Hub and strut-endcap assembly for tent frame struts

Claim 1

The self-adjusting hub and strut-endcap assembly for tent frame roof and wall struts which comprises: a hub two piece member shaped and joined together to provide four ball-receiving sockets arranged in equiangularly-spaced relation around the center thereof with each such socket adapted to receive and retain a ball for universal movement therein, and said hub member including side-opening channel-forming entryways leading into each socket, said entryways each having divergent sidewalls bordering a pair of intersecting seats at the base thereof bearing an acute angular relation to one another, one of said pair of seats extending radially outward from its ball-receiving socket while the other of said paired seats is skewed with respect to said radially-extending one, and diametrically-located pairs of said entryways having their skewed seats opposite one another; and, four strut-endcap elements each having a ball on the inner end thereof and a tubular sleeve projecting outwardly from said ball for receiving the inner end of a tent frame strut, said ball when seated in a ball-receiving socket in the hub being shaped and adapted to align the sleeve depending therefrom for limited side-to-side movement between a first position seated in the radially-extending seat of the flared entryway and a second position seated in the skewed seat thereof, said hub member and strut-endcap elements cooperating with one another in assembled relation with the sleeves seated in their first positions to define an assembly specifically adapted to the formation of a square wall or roof frame, and said member and elements cooperating with said sleeves seated in their second positions to define a four-sided polygonal frame having at least two unequal sides.