| 摘要 |
<p>Personal leather goods (PLG's) such as wallets, billfolds, pocket calendars have a portion which is required to bend repeatedly. This bending causes cracking and extreme wear which adversely affects the look of the item and reduces its useful life. Disclosed is a mechanical hinge which attaches to leather-like panels of such PLG's. The hinge (20) includes a set of interleaving knuckles (32) of relatively soft material which form an axial bore (34) along the length of the hinge, the bore receiving a thin pintle (80) made of a relatively stiff but resilient material. The pintle (80) is shorter than the axial length of the bore (34) and is held into the bore by end caps (90), either separately applied or integrally formed with the hinge leaf (30). The leaves (30) of the hinge (20) have an overall curving shape having a concave side and convex side to permit the panels (12) to which the hinge (20) is attached to remain parallel when materials are received between them. Alternative constructions are shown, including a third panel comprising a paper binder-like spine (45) or a body (48) made of a series of independently attached knuckles (32) and tubular body portions (40a) which in turn form a second, expandable hinge-like body.</p> |
