US2524982A - Method of manufacturing garment bags - Google Patents

Description

, 1950 `B. A. LEvlT'r METHOD oF MANUFACTURING GARMENT BAGS Oct. l0

.Filed Feb. 27. 1947 FIG. 10

' INVENTOR BENJAMmALEvm ATTORNEY `latenteci 'ct 110,

METHOD 0F MANUFACTURING GABMENT BAGS Benjamin A. Levitt, Newark, N. J., assignor to A. L. Siegel Co., Inc., New York, N. Y., a corporation of New York Application February 27, 1947, Serial N o. 731,206

9 Claims. l

This invention relates to an improved method of manufacturing a garment bag.

Garment bags into which various articles of clothing may be placed for protective purposes, which bags are adapted themselves to be hung in closets or the like, take many forms. The most common of these forms comprises a rectangular cross-section so that the individual garments may be individually hung and removed from the garment bag preferably through the side thereof without the necessity of removing the entire garment bag from its suspension. Such bags have been formed of cloth and, more recently, ofV plastic sheeting, the cloth or plastic sheeting defining the walls of the bag and being maintained so as to define a rectangular or any other desired cross-section by means of suitable framework disposed at the top and optionally at the bottom of the bag.

Garment bags of this nature have' become exceedingly popular commercial-wise but as constructed heretofore they present certain potential defects which render them more or lessjinefilcientin the attainment of their desired end.

One of the purposes of such bags is to protect the clothing stored therein from the effects of dirt and moisture in the air. Obviously the more seams involved in the formation of the bag the less protection is afforded against these deleterious iniiuences. As ordinarily constructed, the top, bottom, front, back and side walls of the bags are of separate strips or sheets of material each the total number of seams in the garment bag is' only reduced to nine.

Moreover, those seams which are most susceptible to spreading or unsealing, to wit, the seams at the edges of the top and bottom walls of the container, are not eliminated. While the weight of the bag itself is generally inconsequential, it quite often happens that garments become dis;

engaged from within the bag and fall to the bote'` 'tom thereof and the far from inconsequential weight of these garments is then sup-ported almost exclusively by the seams Joining'the top and bottom walls to the other walls. This strain is applied directly to the seams under discussion, particularly because those seams conform to the asl configuration of the top and bottom framesv which give shape to the garment bag.

In addition to these inherent constructional defects, impelling economic considerations mitigate against the prior art construction. A very substantial portion of the cost of manufacture of a garment bag resides in the assembly thereof and in particular in the seaming thereof. rhus, any method of construction which would minimize the number of seams is obviously commercially advantageous. In the past it has been necessary, when joining the top or bottom wall of a garment bag to the front, back and side walls thereof, to form four separate seams corresponding to the four sides of the top or bottom surface in four separate operations. As soon as one seam was completed, it was necessary for an operator to turn the fabric 90 so that the next seam might be formed. To attach both the top and bottom, eight separate operations were necessary.

Moreover, the problem of providing a plurality of sheets of different sizes called for considerable tailoring work and required an extensive inventory. y

It is the prime object of the present invention to provide a novel method of manufacture of a garment bag having a minimum of seams.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide such a method which results in a bag in which the seams are so located with respect to the framework of the garment bag as to minimize the strains applied thereto during use of the bag. l

Another object of this invention is to provide such a method in which a minimum of separate sheets of material, and in the preferred embodi-` While the present invention is herein described,

with particular reference to the manufacture of a garment bag, it will be appreciated that in its broader aspects it relates to any hollow containerl formed of flexible material and to the methodV of forming the same. It will alsobe apparent that when the term seaming is used, any type of seaming maybe employed. As herein specically described, the seaming is accomplished by means of a stitching or sewing operation, but

it will be appreciated that when thermoplastic sheeting is employed, the seaming may be acsuccessive stages in the formation of the garment bag of the present invention from a single flexible sheet;

Figs. 4, and 6 are top views of Figs. 1, 2 and 3, respectively;

Fig. 'l is a perspective view of one embodiment of the top frame for the garment bag;

Fig. 8 is a similar View of the bottom frame;

Fig. 9 is a perspective View of a completed and expanded garment bag made according to the present invention With parts thereof broken away;

Fig. 10 is a detailed view on enlarged scale of the side wall-top wall joint formed therein; and

Figs. 11 and 12 are views corresponding to Figs. l and 2 but showing stages in the formation of a garment bag from a plurality of sheets of flexible material.

The method of making the garment bag of the present invention will rst be described, the resultant improved construction of said bag becoming apparent as the method is developed. That method, considered in its broad aspects, comprises superimposing two layers A and B of flexible sheeting (Figs. 1 and 11). This sheeting may be cloth, either plain or ornamented, or any of the well known plastic sheetings now on the market.

The sides C and C of the two-ply formation thus produced are then folded over the body portion D thereof (Fig. 2) so that at the thus formed edge sections 2 and 4 a four-ply` formation is produced. One or both of the end edges E or E', which edges are preferably linear, are then seamed as by stitching 6, this seam including all of the plies of the folded edge sections 2 and l and of the body D. The resultant structure is then turned inside out.

When the thus formed bag is caused to expand so that its top and bottom surfaces conform to the desired outline, as by the use of top frame 8 and bottom frame I0, it is found that for example the top and bottom walls F and F of the bag are each composed of two portions G and H (Figs. 9 and 10), each of which are integral eX- tensions of the front and back walls I2 and I4 respectively, these two portions being joined together by a single straight seam I6 intermediate said end wall F.

It will be noted that by this method of construction only a single seam is necessary to form the top of the garment bag, this seam being linear so that it may be made in a single seaming operation, thus materially decreasing the cost of manufacture of the bag, and that the seam is so located on the finished garment bag that any strains imposed by the weight of articles on the bottom of said bag is insulated from said seam by the action of the frames 8 or I8, the frames taking much of the strain and thus ensuring that the seam will remain firm and thus prolong the life of the bag and enhance its protective effect.

Figs. 1 through 10 illustrate the preferred embodiment of the present invention in which a complete garment bag is manufactured by forming but three seams. A single sheet I8 of flexible material is first reversely folded on itself so as to denne the two-ply formation illustrated in Figs. 1 and 4. The side C thereof is initially open and that side therefore must be seamed as by the stitching 20, this seaming operation being so carried out as to incorporate in the thus formed seam an opening and closing means generally designated 22 which may specifically take the form of a zipper or slide fastener as illustrated in Fig. 9. This opening and closing means 22 provides for access to the interior of the container for removal and insertion of garments and also, in the formation of the container, provides an opening for a purpose hereinafter to be described.

The sheet I8 is preferably provided with a pair of eyelets 24 for cooperation with the suspending hooks 26 of the frame 8, and the sheet I8 may be interiorly reenforced by means of fabric tabs 28.

As illustrated in Figs. 2 and 5, the sides C and C of the folded sheet of Fig. 1 are folded over the body D thereof an amount equal to one-half of the desired depth of the container, that is to say, one-half the desired width of the top wall F and of the side walls 30 thereof. The top and bottom end edges E and E of the thus folded formation are then linearly seamed as by the stitching 6 and 6 (Figs. 2 and 5). The thus formed object is then turned inside out via the opening in side C provided by the opening and closing means 22. This condition is illustrated in Figs. 3 and 6 and represents a collapsed garment bag having a front wall A, a rear wall B and infolded side walls 3D, the top and bottom end edges E and E.' of all of said walls being linearly seamed together.

The collapsed garment bag of Fig. 3 may be expanded and caused to assume its desired shape by inserting therein, through the opening provided by the opening and closing means 22, the top and bottom frames 8 and I8. The former of these may consist of a metal framework 32 of desired shape having a cross-bar 34 provided with a plurality of corrugations 36 adapted to receive the hooks of hangers on which garments are mounted so that said garments may be sus- Ipended within the garment bag, and with suspending hooks 26 so mounted as to project up from the cross-bar 34 through the eyelets 24 of the sheet I8 so that the garment bag itself and the garments stored therein may all be suspended from the hooks 26. The frame I6 may be a thin cardboard, plywood or metal sheet of appropriate shape.

The construction of the garment bag as described is such that, if properly designed, the

bag itself upon expansion will closely conform to the frames 8 and Ill without the necessity of any special steps. It,A will be noted that when this conformation has taken place, tucked-in portions 38, best shown in Fig. 10, will form at the junction of the side walls 3U and the top and botto-zn Walls F and F. These tucked-in portions constitute integral extensions of the side walls 38.

The garment bag of Fig. 9 has by this method been constructed of a single flexible sheet with but three seams, one intermediate of one of the side Walls 30 and containing the opening and closing means 22 and one intermediate each of the top and bottomwalls F and F', the latter cles resting on `the bottom thereof is primarily resisted by the integral and unseamed portions of fabric which are adjacent to the metal framework 32 or the sides of the bottom frame it.,

The seams I6 and it will therefore be insulated from said strain so thatthe life ofthe bag `and its protective action toward the garments stored therein are materially increased.

Although to form a container from a plurality of rather than from a single sheet involves the making of at least one additional seam, and to that limited extent detracts fro-m the benefits of the present invention, it is sometimes necessary or desirable that this mode of construction be employed as, for example, where single sheets of sufcient size for e, complete container cannot commercially or economically be obtained. The first two stages of such a mode of construction are illustrated in Figs. 1l and 12, which correspond to Figs. l and 2, and it will be apparent that the only difference involved over the method previously described is that the edge C must be searned as by stitching Otherwise the stages of construction are identical and `need not be here repeated. lt will also be apparent that each of the individual sheets which are superimposed one or the other may itself be formed of any desired number of individual strips or sheets.

By the method of construction above described a garment bag or other hollow container may be more expeditiously and economically formed than has heretofore been possible and the container produced thereby is possessed of desirable structural features which eliminate or mitigate many of the defects inherent in containers of this type which have heretofore been manufactured. VNot only is the container thus produced enhanced in strength and durability by virtue of the location of its seams, but its protective action is also intensied by virtue of the minimum number of seams embodied in its construction and by virtue of the fact that they are so located that their tendency to part is minimized.

The particular embodiment of container here illustrated, a garment bag of conventional shape, is merely illustrative of the many applications to which my invention can be put and therefore many variations can be made in the details of the method steps and constructional features here shown without departing from the spirit of the invention as defined in the following claims.

claim:

l. The method of linearly seaming a surface of a container formed from flexible sheeting, which comprises superimposingone layer of said 6 plygformation over the bodyr thereof. linearly seaming together all of the plies of the folded sides and body at the top and bottom end edges of said formation, and then turning the thus formed object inside out.

3. The method of linearly seaming surfaces of a container formed from flexible sheeting which comprises superimposing one layer of said sheetling overVv another producing therebya two-ply formatiomone side of said formation having an opening therein, folding both sides of said twoply formation over Vvthe body thereof, linearly seaming-together all of the plies of the ,folded sheeting over another producing thereby a twosides and body at the top and bottom end edges of Asaid formation, and then turning the thus formed object inside out via said opening.

4. The method of linearly seaming a surface of'aA container formed from flexible sheeting to vproduce the container end which comprises superimposing one layer of said sheeting over another producing thereby a two-ply formation, folding each side of said two-ply formation over the body thereof an amount equal to one-half of the desired depth of the container end, linearly seaming together all of the plies of the folded sides and `body at the end edge of said formation, and'then turning the thus formed object inside out, the container end being thereafter formed by spreading the formed walls of the container.

5. The method of linearly seaming a surface of a container formed from a single exible sheet which comprises folding said sheet in half and producing thereby a two-ply formation, folding both sides of said two-ply formation over the body thereof, linearly seaming together all of the plies of thefolded sides and body at an end edge of said formation, turning the thus formed object inside out, and forming the container end by spreading the formed walls of the container. 6. The method of forming a container having a .rectangular cross-section from flexible sheeting which comprises superimposing one layer of said sheeting over another' and separate layer producing thereby a two-ply formation, seaming yboth open side edges of said two-ply formation while including an opening and closing means formed walls so as to give the container a rec-A tangular cross-section.

'7. The method of forming a container having a rectangular cross-section from a single exible sheet Which comprises folding said sheet in half producing thereby a two-ply formation, seaming the open side edge while including therein an opening and closing means, folding both sides of said two-ply formation over the body thereof, linearly seaming together all of the plies of the folded sides and body at the top and at the bottom end edges of said formation, turning the thus formed object inside out, and spreading the formed Walls so as to give the container a rectangular cross-section.

8. The method of forming a container having a rectangular cross-section from flexible sheeting which Icomprises superimposing one layer of said sheeting over another and separate layer producing thereby a two-ply formation, seaming both open side edges of said two-ply formation while including an opening and closing means in one of said side edges, folding both sides a rectangular cross-section from a single flexible 10 sheet which comprises folding said sheet in half producing thereby a two-ply formation, Yseaming the open side edge while including therein an opening and closing means, folding the sides of said two-ply formation over the body thereof, linearly seaming together all of the plies of the folded sides and body at the top and at the bottom end edges of said formation, turning the 8 thus formed object inside out, inserting appropriately shaped top and bottom frames therein, and causing the top and bottom of said container to conform thereto.

BENJAMIN A. LEVITT.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the f'lle of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 529,690 Arkell et al Nov. 27, 1894 1,298,257 Rand Mar. 25, 1919 15 2,236,115 Schwartzman Mar. 25, 1941 2,239,133 Waters Apr. 22, 1941 2,265,075 Kneutter Deo. 2, 1941

Images