PACKAGING AND PACKING METHOD FOR PATCHES MADE OF A

TEXTILE MATERIAL

The present invention relates to a packaging and a packaging method for patches made of a textile material, and in particular patches for cleaning firearms.

In the field of firearms, e.g. for use in sports, the need for cleaning a firearm after every use is very much felt. In addition to cleaning the mechanisms related to the trigger and the loading of ammunitions, a good cleaning of cavities, such as e.g. the bore and the drum, through which ammunitions pass is very important. Dirt and dust in fact are more easily accumulated in cavities such as bore and drum. In addition to this, residues of gunpowder mixed with the lubricant normally used to keep a firearm fully efficient are also accumulated in the bore and the drum. The lack of or poor maintenance of a firearm results in wear and malfunction during use, and may result in inaccurate shooting.

Generally, the cleaning of the bore or the drum of a firearm is carried out mechanically by brushing and/or with the help of special chemical solvents. After mechanical and/or chemical cleaning, it is necessary to carry out a lubrication step, which is generally carried out using patches made of a textile material soaked in special oils.

It is known that patches made of a textile material may advantageously be used as an alternative to brushes in order to mechanically clean a firearm, which is preferable because they are very cheap and disposable products and unlike most of the brushes they can be used with firearms of different calibers.

In order to clean a firearm a user must first use one or more patches soaked in a solution of solvent/detergent to remove dirt and dust from the cavities of the firearm, then wipe these cavities with one or more clean patches and finally lubricate the cavities with one or more of patches soaked in oil. It is therefore clear that any maintenance work involves the use of a large number of patches.

Patches made of textile materials are generally packed in bags or boxes in which they are stacked. Since textile materials typically comprise raised fibers on their surfaces, stacked patches are easily engaged with each other, whereby it is very likely SIB - 2 - BW587M-TE that a user picks up more than one patch at a time from the packaging and subsequently has to separate the patches and store them back into the packaging.

In addition, the user must take care not to disperse the content of the packaging once it has been opened. A possible fall would cause fouling of the patches, thus compromising the cleaning of the firearm, or even making the patches unusable.

Object of the present invention is therefore to provide a packaging and a packaging method for patches made of a textile material that allow to facilitate withdrawal of individual patches, while minimizing the risk of dispersing them in the outer environment. This object is achieved with a packaging and a packaging method, whose main features are specified in claims 1 and 8, respectively, while other features are specified in the remaining claims.

An idea of solution underlying the present invention is to store the patches in the packaging so that they do not overlap each other. To this purpose the patches are arranged adjacent to each other on a substrate of the packaging configured to hold them thereon. An adhesive coating is formed on the surface of the substrate intended to receive and hold the patches. The substrate of the packaging thus allows the user to pick up one patch at a time very easily without any risk of dispersing the other patches into the environment, because they are firmly attached to the substrate.

The substrate of the packaging may advantageously be made in the form of sheet or strip, allowing to wind it in a reel and possibly to arrange it in a suitable dispenser of the packaging. This solution has the effect of greatly reducing the overall dimensions of the packaging and to facilitate the removal of the individual textile patches.

It is also an idea of solution to form the adhesive coating on the substrate surface intended to receive and hold the patches by using a "cold seal" adhesive, which has a surprising holding capacity for patches made of a textile material and does not leave any residue on them when they are withdrawn from the substrate. This feature is extremely important in the invention, because it allows to pick up patches from the substrate that are perfectly clean. Any residues of adhesive, in fact, would penalize cleaning of the firearm and also compromise its proper operation.

Another advantage of the invention is that the adhesive coating may be made on both the opposite surfaces of the substrate, thus allowing to substantially double the SIB BW587M-TE number of patches that can be stored in the packaging.

Further advantages and features of the packaging and packaging method according to the present invention will be clear to those skilled in the art from the following detailed and non limiting description of embodiments thereof with reference to the attached drawings, in which:

Figure 1 shows a top view of a substrate of a packaging according to the invention;

Figure 2 schematically shows a longitudinal section of the substrate of the packaging of Figure 1 taken along line II- II;

Figure 3 shows a detail III of Figure 2;

Figure 4 shows an alternative embodiment of the substrate of the packaging according to the invention; and

Figure 5 shows a detail V of figure 4.

Referring to the figures, the packaging 1 according to the invention comprises a substrate 2, e.g. made of paper or of a plastic material, on which an adhesive coating 3 is formed. The adhesive coating 3 adheres to the substrate 2 forming a film suitable to receive and hold a plurality of patches 4 made of a textile material.

In the embodiment shown in the figures, the substrate 2 is in the form of a strip and is designed so as to allow to arrange a plurality of patches 4 along a straight line. Alternatively, the substrate 2 might be in the form of a sheet, e.g. a standard A4 size, allowing to arrange the patches 4 according to a predefined pattern.

Substrates 2 in the form of a strip or sheet may be easily wound in reels in order to minimize the overall dimensions of the packaging.

It will be noted that, differently from the case of stickers that are provided with an adhesive coating and are packed on substrates having a substantially non-stick surface, in the invention the adhesive coating is applied to the substrate 2 itself and not to the patches 4 that will be fixed thereon. This solution allows to keep the patches free from the adhesive used for their packaging, which is desirable because traces of adhesive would make the patches totally unsuitable for cleaning.

During the manufacture of the packaging 1 according to the invention, the substrate 2 is coated with an adhesive, for example, by means of a gravure roll, and then SIB - 4 - BW587M-TE processed, for example in an oven, so as to remove solvents and fix the adhesive coating

3 on the substrate 2. The substrate 2 so treated is then coupled in a continuous way with a layer of a textile material, on which a plurality of shapes corresponding to the patches

4 may be obtained by die cutting.

In the embodiment shown in the figures, the patches 4 have, for example, a substantially circular central body 4a from which a plurality of rectangular flaps 4b extend radially outwards.

The surface of the substrate 2 opposite to the surface on which the adhesive coating 3 is formed may be treated with a non-stick material such as silicone, in order to prevent fouling phenomena during storing and/or adhesion between adjacent reels when winding the substrate 2 with the patches 4 in order to form a reel.

The adhesive coating 3 must provide sufficient adhesion in order to hold the patches 4 on the substrate 2, but such to allow at the same time withdrawal of the patches 4 therefrom without deforming or tearing them.

According to the invention, the adhesive coating 3 formed on the substrate 2 is made of an adhesive from the family of "cold seal" adhesives. Cold seal adhesives are currently very common in the manufacturing of sealings of flexible packagings for medical and food products and are generally based on natural or synthetic rubber latex.

One of the main characteristics of these adhesives is that they adhere substantially only on themselves by simply pushing, whereby a substrate coated with a cold seal adhesive has substantially no adhesive power when not coupled to another substrate coated with the same adhesive.

Nevertheless, the inventor has found that cold seal adhesives can surprisingly hold materials such as cotton textiles and woven-non-woven textiles based on viscose, polypropylene, polyester or mixtures thereof, i.e. textile materials that are normally used for the manufacture of patches for cleaning firearms.

The inventor has also tested that, unlike other adhesives that could be used for the manufacturing of the adhesive coating 3, e.g. acrylic adhesives and hot melt adhesives, cold seal adhesives do not leave traces on the textile patches 4 when these are withdrawn from the substrate 2, thus allowing the user to use patches that are perfectly clean and thus suitable for the cleaning of a firearm. SIB BW587M-TE

Among the cold seal adhesives available on the market, those based on aqueous dispersions of rubber latex, and in particular synthetic rubber latex, are considered more effective for the manufacturing of the adhesive coating 3.

As explained above, except that cold seal adhesives have the ability to retain textile materials, they normally adhere on themselves only. Therefore, it is possible to remove from the substrate 2 portions of the textile layer that have a shape complementary to the shape of the patches 4 as they result after die cutting. This facilitates the user when picking up a patch 4 from the substrate 2, because the patches 4 are free from the scrap material that surrounds them during their manufacturing. Furthermore, the removal of the scrap material does not penalize the substrate 2, because the portions of the adhesive coating 3 that are exposed to the outer environment after removing the scrap portions have no adhesive power with respect to other materials, in particular dust or dirt, thus showing a behavior that is essentially identical to that of an uncoated substrate.

Therefore, a possible winding of the substrate 2 in a reel does not necessarily require an anti-stick treatment, e.g. by silicone, of the surface opposite to that on which the adhesive coating 3 is formed, thus allowing to simplify the manufacturing process of the packaging 1 and to reduce its overall costs.

Possible anti-stick treatments may anyway be foreseen in order to more effectively protect the surfaces of the substrate 2 that are not coated with adhesive from fouling due to dust and to the contact with other objects over time.

According to an alternative embodiment of the invention, shown in figures 4 and 5, the adhesive coating 3 is formed on both the opposite surfaces of the substrate 2, thereby essentially doubling the number of patches 4 that can be stored in the packaging 1.

In this case during manufacturing, the substrate 2 is coated on both its opposite surfaces with an adhesive, e.g. by means of gravure cylinders, and then processed, e.g. in an oven, so as to remove solvents and fix both the adhesive coatings 3 on the opposite surfaces of the substrate 2. The substrate 2 so treated is then continuously coupled on both the coated surfaces with layers made of a textile material, on which a plurality of patches 4 may be obtained by die cutting. SIB - 6 - BW587M-TE

Similarly to the substrates having an adhesive coating on one surface only, also substrates having and adhesive coating on both surfaces may be wound in a reel. If the scrap is removed beforehand, as described above, it is clear that in this case local adhesion between adjacent coils may occur due to the fact that cold seal adhesives adhere on themselves. In order to avoid this problem, it is therefore possible to arrange a layer of a non-stick material when winding the substrate 2, thus allowing to keep the coils of the reel separate from each other and to facilitate the user when removing the patches 4.

The embodiments of the invention herein described and illustrated here are only examples susceptible of numerous variants. For example, the packaging 1 may comprise a container suitable to house the substrate 2 wound in a reel. Moreover, the container may include a support suitable to rotatably support the reel and a slit suitable to allow to withdraw, unwind and/or to cut the substrate 2. Still further, the substrate 2 may be provided with a plurality of perforations, placed between adjacent patches 4 and suitable to facilitate the separation of portions of the substrate 2 together with the patches 4 by tearing.