The present invention relates to a device for fastening a handle to a tap and, particularly, a device allowing the handle to be fastened to a tap in a removable way, at any desired orientation.
Tap handles of the known type are provided with a hub portion designed to be rotatably integrally fastened to the control rod of the valve, i.e. the control rod of the tap valve.
In order to enable rotary drive, the inside seat which is located in the hub portion of the handle and the outer surface of the control rod of the valve are generally subjected to mutually complementary broaching workings. The locking of the handle in the axial direction relative to the control rod of the valve is generally carried out by means of a screw which is engaged with a threaded axial hole situated on the control rod of the valve. Shapes and sizes of broaching and threadings are currently widely standardized in the valve field.
However, this fastening system does not allow the handle to be assembled at a well-accurate orientation. In fact, even in the case of broaching having a large number of teeth, the assembling of a handle at a desired orientation is particularly hard and laborious.
This may compromise the aesthetics of installation, for example in the case where it is desired that the handles of two or more taps being installed next to one another should have the same alignment. This need is particularly felt mainly for those taps having a particularly sophisticated aesthetical appearance, such as those taps manufactured according to the “minimalist” concepts for which some geometrically simple and clear lines and shapes are combined.
In order to partially solve this problem, some special valves which may be oriented to a certain extent relative to the tap body have been proposed. Besides being more expensive than the usual ones, the special valves of this type are even difficult to mount, especially in the step where the desired orientation requires to be set.
Another partial solution to this problem is to fasten the handle by means of a radial grub screw abutting against the control rod of the valve. In this case, at least one hole requires to be provided into the handle hub in order to enable the screwing of the grub screw. However, this solution may compromise the aesthetical appearance of the handle because even in the case where a headless screw (or grub screw) is used, a hole in the handle hub or, even worse, a fastening screw protruding from the handle hub will be always visible.
Having said that, the task of the present invention is to provide a device allowing a tap handle to be fastened at any desired orientation.