A toy building element and a method and a mold for producing such a toy building element for a toy building set.

The prior art:

The present invention relates to a toy building element for a toy building set, the toy building element having an integrally injection molded body comprising at least two adjacent tubular connector sockets extending along mutually parallel tube axes between two mutually identical and parallel surfaces, and where two mutually equidistant connecting flanges extend from diametrically opposite sides of one of the two adjacent tubular connector sockets and to diametrically opposite sides of the other one of the two adjacent tubular connector socket. The two adjacent tubular connector sockets are spaced apart by the connecting flanges and form a first (dog bone shaped) channel between them where the first channel extend between the two parallel surfaces and have a relatively wide cross section close to each of the connecting flanges and a relatively narrow cross section in the middle between the connecting flanges, and where a first stiffening wall is arranged between the two mutually parallel surfaces for closing the first channel.

Toy building elements of this type is well known in various different embodiments with only few or multiple tubular connector sockets being mutually interconnected via the connecting flanges to form a beam like structure. The toy building elements are injection molded from a plastic material and exists in various different shapes and colours all providing the user the option of constructing many different constructions using multiple toy building elements mutually interconnected via e.g. a number of coupling bushings mounted in the tubular connector sockets. In order to ensure good quality of the these toy building elements a gate is arranged for injecting plastic material into the mold cavity at the part of the mold cavity forming the outer surface of the connecting flanges. The position of the mold gate, however, leaves a gate mark being visible on the outside of the toy building element.

The object of the invention:

On this background it is the purpose of the present invention to provide a toy building element of the type mentioned in the introduction where the gate mark is much less visible and at the same providing that the toy building elements have a good and stable quality.

According to the present invention this is obtained by the invention according to claim 1 . The building element according to the invention is thereby further specified by having the first stiffening wall dividing the first channel into a first channel part close to one of the two parallel surfaces, and a second channel part close to the other of the two parallel surfaces, and wherein at least a section of the first stiffening wall is closer to one of the two parallel surfaces than it is to the other one of the two parallel surfaces.

Thereby it is possible to arrange the mold gate in the mold for injection molding so that the plastic material is injected into the mold cavity at a less visible position forming the first stiffening wall close to the one of the two parallel surfaces of the building element.

In a preferred embodiment toy building element further comprises a third tubular connector socket extending along a third tube axis being parallel with said two mutually parallel tube axes, and wherein the two mutually equidistant connecting flanges further extend from diametrically opposite sides of one of the two adjacent tubular connector sockets and to diametrically opposite sides of the third tubular connector socket so that the third tubular connector socket is spaced apart from said one of the two adjacent tubular connector sockets and form a second channel between them where the second channel extend between the two parallel surfaces and have a relatively wide cross section close to each of the connecting flanges and a relatively narrow cross section in the middle between the connecting flanges, and where a second stiffening wall is arranged in the second channel in the middle between the two parallel surfaces.

The parallel tube axes of the two adjacent tubular connector sockets and the third tubular connector socket are preferably arranged equidistantly along a straight line so that they form a beam structure.

The relatively wide cross section of the first stiffening wall being close to one of the connecting flanges may also be closer to the one of the two parallel surfaces than the relatively wide cross section of the stiffening wall being close to the other one of the connecting flanges.

In another embodiment the relatively wide cross section of the first stiffening wall being close to the one of the connecting flanges is parallel with the two parallel surfaces.

The first stiffening wall being closest to the one of the two parallel surfaces may comprise a gate mark arranged at the surface of the first stiffening wall facing the one of the two parallel surfaces.

The present invention also relates to a toy building set comprising at least two building elements according to the invention. A method of injection molding a toy building element according to one or more of the claim 1 through 6, by injecting a volume of plastic via a gate into a mold cavity forming the toy building element, and wherein the gate is arranged in the mold cavity forming the surface of the first stiffening wall facing the one of the two parallel surfaces of the toy building element.

A mold for injection molding a toy building element according to one or more of the claims 1 though 6, wherein the mold comprises mold parts forming a number of mold cavities each being adapted for molding the toy building element, and wherein a gate is arranged for each mold cavity in the surface of the mold cavity forming the surface of the first stiffening wall facing the one of the two parallel surfaces of the toy building element.

A mold according to claim 9, wherein the gate is a cone shaped tapered pinpoint gate with a cone angle between 8 - 15 degrees and having its smallest cross section closest to the mold cavity.

The drawing:

In the following one or more embodiments of the invention will be described in more detail and with reference to the drawing, where:

Fig. 1 : Is a perspective drawing, showing one embodiment of a toy building element according to the invention.

Fig. 2: Is an enlarged view of a part of figure 1 . Fig. 3: Is a cross section through the toy building element shown in figure 1 .

Fig. 4: Is another cross section through the toy building element shown in figure 1 .

Fig. 5: Is a principle drawing showing a cross section through a mold for molding the toy building element shown in the figures 1 through 4.

Description of exemplary embodiments:

Figure 1 to 3 shows one embodiment of a toy building element according to the invention. The toy building element is an integrally injection molded unit having at least two adjacent tubular connector sockets 1 , 2 extending along mutually parallel tube axes 3, 4 between two mutually parallel surfaces 5, 6.. Thereby the two mutually identical flanges are mirror symmetrical and extend on opposite sides of a common symmetry plane. Two mutually equidistant connecting flanges 7, 8 extend from diametrically opposite sides of one of the two adjacent tubular connector sockets 1 and to diametrically opposite sides of the other one of the two adjacent tubular connector sockets 2 so that the two adjacent tubular connector sockets 1 , 2 are spaced apart by the connecting flanges 7, 8.

A first channel 9 is thereby formed between the two adjacent connector sockets 1 , 2 and the two connecting flanges 7, 8. This first channel have a bone shaped cross section extending between the two parallel surfaces 5, 6 with a relatively wide cross section 11 close to each of the connecting flanges 7, 8 and a relatively narrow cross section 12 in the middle between the connecting flanges 7, 8.

In order provide a stiff construction a first stiffening wall 10 is arranged in the first channel 9 so that the first stiffening wall 10 divides the first channel 9 into a first channel part 20 close to one of the two parallel surfaces 5 and a second channel part 21 close to the other of the two parallel surfaces 6.

According to the invention at least a section of the first stiffening wall 9 is closer to one of the two parallel surfaces 5 than it is to the other one of the two parallel surfaces 6.

The toy building element further have a third tubular connector socket 14 extending along a third tube axis 15 being parallel with said two mutually parallel tube axes 3, 4 and the two mutually equidistant connecting flanges 7, 8 further extend from diametrically opposite sides of one of the two adjacent tubular connector sockets 2 and to diametrically opposite sides of the third tubular connector socket 14 so that the third tubular connector socket 14 is spaced apart from said one of the two adjacent tubular connector sockets and form a second channel similar to the first channel 10. The second channel is closed by a second stiffening wall 16 arranged in the middle between the two mutually parallel surfaces 5, 6 just as it is the case with some prior art toy building elements of this type.

In this relation the two mutually parallel axes 1 , 2 and the third axis 15 are in this embodiment arranged equidistantly along a straight line so that the connector sockets 1 , 2 and 14 together with the connecting flanges 7, 8 forms a beam like structure. From this description, however, the connector sockets may alternatively be arranged to form an angle and the toy building element may have more connector sockets than what is shown in figure 1 through 3.

Figure 4 shows a cross section through the first stiffening wall 9 of the toy building element shown in figure 1 through 3. The first stiffening wall have a a cone shaped tapered pinpoint gate

By having at least a section 23 of the first stiffening wall 9 arranged closer to one of the two parallel surfaces 5 than it is to the other one of the two parallel surfaces 6 it is made possible to produce toy building element by injection molding without thereby making a gate mark 22 at a very visible position on the toy building element due to the fact that it is now possible to inject plastic material from e.g. a runner channel 28 via a cone shaped tapered pinpoint gate 18 such as it is shown in figure 5 into the mold cavity 24 formed by the mold parts 25 and 26 that are divided by a dividing line 27. The gate 18 is here arranged to feed the mold cavity 24 at a position 17 where it forms the section 23 of the first stiffening wall 9 being very close to the one of the two parallel surfaces 5.