1. The Field of the Invention
This invention relates to boot dryers and more particularly to the class thereof utilizing cool air for the drying operation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The prior art abounds with a variety of boot drying apparatuses. U.S. Pat. No. 2,465,362 issued March 29, 1949, to S. C. Elliott teaches a boot dryer having a plenum chamber in which a light bulb is mounted. A pair of elongated hollow tubes are removably secured to the uppermost region of the plenum chamber and are utilized to support a pair of boots thereon. The heated air, derived from the light bulb, drys the boots by circulating such air through the boots utilizing convection processes. This apparatus suffers the deficiency of having a very low flow of air through the boots, and such heat is inefficiently derived from the lamp bulb, which generates light rays which are not effective in the boot drying process.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,076,735 issued on Apr. 13, 1937 to J. P. Leindorf discloses a shoe drying attachment utilizing a hairdryer apparatus providing heated forced air driven through an anvil-like device inserted into the interior of the shoe and containing an opening of the toe most region of the anvil. Such apparatus requires a substantial amount of electrical energy to operate the drying device and provides only heated air which tends to cause the boot materials to crack, shrink, and otherwise deteriorate during the rapid and destructive drying operation.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,793,744 issued on Feb. 26, 1974 to Y. Saita describes a device for directly drying the inside of shoes, such as bowling shoes, or golf shoes, which consists of a drying box provided with an external heater, a serpentine air inlet pipe within the box connected to said heater and provided with a plurality of perforated nozzles on which said shoes may be hung. This device further includes a valve which tends to open when the nozzles are disposed in a horizontal position such as when said shoe is disposed about the nozzle portion of the apparatus. However, such device is totally unacceptable for drying large boots, such as knee high devices because of the shortened shape of the perforate nozzle and furthermore tends to provide variable amounts of heated air flows within the shoe which is destructive for the life of the shoe repeatedly dried utilizing the Saita apparatus.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds