertically along the side of a bed and of suflicient height to retain a body rolling outwardly of a bed; two legs mounted on said frame member that are rotationably movable about parallel axes in a substantially horizontal plane, said legs having lengths less than half the distance between their rotational axes, said legs being movable to a position perpendicular to the plane of said frame member and being further rotatably movable to a compact position extending towards each other from their respective axes of rotation lengthwise of said frame member and enlarged friction means on the end of each of said movable legs, to frictionally resist the withdrawal of said legs from the space between said mattress and the said mattress support.

2. The collapsible bed rail claimed in claim 1 in which stop means are provided to prevent rotational movement of the leg members beyond a given fixed position in perpendicular alignment with the plane of the frame member.

3. The collapsible bed rail claimed in claim 1 in which the enlarged friction means provided to resist withdrawal of the legs from between the mattress and the mattress support are rubber caps mounted on the ends of the said movable legs.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 930,554 Moody Aug. 10, 1909 1,656,352 Groll Jan. 17, 1928 1,915,774 Busch June 27, 1933 2,508,688 Rossi May 23, 1950 2,555,228 Evers May 29, 1951 2,602,171 Good July 8, 1952

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