Improvements in panelling

Abstract

 The invention discloses a method of cutting a door panel having an appropriately spaced and repeating panel therein to provide wainscoting panels for use above inclined skirting boards of the type which are found adjacent staircases in houses. The door panel is cut along lines which bisect but do not interfere with the repeating pattern elements, which may be rectangular and stand proud of the surface of the door panel, said cut lines being diagonally inclined with respect to the substantially straight long edges of the door panel. The diagonal cuts are staggered above and below each specific pattern element, of which there are usually two adjacently disposed on the door panel, further cuts being made between and on either side of the specific pattern elements substantially parallel to the straight long edges of the door panel. In this manner, two substantially identically parallelogram-shaped wainscoting panels are obtained, the angle of inclination of the shorter sides being substantially equal to the angle of inclination of a modern domestic staircase. This allows said wainscoting panels to be simply mounted on the top edge of the inclined skirting board with their upper shorter edges being automatically aligned.

Description

[0001] This invention relates to improvements in panelling, particularly wainscoting and the like wherein wood is applied to the interior and optionally exterior walls of premises to provide an aesthetic effect.

[0002] Although the following description relates exclusively to the wainscoting of the interior walls of domestic premises, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the invention is equally applicable to walls of any nature and disposition.

[0003] Owners of domestic premises have a continual desire to improve the aesthetic appearance of their dwelling, and in this regard, wainscoting is increasing in popularity and represents an alternative to the provision of only dado rails or even simply a horizontal band of wallpaper around internal walls at their mid-height. It is well known that these features break up the often bland continuity of a wall and improve the overall aesthetic appearance of halls, living rooms and other areas within a dwelling defined by walls.

[0004] Wainscoting involves adjacently mounting a number of grooved and/or recessed rectangular panels above a skirting board and securing same in place, either by providing formations on the lower edges of the wainscoting panels which interlock with the skirting board, or alternatively inserting the lower edge of said panels behind a skirting board. The panels may also additionally secured to the walls which they adorn with glue or other suitable attachment means. Said panels are also often finished along their upper, parallel and contiguous edges with a covering strip which is also suitable secured to the wall.

[0005] The increase in popularity of wainscoting has been due in part to the fact that, because of the fibrous and thus irregular physical nature of wood, the joinery industry and particularly the door making industry discards panels and doors because of defects in their shape, contour, and also because of their irregular and often unsightly grain and knot patterns. In an attempt to mitigate the financial loss in which such discard results, the industry has attempted to find an alternative use for such panels and doors which can often be either painted or coated to mask the defect. The provision of coated wainscoting panels is ideal for such rejected panels and doors.

[0006] With particular regard to doors, it is current practice to manufacture door panels having at least two sets of rectangular recesses one above the other to improve the aesthetic appearance of the door. In this circumstance, reject doors can be sawn across their middle and parallel to the lower edge of the door panel to provide a pair of wainscoting panels which can be adjacently position along a skirting board as described above.

[0007] The provision of the rectangular recesses is of advantage when it is desired wainscoting along a horizontal section of skirting board because it is simple to cut the door panel as desired. Furthermore, in the event that only a portion of the door is defective, as is often the case, this portion can be discarded after the cutting operation. In this case, only a single wainscoting panel is produced from that particular door panel, but even this is preferable to the rejection of the entire door.

[0008] It is an object of this invention to improve the utility of reject door panels with regard to the provision of wainscoting panels in a manner heretofore unrecognised.

[0009] It is a further object of the invention to provide a method of cutting door panels which allows said panels to be used in a previously undisclosed way.

[0010] The invention rests with the discovery that whereas previously it was thought that the provision of rectangular recesses and other aesthetic features on the surface of the panel precluded their use as wainscoting panels along anything other than horizontal skirting, this is not necessarily the case.

[0011] Thus according to the invention there is provided a method of cutting a door or other panel provided on at least one surface with rectangular or other uniformly spaced repeating pattern, characterised in that said door panel is cut along a line between the said repeating pattern which need not be straight but which does not interfere with said patterns, and in that the panels resulting from said cut are provided with further parallel cuts above and below said pattern to define a substantially parallelogram-shaped panel.

[0012] In a second aspect of the invention there is provided a substantially parallelogram-shaped panel provided with a surface pattern, which is most preferably a rectangularly shaped groove or recess.

[0013] Preferably the shorter sides of the parallelogram-shaped panel make an acute angle of 48° with the longer sides, which are further preferably straight and parallel with the longer sides of the rectangular surface pattern on the surface thereof.

[0014] In a different embodiment the cut which defines longer sides of the substantially parallelogram shaped panels varies inwardly and outwardly of an imaginary line parallel to the longer sides of the surface pattern on the panel, thus defining a profiled edge which enables adjacent panels to interlock effectively.

[0015] The invention has particular application for the provision of wainscoting panelling above the inclined skirting boards provided adjacent staircases. In particular, when a door panel having a pair of identical spaced rectangular surface features is cut into the parallelogram shaped defined by the invention, the shorter sides of each separate panel which results from the cutting operation rest atop or engage with or behind the upper edge of the inclined skirting board, the angle of incline thereof being identical to the angle which said lower edges make with a line perpendicular to the long edges of said panels. In this manner aesthetic alignment of each of the panels is automatically achieved. It is then a simple matter to cover the upper edges of each of the panels with a covering strip as hereinbefore described.

[0016] Furthermore, it is a feature of the invention that the angled cuts are made to ensure that, once the panels are positioned atop the inclined skirting board of a staircase, the pattern on each panel identically disposed with regard both to patterns on adjacent panels atop said skirting board, and also with regard to the patterns on the panels atop a conventional horizontal skirting board.

[0017] The invention will be better understood with reference to the following specific embodiment in which reference to the accompanying drawings is made.

Figure 1 shows a reject door panel, and the various cuts required according to the invention to provide a pair of wainscoting panels, and

Figure 2 shows the use of such panels in adoring a wall adjacent a staircase.

[0018] Referring firstly to Figure 1, there is shown a door panel 2 having a number of identical rectangular surface features 4, 4', 6, 6', 8, 8' between which an imaginary line of symmetry 10 exists. It will be instantly recognised that said door panel can be cut across its width between features 4, 4', 6, 6', and also between features 6, 6', and 8, 8' to define a pair of panels having parallel edges and which could, providing that neither of the panels having features 4, 4', 6, 6' therein also contains a defect, be used as conventional wainscoting panels.

[0019] It will also be appreciated that the provision of the features 4, 4', 6, 6' renders the provision of a pair of wainscoting panels being of a width substantially equal to that of the door, as in the case above, impossible. This is because the diagonal cuts which would have to be made across the width of the door would interfere with said features as shown at dotted lines 12, 14.

[0020] In accordance with the invention therefore a plurality of cuts are made. A number of identical door panels 2 are disposed on top of one another with their respective edges parallel, and a first, second, and third cut 16, 18, 20 are made parallel to the longest edges of said panels. Edge Portions 22, 26 created by the said cuts are discarded, and four further diagonal cuts 28, 30, 32, 34 are made above and below the features 4, 4' to define a pair of narrow, substantially parallelogram shaped panels 36, 38. It will be seen that the majority of the original door panel, in particular portions 24 on either side of the cut 18, is discarded as waste.

[0021] The angle of the said cuts 28, 30, 32, 34 preferably makes an angle of 42° with a line parallel with the lower edge of the original door panel 2, as this is the convention incline angle of modern staircases.

[0022] It will also be seen that the remaining narrow portions 36, 38 can be slid relative to one another along their longest edges such that their shorter edges are in alignment, which instantly facilitates their positioning atop an inclined skirting board as shown in Figure 2.

[0023] In Figure 2 a conventional wainscoting panel 40 is shown secured to a wall 42 atop a horizontal skirting board and finished along its upper edge by a covering strip 44. The panel 40 is also provide with identical and spaced surface features 46, 48 and a spacer strip 50 is positioned between adjacent wainscoting panels 40, 36.

[0024] Above the inclined skirting board 52, the panels 36, 38 are positioned such that the features 4, 4' are identically disposed relative both the one another, and are parallel with the features 46, 48 on the conventional wainscoting panel 40. It will be instantly appreciated that the provision of wainscoting above the inclined staircase skirting board 52 represents in significant improvement to the aesthetic appearance of a dwelling when it is considered that conventional wainscoting panelling would have ceased at the staircase. The discontinuity of panelling formerly often dissuaded home owners from considering any form of wainscoting.

[0025] A brief summary of the invention is to be considered an integral part of this application and accordingly the invention discloses a method of cutting a door panel having an appropriately spaced and repeating panel therein to provide wainscoting panels for use above inclined skirting boards of the type which are found adjacent staircases in houses. The door panel is cut along lines which bisect but do not interfere with the repeating pattern elements, which may be rectangular and stand proud of the surface of the door panel, said cut lines being diagonally inclined with respect to the substantially straight long edges of the door panel. The diagonal cuts are staggered above and below each specific pattern element, of which there are usually two adjacently disposed on the door panel, further cuts being made between and on either side of the specific pattern elements substantially parallel to the straight long edges of the door panel. In this manner, two substantially identically parallelogram-shaped wainscoting panels are obtained, the angle of inclination of the shorter sides being substantially equal to the angle of inclination of a modern domestic staircase. This allows said wainscoting panels to be simply mounted on the top edge of the inclined skirting board with their upper shorter edges being automatically aligned.

Claims

1. A method of cutting a door or other panel provided on at least one surface with rectangular or other uniformly spaced repeating pattern, characterised in that said door panel is cut along a line between the said repeating pattern which need not be straight but which does not interfere with said patterns, and in that the panels resulting from said cut are provided with further parallel cuts above and below or on either side of said pattern to define a substantially parallelogram-shaped panel having a pattern element therein.

2. A method according to claim 1 characterised in that the shorter sides of the parallelogram-shaped panel make an acute angle of 48° with the longer sides.

3. A method according to claims 1 or 2 characterised in that the longer sides are straight and parallel with the longer sides of a rectangular pattern on the surface thereof.

4. A method according to any preceding claim characterised in that the cut which defines longer sides of the substantially parallelogram shaped panels varies inwardly and outwardly of an imaginary line parallel to the longer sides of the surface pattern on the panel, thus defining a profiled edge which enables adjacent panels to interlock effectively.

5. A wainscoting panel obtained by the method according to any of claims 1-4.

6. A panel according to claim 5 characterised in that the surface pattern is a rectangularly shaped groove or recess.

Drawing