US2591324A - Hat cover with perforated brim - Google Patents

Description

April 1, 1952 R. J. WEIKERT HAT COVER WITH PERFORATED BRIM Filed Feb. 1 7, 1950 Patented Apr. 1, 1952 HAT COVER WITH PERFORATED BEIM Roy J. Weikert, Covington, Ohio, assigner to The Joseph Lincoln Manufacturing Company, Inc., Covington, Ohio, a corporation of Delaware Application February 17, 1950, Serial No. 144,655

5 Claims.

This invention relates to improvements in a seamless hat cover that is particularly adapted for the protection of fur felt hats during shipping or in storage on dealers shelves.

The fur felt hat trade is constantly confronted with an age-old problem of the trade of protecting the surface of fur felt hats during shipping of the hats and storage of them at the factories and in the retail stores to prevent stay or ring marks on the brims of the hats as a result of contact of the paper-board collars used in separating one hat from` another upon the brims of the hats when they are stacked one upon the other during shipping or storage.

Also, when fur felt hats are stacked upon one another, the headband of one hat will rub upon the finished fur felt exterior of an under hat causing what is commonly known as sweat-band burns on the fur felt as a result of the rubbing action of the hatband on the fur felt, which is another problem of delivering hats in a factoryfresh condition to the consumer. The flattening or compressing of the felt hat produces defects that can only be cured at substantial expense by manual surface treatment of the felt.

Also, when hats are stacked upon one another for any period of time the weight of the hats resting on the brims of the lower hats causes a compacting or marking of the felt. This defect can only be remedied by hand-working of the surface of the brim to again raise the felt to its normal condition and thus correct the defect caused by the storage of the hats.

To overcome the difculties aforementioned, a seamless one-piece hat cover formed from a sheet of rubber hydrochloride is provided to cover the exterior surface of the hat to prevent direct rubbing action of one hat upon another during shipment and While in storage. Such a hat cover is disclosed in my Patent No. 2,344,927, dated March 21, 1944.

The hat cover of this invention is formed by placing a disc of a thin sheet of rubber hydrochloride over a male form that is in the shape of a hat so that the sheet is shaped with a crown portion that is slightly larger than the crown of a hat, the center portion of the disc of the sheet being drawn to the desired shape. This is occasioned under conditions of heat and moisture that is more fully disclosed in my Patent No. 2,295,066, dated September 8, 1942.

This invention relates to an improvement in the hat cover, and particularly to an improvement relating to the brim portion of the hat cover by which the brim portion is provided with a myriad of slight projections on the under-side of the brim portion which will penetrate the felt on the brim of a hat to support the body of the brim portion of the hat cover in spaced relationship to the body portion of the brim of the hat and thereby prevent matting of the iur felt on the surface of the brim of the hat.

It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a one-piece seamless hat cover of a gossarner-like thinness consisting of a crown portion and a brim portion in which the brim portion is provided with a plurality of closely spaced projections or feet extending from the under surface of the brim portion of the hat cover to support the brim portion in spaced relationship to a surface upon which the brim rests.

It is still another object of the invention to provide a hat cover in accordance with the foregoing object wherein the projections on the under-side of the brim of the hat cover are formed Further objects and advantages will become apparent from the drawings and the following description.

In the drawings:

Figure 1 is a perspective elevational view of the hat cover of this invention.

Figure 2 is a vertical cross-sectional view of a hat illustrating a hat cover in place on the same.

Figure 3 is a vertical cross-sectional view of a stack of hats illustrating the problem that is overcome by the hat cover of this invention.

Figure 4 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of theimproved brim portion of the hatl cover of Figure 1.

Figure 5 is an enlarged cross-sectional view illustrating the manner in which the improved brim of the hat cover of Figure 1 rests upon the brim of a hat.

Figure 6 is a diagrammatic illustration of a method of making the improved brim illustrated in Figure 4.

In this invention the hat cap or protective covering device is made from a very thin. sheet of rubber hydrochloride of the type known :as Pliofilm lthat is manufactured by The Goodyear Tire 8a Rubber Company, Akron, Ohio, the name Pliolm being the trade-mark of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company for this particular product. The sheet of rubber hydrochloride from which the hat covers are made has a thickness of approximately .0012" to .0015" so that the sheet from which the hat cover is made is very light and wi11 cause no substantial weight upon the fur felt of a hat upon which the hat cover is placed.

Rubber hydrochloride is impervious to all natural hat enemies such as oils, acids, alkalines, water, etc., so that it will neither absorb nor permit penetration of these materials onto the surface of a hat protected thereby. Also, rubber hydrochloride has an' extremely smooth surface so that friction between the hat and the hat cover is substantially eliminated, and it has no lint or color that can be conveyed to a hat as is frequently the case in the use of various paper products.

To form the hat cover illustrated inFigure 1 consisting of the Vcrown portion I and the brim I I, a disc of rubber hydrochloride of the thickness referred to previously is placed over an opening in a chamber into which steam is introduced. Steam isV introduced into the chamber on one side of the sheet of material to condition the rubber hydrochloride so that it can be stretched by a male mold that is shaped in the form of a hat. The crown portion I0' of the hat cover is reduced in thickness in this drawing operation to .0002" to .0005". This reduction in thickness is for the express purpose of eliminating any substantial weight or friction on the felt surface of a hat. The result of the process is to form a onepiece seamless article which will closely fit the contour of a hat over which it is placed. The hat cover per se and the process of making it are more particularly disclosed in my patents referred to herein.

The improvement in this invention relates to the brim I2 of the hat cover.

One of the problems in protecting the nap of a fur feltY hat, and particularly the brim` portion, is to prevent the nap from being pressed down against the body of the brim during shipment and storage of the hats.

In this invention, therefore, the brim portion I2 of the hat cover is provided with a plurality of very small projections I3 that extend fromr the under-face I4 of the brim I2. These projections I3 are preferably in the form of pinhole punctures I5, the puncture being made from the top surface I6 of thev brim I2 so that there is an extrusion formed from the under-face I4 of the r brim forming the projections I3. It will of course be understood that the projections I3 can be formed in other ways than by way of pin puncture, such as die-forming or forming'between rails under heatl and pressure.

In Figure 6 therel is illustrated a device for-producing the projections I3 by the pin puncture method wherein the brim I2 of the hat cover isr run between a soft rubber roll and al roll `2I having a plurality of pins 22 projecting from the surface thereof. Simultaneous rotation of the rolls causes the brim I2 to be fed between the rolls and the pins 22 will puncture the brim forming the extruded projections I3, and also willl provide pin punctures I5 in the brim I2.

When the improved hat cover of this invention is placed upon a hat 25, as illustrated in Figures 2 and 3, the brim portion I2 of the hat cover 30V will rest upon the brim 26 of the hat in such a mannery that the nap 21 will not be compressed against the body of the brim. Also, the crown portion is of such eXtreme thinness that the nap of the hat crown will not be compressed even though slight wrinkles should occur in the crown portion of the hat-cover when one hat is placed upon another. Y

As shown in Figure 5, the ends of the projections I3 rest upon the body of the brim 26, thus spacing the body of the brim I2 of the hat cover from the brim 26 of the hat to allow the nap 21 to remain in an up-raised condition, without compacting.

Hat covers having the improved brim of this invention have been tested during the course of many commercial shipments and have been found to eliminate the usual compacting of the nap Y on the surface of the brims, which improves the appearance of the hats as they are unpacked and eliminates the necessity for hand-finishing of the brims by the dealer. The projections on the under-side of the brim of the hat cover so engage the felt nap of the brim of a hat that there is no relative surface movement between the cover brim and' the hat brim, thus eliminating rubbing action on the hat brim.

While the hat cover described and illustrated herein is a preferred form of the invention, yet

it is capable of modification without departingV from the spirit of the invention, and those modifications that fall within the scope of the appended claims are intended to be included herein. It will also be understood that films other than rubber hydrochloride can be used in the manufacture ofV the hat cover such as films made of polyethylene or polythene. Y

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is:

l. In a hat cover of the character described having a crown portion and a brim portion, the improvement that consists of a plurality of small projections extending downwardly from the under face of the brim` of the hat cover, which projections are disposed in closely spaced relationship over substantially the entire under faceof the brim.

2. In a hat cover of the character described having a crown portion and a brim portion, the improvement that consists of a multiplicity of small extruded projections extending downwardly from the under face of the brim of the hat cover, which projections are disposed in closely spaced relationship over substantially the entire under face of the brim. Y K

3. In a hat cover of the character described having a crown portion and a brim portion, the

improvement that consists of a multiplicity ofV pinv punctured projections in the brim portion projecting downwardly from the under face of the brim of a hatcover, which punctured projections are disposed in closely' spaced relationship over substantially the entire under face of the brim.

4. In aV one-piece seamless hat cover for covering the crown and the upper surface of the brim of a hat that is formed from a single sheet of tissue thin innitely exible rubber hydrochloride that includes a crown portion formed by stretching the central area of a sheet of rubber hydrochloride over a crown shaped form to a size slightlyr large thanV the crown of a hat and'subsequently permanentlysetting the same inthis shape whereby the crown portion` can be positioned upon the crown of a hat for resting upon and engaging the same, without any elastic resiliency, and an integral brim'portion extending annularly from the crown portion for solely lying upon and protecting the upper brim surfacel of a hat; theV hat cover having the general characteristics of a goss-amer like thinness which is enhancedV in the crown.

portion thereof by reducing the wall thickness of the crown portion over the wall thickness of the brim portion to eliminate any substantial weight or friction upon the surface of the hat, and a soft smooth continuous glazed inner surface having no abrading qualities, the improvement that consists of a multiplicity of small projections `extending downwardly from the under face of the brim portion of the hat cover, which projections are disposed in closely spaced relationship over substantially the entire under face of the brim.

5. In a `one-piece seamless hat cover for covering the crown and the upper surface of the brim of a hat that is formed from a single sheet of tissue thin innitely iiexible rubber hydrochloride that includes a crown portion formed by stretching the central. area of .a sheet of rubber hydrochloride over a crown shaped form to a size slightly larger than the crown of a hat and subsequently permanently setting the same in this shape whereby the crown portion can be positioned upon the crown of a hat for resting upon and engaging the same without any elastic resiliency, and an in- 25 tegral brim portion extending annularly from the `crown portion for solely lying upon and protecting the upper brim surface of a hat; the hat cover having the general characteristics of a gossamer like thinness which is enhanced in the crown portion thereof by reducing the wall thickness of the crown portion over the wall thickness of the brim portion to eliminate any substantial weight or friction upon the surface of the hat, and a soft smooth continuous glazed inner surface having no abrading qualities, the improvement that consists of a multiplicity of pin punctured projections in the brim portion of the hat cover projecting from the under face of the brim portion, which pin punctured projections are disposed in closely spaced relationship over substantially the entire under face of the brim.

ROY J. WEIKERT.

REFERENCES CITED UNITED STATES PATENTS Name Date Weikert Mar. 21, 1944 Number

Images