1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention relates to a swivel snap hook of synthetic resin for use on a carrying strap of a bag, for example. The invention also relates to a method of manufacturing such a swivel snap hook.
2. Prior Art:
There are now on the market various swivel snap hooks of synthetic resin, or metal, for use on a carrying strap of a bag such as a shoulder bag. The prior hooks have a hook body and a separate closure tongue which normally closes the hook body and which is resiliently deformable to open the hook body. However, the known hook is disadvantageous in that the hook body and the closure tongue need to be joined or assembled together after these two parts have been made independently of each other, causing only a limited rate of production and hence resulting in expensive products.
To this end, a solution has been proposed by Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open Publication (Kokai) No. 58-99511 in which the hook body and the closure tongue are formed of synthetic resin integrally with each other. In production, the hook body and the closure tongue are molded simultaneously on a common mold in such a manner that a free end of the closure tongue is initially disposed outwardly of a free end of the hook body with a relatively small gap therebetween. Then the closure tongue needs to be depressed inwardly of the hook body against the resilience of the closure tongue to bring its free end into engagement with the free end of the hook body on an inner side thereof, which is laborious and time-consuming. A common problem with the resultant hook is that since the free end of the closure tongue is outwardly urged against the free end of the hook body by a great amount of resilient force stored in the closure tongue, a greater amount of pushing force is required to bend the closure tongue inwardly when a ring-shaped article is to be threaded onto and removed from the hook body. Further, if the free end of the hook body is outwardly deformed by a heavy weight or if a great amount of pulling force is exerted on the hook body, the free end of the closure tongue would move out of engagement with the free end of the hook body and hence would restore its original shape (before assembling) under its own resilience.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds