US3414990A

US3414990A - Resilient plastic shoe heel protector

Info

Publication number: US3414990A
Application number: US589769A
Authority: US
Inventors: Kessler Marvin Donald
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1966-10-25
Filing date: 1966-10-25
Publication date: 1968-12-10
Anticipated expiration: 1985-12-10

Description

Dec. 10, 1968 M. D KESSLER RESILIENT PLASTIC SHOE HEEL PROTECTOR Filed Oct. 25, 1966 FIG. 2

1 FIG. 3

f f f in INVENTOR MARVIN DONALD KESSLER %M/ ATTORNEY United States Patent 3,414,990 RESILIENT PLASTIC SHOE HEEL PROTECTOR Marvin Donald Kessler, 60 Ladue Estates E., Creve 'Coeur, Mo. 63141 Filed Oct. 25, 1966, Ser. No. 589,769 4 Claims (Ci. 36--73) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A resilient plastic heel plate with an adherent backing is designed to be applied by a stapling gun by unskilled persons, such as shoe clerks. The wearing surface of the heel plate has a lateral staple-accommodating groove, and a pair of spaced-apart locator recesses one adjacent to each end of the groove. These locator recesses receive projection on the undersurface of the stapling gun to assure driving the staple precisely.

The present invention relates to protective articles for affixing to shoe heels to avoid wear, and particularly to an article suitable for handy application in stores which sell new shoes.

Customers for womens shoes are concerned about the protection of both the appearance and continued usefulness of the heels. Womens casual shoes, for example, may use heels in which wearing qualities have been sacrificed for attractive appearance and low manufacturing cost. The attachment of protective plates to such attractive low-cost heels must be made after sale of the shoes but preferably prior to initial wearing. Yet shoe stores do not possess the equipment of shoe repair shops, nor could a sales clerk operate such equipment.

Heretofore protective plates molded of resilient tough plastic material have been sold in some shoe stores for adhesive attachment to the flat surface of new heels. Some of these plates have been furnished with staples, and include a groove in which the staple may be driven. However, neither the shoe salesman nor the customer can satisfactorily drive such staple with a hammer. In addition to the problem of finding a suitable support to insert Within the shoe, the resiliency of such a protective plate, when struck by a hammer, cushions the blow to make driving difiicult and the driven staple insecure. Accordingly there is a need for such a resilient protective plate which may be affixed swiftly, securely and entirely reliably by shoe sales clerks.

The principle purpose of the present invention is to provide such a resilient protective plate-like article, which may be adhered in place on a shoe heel and then, while the shoe is held in hand, secured by a hand-held stapling gun, with perfect alignment. Other purposes will be apparent from the disclosure which follows.

Summarizing the present invention generally, I provide a tapering heel plate-like article with locator recesses adjacent to a staple-accommodating groove near its thicker rear edge. To drive the staple I use a simple conventional hand-held stapling gun equipped with projections spaced from its driving blade correspondingly to the spacing of the locator recesses from the groove. Even though the present protective article may be quite thick (which may be necessary to accommodate recesses for locator projections of such a gun) I have found that the driving force of the stapling gun will not be opposed by the resiliency of its entire thickness; instead only about half of such resiliency must be overcome. This results in seating the staple firmly in the bottom of the groove by the hand-held stapling gun, without the expected use of shoe-repair store equipment.

A preferred embodiment of the present invention is shown in the accompanying drawings, in which:

ice

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a heel plate embodying the present invention, in position for attachment by a stapling gun on the heel of an inverted shoe, shown in phantom lines.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged sectional view taken along line 2--2 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged sectional view taken along line 3-3 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged sectional view taken along line 4-4 of FIG. 1.

In FIG. 1, a womens shoe a having a relatively low flat heel b is shown inverted for attachment to the lower heel surface 0 of the plate-like article generally designated 10 embodying the present invention. The article 10 may be made of any of the adherable, resilient tough plastic materials which are known to be useful for protecting shoes from wear and are readily formed by molding. As shown in the drawings hereof the article 10 is plate-like in the sense that it has two opposed major surfaces, the first of which is a flat surface 11 (the upper surface of the article when the shoe is worn) which is preferably coated with an adhesive and protected by a strip of paper or the like (not shown), to be removed at the time the article 10 is applied and adhered to the heel surface c. Its other major surface is the Wearing surface 12 which may be surrounded by a slightly projecting circumferential ridge 13, shown in the enlarged

cross-sectional views

2, 3 and 4. In the preferred embodiment shown the plate-like article 10 is somewhat kidney-shaped, and tapers in thickness from a thinner, concavely indented forward edge 14 to a thicker somewhat sloping arcuate rear edge 15.

Depressed within the wearing surface 12 in the thicker portion adjacent to the arcuate rear edge 15 is molded a laterally-extending staple-accommodating groove 20. Its groove bottom surface 21 is formed at such depth from the wearing surface 12 as will exceed the thickness of a staple d; and the length of the groove 20 somewhat exceeds that of the staple; therefore the staple when firmly driven will be recessed from the wearing surface 12 as shown in FIGS. 2 and 4 even without any compressive deflection of the portion of the article 11} beneath the staple d. The depth of the groove 20 from the wearing surface 12 to the groove bottom 21 is therefore preferably approximately half the thickness of that portion of the article 10 in which the groove 20 is located, or between forty percent and sixty percent of such thickness.

Spaced laterally from each other and to each side of of the groove 20 are left and right locator recesses 30. While as shown in FIGS. 1 and 4 these are relatively close to the circumferential ridge 13, they do not materially weaken the 'article, being in the thicker portion near its arcuate sloping rear edge 15. In their form preferred for preserving the strength of the article 10, the locator recesses 30 are circular, somewhat tapering, depressions have a draft angle suitable for molding, and a diameter and depth as great as necessary to fully accommodate the locator projections of a stapler gun, hereafter described. Because of their relatively small cross-sectional area, as shown in FIG. 3, their depth may be nearly the entire depth of the article 10.

Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown fragmentarily in dashed lines, and raised above the plate-like article 10 and in registered position for stapling, the rectangular driving end of a stapling gun e of the type including a vertically reciprocating driving blade f. At the base of the driving gun end e and projecting to the left and right sides of the edges of the driving blade f are the pair of locator projections g, referred to above. From FIG. 1 it will be noted that the spacing of the left and right locator recesses 30 with respect to the groove 20 correspond to the spacing of the pair of locator projections g with respect to the blade 1.

The article thus described is used in a shoe store as follows: After new shoes have been sold and the customer expresses the desired to have the heels protected by the plate-like article It), the strip of covering is removed from the adherent flat surface 11, and the article 10 placed in position on the heel b substantially as shown in FIG. 1. The sales clerk or other store employee then grasps the stapling gun by hand positions the rectangular driving end of the stapling gun e so that the locator projections g are in registration with the left and right 10- cator recesses 30. Then he inserts the pair of locator projections g into the left and right locator recesses 30 and actuates the gun; when so doing he may merely hold the shoe a in one hand and the gun e in the other. There results a secure driving of the staple :2! through the groove bottom 21 into the heel b. The staple d is seated firmly against the bottom 21 and recessed well below the wearing surface 12. It will hold firmly despite the resiliency of the plastic material. The ample thickness of the areuate sloping rear edge gives the plate-like article 10 suitable resiliency and provides for long wear; yet the staple d holds much more firmly than if driven through this thickness of the resilient material.

If it were attempted to drive such a staple d into a similar groove by ordinary methods, as by a hammer, the cushioned resistance encountered would be so great as to provide a spring-back force which would cushion the blow. If a staple were driven into an equal thickness without precisely locating against the base of the groove 21, there would be a similar cushioned resistance to the driving of the staple which would render it insecure, and further a spring-like resistance built up by compressing this thickness, which spring-like resistance would, under ordinary usage, draw the staple d out beyond the surface 12.

These difliculties have been completely overcome by the use of the locator recesses 30 to register the gun e prior to driving. The driving force of the blade f is resisted only by the elasticity of that proportionate part of the material from the groove bottom 21 to the adherent surface 11, as illustrated in FIG. 4. Thus, if the groove bottom is precisely at the mid-point of such thickness, the cushioned resistance encountered in driving the staple d by the precisely registered stapling galn e is only half that which would be encountered if driven through the entire thickness of the cross-section shown in FIG. 4. in which the groove is located.

The firm driving and secure anchoring of the staple d makes it possible for shoe clerks to perform the attachment of the present article in stores which have no shoerepair equipment. The shoe is hand-held and the simple familiar small stapling gun e is likewise hand-held This result was not to be expected from prior constructions and practices.

Detailed modifications of the present article may be made without departing from the scope of this invention,

which therefore should not be narrowly construed but rather as fully co-extensive with the claims hereof.

I claim:

1. For use as a protector to be secured to a shoe heel both adherently and by a reciprocating blade-type stapling gun equipped with a plurality of locator projections,

a plate-like article formed of resilient tough plastic material having as its two major surfaces a flat adhering surface and a wearing surface, the wearing surface having formed therein, to a depth only part of the distance between said surfaces,

a laterallyextending staple-accommodating groove, and a pair of gun-locator recesses spaced laterally from each other, one being adjacent to and spaced from each end of said groove,

whereby to align such stapling gun for driving a staple of lesser thickness than the groove into said groove and to recess it from said Wearing surface.

2. A plate-like article as defined in claim 1, characterized by:

having a thickness tapering from a thinner forward edge to a thicker rear edge,

the groove and locator recesses being spaced in the thicker portion adjacent to the rear edge,

whereby the increment in thickness over that of the forward edge provides added depth for accommodating the groove and locator recesses.

3. A plate-like article as defined in claim 1,

the depth of said groove from the wearing surface to the groove bottom surface being approximately half the thickness of the portion of the article in which said groove is located,

whereby the cushioned resistance encountered on driving the staple by the blade of such stapling gun, as located by its locator projections, is reduced to approximately half that encountered if driven against the resistance of the entire thickness of such portion.

4. A plate-like article as defined in claim 1,

the said groove depth being between forty percent and sixty percent of the thickness of the portion of the article in which said groove is located.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 341,347 5/1886 Pierce 36-73 1,172,392 2/1916 Robinson 3675 1,181,807 5/1916 Solomon 36-73 FOREIGN PATENTS 603,309 1/1926 France.

304,538 3/ 1918 Germany.

3,315 1887 Great Britain.

JORDAN FRANKLIN, Primary Examiner.

A. R. GUEST, Assistant Examiner.