Claims
- 1. A method of manufacturing an inflatable bath comprising the steps of providing a first thickness of flexible, polyvinyl chloride air-impermeable sheet material with a valve, and sealing a second thickness of flexible, polyvinyl chloride air-impermeable sheet material to said first thickness along first and second closed paths, said first path lying wholly within the second path and the valve lying between the first and second paths, thereby to form an inflatable annulus of substantially uniform cross section between said first and second paths and a web within the annulus, and the method also comprising heating the bath while uninflated by contact with a hot fluid, removing the uninflated bath from contact with the hot fluid, inflating the bath while it is hot and allowing the bath to cool while inflated to provide an article which is smooth and wrinkle-free on subsequent reflation.
- 2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the fluid is water.
Priority Claims (1)
| Number |
Date |
Country |
Kind |
| 6667 |
Oct 1971 |
AUX |
|
Parent Case Info
This is a continuation of co-pending Application Ser. No. 676,761 filed 4-14-76 now abandoned, which is itself a divisional of Application Ser. No. 540,927 filed Jan. 14 1975, now abandoned, which is itself a continuation-in-part of Application Ser. No. 297,149 filed Oct. 12 1972, now abandoned.
This invention relates to an inflatable bath and in particular inflatable baths suitable for bathing human infants.
Conventional baby's baths have been constructed of a relatively rigid material such as stiff plastics material or metal. As is well known babies in their first months of life are very delicate and must be handled with great care to avoid bodily damage. The use of a bath made of a rigid material could cause damage to a baby if the baby slipped from the hands of a person washing it. Conventional baby's baths suffer from the further disadvantage that they are generally of a deep construction and require up to 2 gallons of water to wash a baby adequately. The present invention is designed to provide a bath of a soft, flexible nature so as to avoid the possibility of a baby being injured while bathing and a bath in which less water is used than would normally be required.
In accordance with the invention an oval shaped bath is provided comprising a single inflatable tubular annulus and an unpadded impervious web across an aperture described by the annulus, the diameter of the tube of the said annulus when inflated being sufficient to prevent the web touching a plane surface supporting the bath, said web extending across the aperture formed by the annulus at a position midway through the thickness of the annulus when inflated, the said bath also being substantially wrinkle-free.
The bath is of particular use in hospitals as a bath that has been sterilised can be used for the washing of two babies, i.e. one on each side of the web, whereas conventional baths must be sterilised after each baby is washed.
Preferred embodiments of the invention have the further advantage that on smooth surfaces on which a conventional bath may tend to slip the air space under the web acts as a suction cup when air is displaced from the space. The bath is thereby clamped to the surface, thus preventing the possibility of the bath slipping off the surface if it is inadvertently knocked.
The bath is preferably made from sheets of polyvinyl chloride, however any other flexible, air impermeable sheet material may be used. A preferred method of forming a bath according to this invention comprised the following steps:
If desired the steps 1 and 3 could be combined by using e.g. a heating die of an appropriate size and shape. It has been found that if step 4 is not carried out the bath on subsequent inflation by the consumer partially distorts by the the appearance of wrinkles along the circumference of the annulus, particularly in the vicinity of the seams. These wrinkles tend to destroy the ability of the bath to rigidly suck onto the surface on which it is being used.
In the case of PVC, the step of inflating the bath when hot during manufacture imparts a "memory" into the material, thus causing it to reassume its smooth wrinklefree shape on subsequent inflations.
US Referenced Citations (8)
Foreign Referenced Citations (1)
| Number |
Date |
Country |
| 238417 |
Aug 1925 |
GBX |
Divisions (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
| Parent |
540927 |
Jan 1975 |
|
Continuations (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
| Parent |
676761 |
Apr 1976 |
|
Continuation in Parts (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
| Parent |
297149 |
Oct 1972 |
|
Patent Grant
4838967
