摘要 |
A retractable blade scraper includes an elongated handle having an upper surface, a lower surface, a left side, a right side, an open forward end and a rear end. Included in the handle is an integral blade slide housing that begins at the open forward end and extends longitudinally rearwardly toward the rear end of the handle. Slidably received and retained in the housing is a blade slide with a blade platform for removably retaining a scraping blade such that its scraping edge is substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the handle. The blade slide is longitudinally reciprocable within the housing between a forwardmost blade-changing position in which the blade platform extends out of the housing, beyond the open forward end, by an amount sufficient to permit the removal and replacement of scraping blades therefrom and thereon and a rearwardmost blade-storage position in which the scraping edge of a scraping blade in place on the blade platform is housed within the housing for safety. The blade slide includes a resilient lever and a force actuated thumb button connected to the lever, which thumb button is accessible to a user from the exterior of the handle, and longitudinally reciprocable, through an elongated thumb button opening in the handle. Depending from the resilient lever is a slide-locking detent. The slide-locking detent is normally biased by the resilient lever in a lateral direction for alternative locking engagement with at least first and second detent-receiving notches corresponding to the storage position and a scraping position. The slide-locking detent is movable out of engagement with the detent-receiving notches, so that the blade slide can be reciprocated within the handle, by the substantially lateral depression of the thumb button against the biasing force of the resilient lever.
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