FIELD OF INVENTION The present invention relates to a carton for packing a roll of material, the carton having wall portions providing a front wall, a bottom, a back wall, and a lid, and being interconnected in the said order via fold lines; and ends formed by end flaps connected to the ends of the wall portions; an edge of one of the wall portions being provided with a cutting edge.

BACKGROUND ART

Rolls of material such as packing films, aluminium foils and other corresponding materials are packed in cartons from which the material can be pulled out and cut to a desired length by means of a cutting edge either integral with or secured to the carton. In known carrtons, the cutting edge is generally located in the front wall or as an extension of the front wall. In such cartons, the edge is typically reinforced and stiffened by a metal or plastics material strip which provides a separate cutting means and supports the one-fold carton edge. When the carton is not being used for withdrawal of material from the roll the lid is located in the closed position with its edge strip pushed inside the carton by the front wall leaving the cutting edge visible outside the carton. When the carton is used for dispensing material the lid is opened, the end of the rolled material is taken out and the desired lentgh of the material is pulled out from the carton and the material is cut against the cutting edge. A drawback of this kind of a carton is that the cutting edge, which is in a single- fold thin front wall edge of -the carton is easily broken or bent and the cutting action becomes difficult and its result often poor. A further drawback is that the carton must be closed when it is not used whereby the end of the rolled material is pushed inside the carton and the carton

must first be reopened in order to enable more material to be pulled out.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION The object of the present invention is to provide a packing carton which avoids the drawbacks described above and in which the end of the packed material is always at hand and from which it is easy to pull out material from the carton and wherein the cutting edge or blade is solidly fixed and thus facilitates the cutting action.

It is a characteristic feature of the carton according to the invention that the cutting edge is located in the edge between the lid and the front wall and that it is composed of two flap-like portions connected to the lid or the front wall, the first portion being connected via a fold line to the lid or the front wall and the second portion via a fold line to the first portion; that the cutting edge is provided in the outer edge of the second flap-like portion; that the portions constituting the cutting means are adhered to each other, and the front wall, or correspondingly the lid, has been adhered to the outer surface of the second flap-like portion; and that the lid is provided with an openable lid flap separated by a perforation and through the opening provided by the flap the material packed in the roll can be withdrawn from the carton and cut against the cutting edge.

The central idea of the invention is that the cutting edge is provided in the side seam edge of the carton which reinforces the cutting edge and makes it very sturdy and functionally effective, and the carton forms a closed casing around the axis of the.material roll and the opening in the lid allows withdrawal of the material from the carton.

Also according to the invention there is provided a carton blank for forming a box or carton with a cutting edge for

severing material when withdrawn from a roll when located in the carton, comprising a sheet of material having four adjacent portions interconnected via material having one or more fold lines and/or score lines and for defining in the assembled condition of the carton a front wall portion, and adjacent back wall portion and a cover or top wall portion, with said front wall portion and/or bottom wall portion and/or back wall portion and or top wall portion having at least one end wall portion extending therefrom and being delimited therefrom via a fold line or score line to form end walls of the carton; said top wall portion being perforated or otherwise formed to provide an openable lid or flap through which material may be withdrawn from a roll thereof when located in the assembled box in use. The blank is characterized in that an adhesion stip is provided as an extension of the top wall and/or the front wall portion to enable the top wall portion to be adhered to the front wall portion; and that a cutting edge or means for receiving a cutting edge is provided as an extension of the top wall portion or of the front wall portion along the edge where the top and front wall portions are to be adhered together.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS The invention is described further below, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:-

Fig. 1 is a plan view of a carton blank for forming a carton and comprising a fist embodiment of the invention; Fig. 2 is a cross section through a carton assembled from the blank of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a perspective view of a carton according to the invention prior to opening of the carton;

Fig. 4 illustrates the carton of Fig. 3 being readied for use;

Fig. 5 illustrates a length of rolled material which has been pulled out from the carton; and

Fig. 6 is a plan view of a carton blank for forming a carton and comprising a second embodiment of the invention.

A carton blank is illustrated in Fig. 1 comprising portions forming a front wall 1, a bottom wall 2, a back wall 3, and a lid 4; and flap-like portions 5a and 5b for forming a cutting edge 5, the latter of which includes the cutting edge 5 itself. The mentioned portions are interconnected in the order mentioned via fold lines extending in the assembled condition in the longitudinal direction of the carton. The ends of the wall portions 1 and 3, the ends of the bottom wall portion 2 and the ends of the lid 4 are provided with end flaps la - 4a and lb - 4b which are assembled to form the ends of the carton after the carton has been otherwise already assembled. When assembling the carton, the flap-like portions 5a and 5b of the cutting edge 5 are folded along the fold line between such and glued to each other, and when the blank has been further folded, the front wall portion 1 is adhered to the outer surface of the flap-like portion 5b providing the actual cutting edge 5. The cross-section of the carton is now similar to the one illustrated in Fig. 2. The upper edge of the front wall 1 is provided with a tear strip 6 which extends past the cutting edge 5 in the direction of the front wall 1 of the carton and covers and protects the cutting edge 5 when the carton has not yet been prepared for use. When the carton has been glued by the manufacturer to form a tube the carton can be delivered to the customer for final assembly and use. In this phase, the carton is arranged as illustrated in Fig. 2 and the end portions or flaps of one end of the front wall 1, the bottom 2 and the back wall 3, for example the portions la - 3a, are folded inwards and, subsequently, the end portion 4a of the lid is folded and glued onto them in order to assemble this end of the carton. After this, a roll of the material 7 to be packed is pushed inside the carton via the open end and the end is closed by folding the end portions or flaps lb - 3b in the order described above and finally the end

portion or flap 4b of the lid is glued onto the end flaps in order to finish the carton. Now the carton is similar to the one illustrated in Fig. 3. As is shown in Figs. 1 and 3, the lid is provided with a flap portion 8 separable by a perforation 9; the flap portion can be opened by breaking the perforation 9. The carton is opened by gripping the flap portion 8 by a cut 10 provided at the center of the lid front edge and lifting it, thereby breaking the perforation 9. Subsequently, the covering strip 6 is torn off from the upper edge of the front wall 1 as shown in Fig. 4 thereby exposing the cutting edge 5 and, when the flap portion 8 of the lid 4 is opened as shown in Fig. 4, a desired amount of the material 7 can be pulled from the roll and out of the carton, as illustrated in Fig. 5, and drawn against the cutting edge 5 to cut the material. Figs. 1 - 5 illustrate a carton designed to be filled and assembled automatically by a machine. Fig. 6 illustrates a corresponding but modified carton blank in which the bottom 2 thereof is not provided with flaps but the end flaps 4a, 4b of the lid 4 are provided with locking flaps 4c, 4d designed to be pushed inside the carton. The carton assembled from such a blank is designed to be packed manually; however, the front wall 1 and the cutting edge 5 are glued automatically by the manufacturer.

The carton according to the invention provides several advantages. The carton as a whole is stiff as is the edge of the cutting edge 5 which has been glued and is thus very rigid. Also the cutting edge is supported from two directions by the sides of the carton forming an angle with each other. In this embodiment the cutting edge 5 is made of the same cardboad material as the carton itself and the cutting edge 5 is manufactured by hardening and covering it with lacquer or other corresponding suitable agent. Instead of this manner of reinforcing, a separate thin cutting blade made e.g. of metal or plastics material can be attached to the cutting edge, which blade can be secured, for example, between the flaps 5a and 5b of the

cutting edge 5 or to said flaps by other mechanical means.

Further, the carton according to the invention provides the advantage that when the end of the material packed in the roll has been pulled out from the carton, after the cutting action, it remains between the flap 8 of the lid 4 and the rest of the lid 4, extending to the cutting edge 5 whereby it is readily available to enable further material to be pulled out when needed. Also, the carton is tidy in appearance and sturdy the whole time the roll of material is used as it is not necessary to open and close the carton and it is not torn or broken when the material is cut. In a further embodiment of the invention the protecting strip 6 may be dispensed with as in some cases such may be unnecessary.

The above description and the drawings serve as examples of embodiments of the invention, only, and it is by no means intended to be limited by them. The cutting edge 5 may be provided by many different ways and need not be composed of two flap-like portions folded against each other even if such is a preferred embodiment of the invention. The location and configuration of the end flaps may vary as needed and according to the way the carton is assembled. The form and method of opening of the flap in the lid may vary in many ways.

In the embodiments of the invention described above the cutting edge is composed of two flap-like portions connected via fold line to each other and to the lid which portions are glued together and thus make the cutting edge side stiff and at the same time serve as an adhesion strip for connecting the front wall and the lid to each other. The cutting edge could be provided also connected in the front wall via a fold line in which case the cutting edge would be parallel with the lid and would serve as an adhesion strip parallel with the lid in order to enable the lid to

be connected to the front wall. Further, the cutting edge can be otherwise provided, for example, directly in the front wall without foldable flaps; this, however, presupposes that a separate corresponding adhesion strip is provided in the lid. Correspondingly, a reversed arrangement is also possible, according to which the cutting edge is provided in the edge of the lid and the separate adhesion strip in the front wall.