Dental floss applicator

Claim 1

For use in storing and holding dental floss taut to be applied between the teeth for a flossing operation and advancing the spent floss to provide a fresh supply of clean floss for a next succeeding flossing operation, a generally hollow container of a size conveniently fitting the hand of an average individual and having a longitudinally extending interior wall separating the container into a clean floss compartment and a spent floss compartment, said container having one closed end wall and an opposite end wall having spaced passageways leading therethrough, a hollow arm leading from the passageways leading through the opposite end wall and having separate passaageways leading from and to said last mentioned passageways, said hollow arm having bifurcated end, in which the furcations thereof extend generally parallel and terminate in the same plane, to accommodate clean floss to be stretched thereacross, a pay-out reel in said clean floss compartment, a take-up reel in said spent floss compartment operable independently or simultaneously of said pay-out reel, whereby clean floss may be paid from said clean floss compartment and along an associated passageway in said end wall to and along an outlet passageway in said hollow arm and along a furcation thereof and across said furcations of said hollow arm and inwardly along the opposite furcation and be wound on said take-up reel and maintained taut across said furcations by cooperation between said take-up reel and said clean floss reel, an individual transverse shaft for each reel extending across said casing and rotatably and translationally mounted at their inner ends in said interior wall and extending outwardly of said casing out the outer side walls thereof, keying sockets for said shafts in said inner wall, keying member intermediate the ends of said shafts, movable within said sockets and having slidable and keying engagement with the interior portions of said reels, spring means biasing said shafts into engagement with said sockets to hold said shafts from rotation, and means selectively operable from the exterior of said container to independently translationally or rotatably move either of said shafts to effect indexing of said shafts to hold said reels from rotation or independently release either or both of said keying members from said sockets to attain independent rotatable movement of either of said shafts and supply and maintain taut clean floss across the