The field of the invention comprises roller skates and more particularly is concerned with the plate of a roller skate designed for speed skating.
High speed skating on roller skates requires equipment which must withstand great shock. Known speed roller skates comprise an elongate plate normally cut from synthetic resins such as nylon, Delrin and similar polymers. A typical roller skate uses a plate which is about one and one fourth inches deep, about three fourths of an inch thick and has a length which depends upon the size of the shoe that is attached to the upper edge. The wheels of the roller skate are connected to axles that are provided in anchors. The anchors are castings of aluminum or other metal mounted in notches provided in the front and rear of the skate. Each anchor has a resilient mounting which connects to the skate and also has a spur with a ball that engages a socket in its notch.
At the front end of the skate there is a clamp formed by bolting an additional member to the side of the plate, a threaded passageway being drilled through the joint. An elastomeric nose piece which is molded to a threaded stud is engaged in the threaded passageway and held in place by the clamp.
The weakest portion of the plate is at the front notch. The skater starts skating by running several steps on the toe piece before jumping onto the wheels. The plate will break through at the notch. Additionally, since there is some resilience in the plate itself, if a particularly heavy skater or even a normal skater applies particular pressure on the front end of the skate the plate will bend, the ball of the spur will jump out of its socket and not return following which the offset anchor places extreme lateral stress on the front end of the plate and can break it through.
The invention strengthens the front end of the plate by closing the sides of a portion of the notch in the vicinity of the socket. This unexpectedly deepens the socket and thereby prevents the spur from jumping out of the socket.
The nose piece of known skates is screwed into the threaded passageway. Since the plastic is fairly soft, problems arise with cross threading which can thereby jam the stud. A pilot projection is formed on the end of the stud in accordance with the invention either integrally with the stud or added to the stud thereby making it practically impossible to cross thread the stud. In doing this it turns out that the stud can now be lengthened and thereby will enable the skates to be constructed with larger wheels because the stud can be screwed out of the threaded passageway almost its full extent without the danger of having it break out of the passageway. The pilot provides a firm engagement with the greater portion of the passageway.