Patent GB-255956-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to boot or shoe part heating devices
IPC: A43D11/14
Filed: 1925-05-02
Abstract: 255,956. British United Shoe Machinery Co., Ltd., and Ricks, F., (United Shoe Machinery Corporation). May 2, 1925. Softening.-A shoe toe heater of the kind comprising means to enshroud the shoe toe and electrically-heated vapour-generating means of the flash generator type, is arranged to supply small regulated quantities of vapour to the enshrouding means and to avoid the production of excess vapour. As shown in Figs. 1, 2, and 3, the apparatus comprises a housing 12 provided with a series of openings 14 to receive the shoe toes and supported on a tray 16 by positioning flanges 18. The tray has a trough 20 to receive bars 22, each formed with water channels 66 and nozzles 68 registering with the openings 14 in the housing and communicating by nipples 62 with water supply pipes 60. The underside, of the tray is formed with ribs 24 forming grooves to receive bar-like heating elements which each comprise a resistance between mica strips in a metal casing. The heating elements are connected through a three-way switch so that either four or five may be operative at once. Water is supplied to the channels 66 and pipes 60 by a tank and drip-valve in such away that the same quantity of water at a uniform low pressure is supplied at each heating station. The channels 66 are of capillary size so that the water is largely vapourized at the nozzles 68. The arrangement of the heating elements in grooves in the tray 16 produces the maximum heating effect on the water in the bars 22 and on the tray and housing 12 which themselves heat the shoe toes by radiation. A shoe rest 90 is adjustable on a bracket 88 of a pan 82 which supports the tray 16. In a modification, where a softer heating is required, the housing 12 is replaced by a series of housings of a porous refractory material, which are glazed on their outer surfaces, but have inner surfaces capable of absorbing, and then exuding, vapour supplied to them as in the first construction. In this case, a larger quantity of water may be supplied to the tray, so that the housings stand in water. In another modification, Fig. 12, water from a tank 102, is heated in a boiling chamber 100 by heaters 101 and is lifted by its own ebullition through tubes 104, 106 to adjustable troughs 108 whence it falls into sloping troughs 118 provided with heaters 120. Adjustment of the trough 108 by a rod 112 determines the surface of the troughs 118 over which the water will flow, and consequently the amount vapourized 122 are the heating stations. In another modification, Fig. 13, water from a tank 128 and drip valve 160 passes by a funnel 142 to an annular tray 138 on a vertical heating unit 132. Vapour from the tray 138 is directed by a conical baffle 146 through apertures in a flange 134 on the unit 132 to the toe-softening chamber 130, which mav be of the kind described in Specification 178,939. In a modification of this arrangement, water is supplied to the annular space between a vertical heating unit and a surrounding casing, and additional heating units may be employed further to heat the steam. In another modification, a horizontal heating unit is more or less immersed in a shallow trough according to the rate at which water is supplied to the trough. In any of the constructions described, a mechanical connection may be made between the controls of water and heat supply, so that one cannot be cut off without the other.