Patent Application
20070241091
The disclosures made herein relate generally the field of electric irons for heating a fabric or other material for flattening and pressing, and more particularly to the field of indirectly heated irons for use by crafters and quilters, the iron having a smaller size adapted for use in pressing small seams or for thermal transfers and small piece work
Electrically heated irons for heating and pressing fabrics are well known. Heated irons typically heat the fabric to be pressed or flattened by contacting the sole plate of the iron with the fabric, the heat energy then transferred from the iron to the fabric primarily through conduction, rather than convection or radiation.
Many who enjoy crafting and crafts on a regular basis realize the importance of having a good iron available. Irons are used when sewing, to prepare fabric pieces to be attached together or to press small seams and edges. Irons are also used to activate adhesives and to activate and apply iron on transfer pictures and logos to clothing. The problem with conventional irons relates to their size. Often an iron is needed to smooth wrinkles on a small piece of fabric or to get into tight corners. Conventional fabric irons are too bulky to perform such jobs adequately.
Typical and often seen electric irons are designed for pressing clothing such as shirts, pants, dresses and blouses. When pressing fabrics, the sole plate temperature should theoretically be as high as possible to achieve the best heat transfer to the fabric. However, due to the low thermal conductivity of textile fabrics, a high temperature can result in scorching or burning the fabric. Therefore convention heated irons for pressing clothing typically employ a user adjustable means of controlling the iron sole plate temperature. These temperature controls, together with the typically large sole plate size, which is desirable for quickly ironing large articles such as clothing but, due to its size is less desirable for crafting, quilting and small piece work.
Typical electric irons have resistive heating elements for heating the sole plate integrated into the iron, making it necessary for the iron to be equipped with an electric power cord to provide power to the heating elements.
A limitation of these irons is that the power cord follows the iron, often across the work piece and can disturb or move craft items or entangle with the items during the ironing process.
Another limitation of typical electric irons for pressing clothing is their bulkiness and weight, this due in some portion to the included temperature controls as well as integrated heating elements together with the larger sole plate area adapted for efficiently pressing the larger pieces of clothing, rather than the smaller craft size pieces.
Therefore, a electrically heated iron which is designed for small piece work such as in crafting, that eliminates the intrusive and entanglement problems of an attached power chord, that removes the heating elements and power chord into a separate base and thereby reduces the size and weight of the iron making it easier to manipulate in use, such an heated iron for crafters would be useful and novel.
Accordingly, embodiments of the inventive disclosures made herein comprise a crafter's iron and an electrically powered heating stand for the iron.
Embodiments of the inventive disclosures herein relate generally a cordless, un-powered crafter's iron and separate electrically heated stand on which the iron rests for re-heating while in use, the iron and stand for use in combination.
The stand comprises a substantially flat heated top plate sized and adapted for receiving and heating the crafter's iron thereon. The top plate material is selected from the set of suitable metallic materials conducive to conductive heat transfer such as cast iron, iron, aluminum, steel and stainless steel. The stand has a base member with closed periphery sidewalls and a substantially closed bottom. The base may be formed in one piece such as from cast aluminum, or may be cold drawn from a sheet of, for example, stainless steel. In all cases the base forms a substantially closed bowl shape, ideally of a rather low sidewall height forming a compact, squat stand. The base sized and adapted to secure the heated top plate to a top portion of the base sidewalls. In order to provide heating to the top plate and the iron, one or more resistive heating elements are placed below the heated plate and in proximity thereto, the heating elements configured to provide thermal heating to the top plate. The stand includes a circuit means for electrically energizing the resistive heating elements to heat the top plate, and through the top plate, heat the craft iron when it rests on the base. The base of the stand is provided with a plurality of legs for supporting the base above a surface. The legs have an upper end secured to the bottom of the base and a lower end configured to supportively rest on a work surface. The legs provide elevated support to the base and also serve to thermally isolate the work surface on which the stand rests from the heat generated by the stand when it is in use. The base includes an illuminated electrical power on indicator light that illuminates when the resistive heating elements are energized.
The crafter's iron for use with the above stand comprises a solid wedge-like shoe base having a substantially flat bottom shoe surface. The base shoe material having ideally a high thermal mass so that the crafter's iron can store and retain heat for later use in ironing when the iron is removed from the stand. Examples of suitable base materials include the set of dense metallic materials consisting of cast iron, steel, stainless steel. By way of definition, thermal mass is the ability of a material to absorb heat energy. A substantial quantity of heat energy is required to change the temperature of high density materials like metals, concrete, bricks and tiles. They are therefore said to have high thermal mass. Lightweight materials such as timber have low thermal mass. High thermal mass materials store heat energy efficiently and can provide that energy later, say for pressing or flattening fabric with an iron. particularly if the material is highly thermally conductive, as is for example cast iron. In use the shoe bottom surface heats the work piece by conduction when the sole of the heated iron is placed in contact with the work piece. A non-metallic and thermally isolating handle is secured to an upper portion of the base. The handle sized and configured to allow the iron to be manipulated through an ironing task by a human hand. By design the handle utilizes a material providing a low coefficient of heat transfer to protect the user from scalds and burns to the portions of the hand holding the iron.
In use the crafter's iron is heated when it is resting on the stand waiting for use, during which time the crafter's iron stores heat energy into the shoe base. When the iron is removed from the stand and put into ironing service the stored heat energy is available for conductive transfer to work piece material to accomplish heating and ironing of the work piece. When the iron becomes too cool for the task at hand, it is returned to the stand for reheating before the next use.
In one or more embodiments of the inventive disclosures made herein, the resistive heating elements in the stand comprise a spiral resistive wire heating element. The stand further included an electrically and thermally insulating support structure to support the resistive heating element. The support structure electrically isolates the heating element from the base and top surface. Examples of a suitable electrically and thermally insulating material are known varieties of cast ceramics as used as electrical insulators and used in electrical heaters. Ceramics are available providing high melting points and very good insulating properties.
In one or more embodiments of the inventive disclosures made herein, the crafter's iron shoe bottom surface is provided with a non-stick surface permanently adhered thereto. One means of providing a non-stick surface to the bottom of the iron is to laminate a sheet of the polymer polytetrafluoroethylene to the bottom of the shoe of the iron. Polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE is also marketed by the trademark Teflon.
In one or more embodiments of the inventive disclosures made herein, base of the stand includes an electrically and thermally insulating support structure comprising a cast ceramic member where the support member includes grooves or channels formed into the support member to receive an elongated spiral-wound wire heating element. The grooves are provided with raised sidewalls to distance the heating element from the heated top plate. The heating element can be formed of any number of known metallic resistive wire type elements suitable for use as electric heating elements. The use of Nichrome-80 wire is particularly suitable for use in such heating elements as it is known for long life in use at high temperatures under strong thermal heating.
In a preferred embodiment of the inventive disclosures made herein, the shoe bottom surface of the iron has a length along its major axis of 4 to 6 inches, and ideally 5 inches. The heated top plate of the stand is circular in form and has a diameter of 7 to 9 inches, and ideally 8 inches. The power cord is provided with an in-line on/off switch, rather than a switch on the stand itself. The periphery sidewalls of the base are circular in form and have a diameter of between 8 to 10 inches. The base is provided with four support legs, outwardly tilted to improve the stability of the stand by increasing the distance between the feet where they rest upon the work surface.
It is an objective of the inventive disclosure made herein to provide an crafter's iron which is small in size and well suited to small piece work.
It is another objective of the inventive disclosure made herein to provide a crafter's iron that overcomes the bulkiness and weight of conventional electric fabric irons.
It is yet another objective of the inventive disclosure made herein to provide a small size electrically heated stand that is configured to heat the thermal mass of the iron shoe. The stand to have a short stature and a sufficient quantity of and arrangement of legs for stability. The base to be separated from the work surface upon which the base rests by legs secured to the heating stand base so as to reduce heating of the work surface by the heating elements in the base.
It is an objective of the inventive disclosure made herein to provide a crafter's iron and heating stand which removes the heating elements and power cord from the iron, reducing the size and weight of the iron and eliminating interference between the power cord dragging behind a conventional iron and the small piece work on which the iron may be used.
These and other objects of the invention made herein will become readily apparent upon further review of the following specification and associated drawings.
The drawings show a form of the invention that is presently preferred; however, the invention is not limited to the precise arrangement shown in the drawings.
In preparation for explaining the details of the present inventive disclosure, it is to be understood by the reader that the invention is not limited to the presented details of the construction, materials and embodiments as illustrated in the accompanying drawings, as the invention concepts are clearly capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and realized in various ways by applying the disclosure presented herein.
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The discussed construction, illustrations and sequence of operation is for one embodiment of the invention, but is in no way limiting to other embodiments. The operating modes may be changed and enhanced without deviating from the intention of this inventive disclosure.
In the preceding detailed description, reference has been made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which are shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments and certain variants thereof have been described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention. It is to be understood that other suitable embodiments may be utilized and that logical, material, mechanical, software and electrical changes may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. To avoid unnecessary detail, the description omits certain information known to those skilled in the art. The preceding detailed description is, therefore, not intended to be limited to the specific forms set forth herein, but on the contrary, it is intended to cover such alternatives, modifications, and equivalents, as can be reasonably included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
