A knocked-down easily-assembled sterilizing rack for holding conventional disk-shaped lids used for sealing mason jars. A sheet-metal inverted-trough-shaped body has a plurality of parallel transaxial slots to hold the lids upright and spaced. An initially unattached bail-shaped handle is dimensioned to embrace the sides and an end of the body for parts-protecting and for economical compact shipping-packaging. The handle and the body have snap-together assembling detent elements.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECT OF THE INVENTION 
It is broadly old to construct racks for holding various articles in spaced 
relationships to improve a sterilizing operation. But most racks of this 
nature are difficult to load, and especially to unload after a heating 
sterilizing operation. They are also usually large and fragile, making 
their shipping and storage both expensive and bothersome. It is 
accordingly the principle object of the present invention to design a 
canning-lid-sterilizing rack that (1) is easy to load and unload (2) is 
capable of being very compactly packaged in knocked-down form for 
economical and damage-proof shipping, and (3) which is very easily and 
securely snapped-together in assemblage.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
With reference now to the drawings, the numeral 11 generally designates a 
preferred embodiment of the sterilizing rack, which comprises an inverted 
trough-shaped base member 13 and a snap-on bail-shaped handle 15. The 
parts can be made of any corrosion-resistant metal (such as stainless or 
galvanized steel) or of heat-resistant (e.g. fiber-reinforced) plastic 
materials. 
The base 13 desirably has inwardly turned bottom edges 17, and a flattened 
crest 19 for reasons hereinafter explained. The base 13 has a plurality of 
parallel slots 21 cut therein and sized to hold either of the two common 
sizes of jar-lids 23 (large) and 25 (small), which are easily removed, 
while still hot, as by common kitchen-type tongs (not shown). 
The bail-shaped handle 15 is shown as having a pair of struck-out tongues 
29 and 31 which lock the handle 15 assembled with the base 13 when the 
bail ends are inserted downwardly through slits 33 (FIG. 5) in the ends of 
the crest 19. The bottom tongues 31 yieldably cam past the outer lips of 
the slits 33 and then expand outwardly to lock under the crest 19 while 
the upper tongues 29 lock against the upper crest surface (FIG. 4). 
An important feature of the disclosure resides in shaping the bail 15 to 
closely embrace the periphery of the base 13, as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6. 
This permits economical parts-protecting and space-saving 
compact-packaging of the knocked-down rack.