US2418168A - Method of making shoes and laced uppers employed therein - Google Patents

Description

April 1, 1947. F A 2,418,168

METHOD OF MAKING SHOES AND A LACED UPPER EMPLOYED THEREIN Original Filed July 25, 1941 Patented Apr. 1, 1947 METHOD OF MAKING SHOES AND LACED UPPERS EMPLQ-Y ED THEREIN Eoseph Fossa, Salem, Mass assignor to United Shoe Machinery Corporation, FlemingtomN. J., a corporation of New J ersey Griginal application July 23, 1941, Serial No. 403,675. Divided and this application October 14, 1944, Serial No. 558,771

The present invention relates to a method of making shoes and to an article produced during one step of the method and, more particularly, to an improvement in making shoes in which a single dress-type shoe lace is employed for holding the upper of a shoe in proper shape during lasting operations and to a completely laced upof novel form. The laced shoe upper of the invention is herein illustrated in the form produced by a machine disclosed in an application of the present inventor for United States Letters Patent, Serial No. 493,675, filed July 23, 1941 (now Patent No. 2,383 538, granted August 28, 1945), of which the present application is a division.

Lasting lacings composed of inexpensive loose twisted cord commonly are applied by inserting loops of the cord within registering eyelets of a folded shoe upper, which loops are interlocked with each other, the ends of cord being tied or left unsecured except by drawing them through the final loops of the completed lacings. Lasting lacings of this nature are generally inserted in an upper by machine, such as is disclosed in United States Letters Patent of the present inventor No. 2,106,320 of January 25, 1938, and No. 2,327,345 of August 24, 1943, the lacings inserted by this machine being removed before the shoe is completely manufactured and before the last is removed from the shoe so that there is no necessity for taking special precautions to insure a good appearance or durability in the lacings.

Dress laces for shoes customarily consist of lengths of flat or round woven textile material, the free ends of which lengths are tipped permanently with ferrules giving them sufficient rigidity and tenuity to facilitate hand insertion in the eyelets of an upper without the use of a needle or other eyelet entering device. Other forms of dress laceshave tips of plastic material solidified after being compressed, or laces may be employed, the tips of which are rigid due to the nature of the material from which the laces arecomposed. The tips of dress laces may thus be grasped and inserted or withdrawn from eyelets conveniently by hand, but heretofore it has been considered impracticable to insert such laces by machine into shoe uppers either'before or after lasting. Also, the cost of dress-type laces'would be prohibitive as compared with the usual form of lasting lacing cord if such a dress lace were to be used for the lasting operation only.

'. An important object of the present invention,

therefore, is to provide a method of making shoes 5 Claims. (Cl. 36-465) in which the necessity for inserting or removing a special temporary lasting lacing is avoided and in which effective use may be made of the same lacing throughout the various steps of manufacture and sale of a shoe, which results in substantial savings in both time and expense. A further object is to provide a shoe upper laced in a manner to lend itself effectively to the performance of the improved method.

The improved method, as herein illustrated, comprises passing a regular dress lace through the eyelets and across the lacing slit of an un lasted shoe upper, securing the ends of the lace to form a lacing which will provide a predetermined separation of the eyeletted edges, as with the use of a cord lacing, when the upper is ape plied to a last, or for other purposes, lasting the upper or performing other operations such as removing the last from the resulting shoe, and completing operations on the shoe while the lacing remains in place for subsequent use.

in order to securethe ends of the lace in place during lasting operations according to this feature of the invention, the ends are carried inside the upper between the upper and the last while the upper is being applied to the last. Several advantageous results are obtained by so securing the ends of the lace. The lace may be tightened or loosened while applying the upper to the last to give the desired separation of the eyeletted edges and an accurate location of the shoe parts against any possibility of slippage follows from. the fact that, as the upper is tensioned in lasting, the ends of the laceare secured more and more firmly in position. Furthermore, the size of a dress lace provides a substantial area of contact against the surfaces of the shoe upper and the eyelets therein, so as to distribute the lasting forces evenly between the two without any tendency to overstrain the parts or injuriously indent the surfaces of the upper. Also, a much firmer grip is obtained on the ends of a dress lace by carrying it between the upperand last than would be possible with the usual form of temporary lacing cord which is of relatively small diameter.

A convenient manner of releasing the last from the completed shoe at the end of the lasting operation, with the illustrated form of lacing, is provided by employing a two-part jointed last and comprises breaking the joint in the last to release the shoe and the ends of the lacing, after which the lacing may be slacked 01f substantially method are described in the following specification and more particularly pointed appended claims. i

In the drawings, Fig. l is a detail front view of a shoe'upper after having been laced according to the present out in the invention, illustrating the step of tensioning the upper over a last; I

Fig. 2 is an enlarged View of a1 lacing employed in the upper, looking at the outer face of'the shoe and Fig. 3 is. a View of the substantially completed shoe while being removed from the last, in preparation for a few minor finishing operations.

The upper of the shoe illustrated in the drawings is provided with a customary form of dress shoe lace, indicated at 2, in the eyelets i of the upper, indicated at 6. The lace consists of a flattened length of flexible, woven strip material having permanent rigid or self-sustaining tips 8 and it formed by wrapping the end portions of the lace with a hardened plastic sheath. Each tip thus formed has a single free end, being connected integrally with the flexible portion 'of the lace at the other end.

The lace is inserted, according to the present invention, with theupper opened out and with lets nearest the ankle opening of the upper, ex-

tend diagonally between oppositely disposed eyelets of every third pair across the edges of the upper at an acute angle. The pairs of opposite eyelets are thus connected by parallel portions of lacing extending along the outer surfaces of the upper, and at least oneeyelet of every third pair is connected with the corresponding diagonal portion of lacing extending along the inner surface of the upper. The parallel portions of the lacing take up the direct pull which tends to separate the'eyeletted edges of the upper when the upper is tensioned over the last 12.

The end portions of the lacing may be fastened together in any suitable manner, as by tying a knot, or by passing the tips a second time through opposite eyelets and carrying the ends inside the upper, as shown in Fig. 2, so that they will be located and held within an area of pressure between the tensioned upper and the last during lasting operations. When ending a lacing by passing the tips through opposite eyelets a secnd time, one end carried outwardly through one of a of oppositely disposed eyelets, across the lacing slit, then inwardly through the second of the pair of eyelets. The other end of the lacing is carried outwardly through the second of said pair of eyelets; then across the lacingslit in the opposite direction, and finally again inwardly,

through the first of the said pairs, to form a secure lacing of a length to provide a predetermined width of lacing slit when the upper is applied to a last. One advantage of this last described form of fastening is that the spacings between opposite eyelets maybe adjusted easily when the upper is being applied to the last, to allow the lasting operator to regulate the separation of the eyeletted edges and the width of lacing slit according to the conditions met during lasting.

A last having been inserted within the laced upper, the upper tensioning and lasting operation next is performed and is illustrated in Fig. 1 which shows a lasting gripper and stapling unit 8 d of a, machine similar to that disclosed in United States Letters Patent to Lawson No. 1,999,298, of April 30, 1935, operating to cause the upper to conform with the surfaces of the last which is of the two-part jointed type. The inner c'ris-s-crossportions of lacing assist materially in reducing the tendency of the'eyeletted edges along the lacing slit to shift lengthwise of each other during the upper tensioning and lasting operations. As a result, the lacing acts in a manner effective to hold the eyeletted edges in proper relationship with a slit of predetermined width, while the upper is being tensioned over the last during the lasting operation, with little likelihood of the upper being distorted from proper shape before completion of the shoe.

Not only is the lacing thus described efiective for holding the eyeletted edges of the upper with [a predetermined separation during lasting operations but, as illustrated, the lacing is similar in many respects to a common form of handinserted lacing employed while a completed shoe is being worn. When the completed shoe is ready to be placed on sale, there is already provided,

therefore, a usable and durable shoe lace meeting all essential requirements for wearing qualities.

The lace 2 may be inserted in the upper .6 by hand but, in order to insert such laces in and withdraw them from the eyelets of a shoe upper with reliability and according to produc tion methods of shoe manufactures, the machine disclosed in the copending parent application above referred to has been provided. Briefly, the machine has two pairs of grippers of suitable construction and mode of operation for engaging the tips and threading them lengthwise through a. series of eyelets without requiring the grippers themselves to enter the eyelets, certain of the grippers acting to cause a portion of each lace adjacent to a tip to be bent over against the tip and inserted in an eyelet aheadof the tip. Each pair of grippers is actuable to grasp and release the tip of a lace, to move toward and from the shoe upper 6 While inserting and withdrawing the tip, and to move along the surface of the upper while transferring the tip successively from one eyelet to another, and the grippers under the upper are rotatable to take out the twist in the lace produced during the transferring operations so that the resulting lacing will lie flat both inside and outside the upper.- g a After the lacing, lastingand othershoe making operations are completed, the last i2 is removed from the shoe byhand or by a last pulling machine of the type disclosed in United States Letters Patentto Whelton et al. Ito-1,820,952 of September 1, 1931, a hinge E6 in the last being 'broken to facilitate removal, as; indicated in as illustrated in this figure, the lacing may be loosened easily and quickly as much as necessary to remove the last fully from the completed shoe. In this condition, the shoe presents a saleable appearance and is ready for use, the lacing being loosened further when necessary or tightened somewhat for display purposes without any additional handling operations being required.

By the practice of the method herein disclosed, not only is one of the usual two lacing operations entirely eliminated from the manufacturing steps heretofore employed but, since it is possible to remove the last without cutting the lacing, as ordinarily required where a tight knot is tied between the ends of a lasting lacing composed of several strands of relatively small cord, the difi'iculties and wastage of lace materials ordinarily attendant in removing the loose ends of evered lacing also are avoided. A further advantage in using the dress-type face 2 for lasting purposes is that this type of lace, composed of Woven material, is larger and strongerthan the ordinary cord lacing heretofore employed and, as a result, will withstand the strains produced during lasting operations better without tendency to mark the upper or slip through the eyelets. By employing a dress-type of lace for lasting operations, the expense of the highergrade, tougher upper materials and special lacing cords of relatively great strength may be eliminated, the dress lace being sold with the shoe for regular wear after the shoe is completed.

The nature and scope of the invention having been indicated and a particular embodiment thereof havin been specifically described, what is claimed is:

1. That improvement in methods of making shoes which consists in passing a dress lace through the eyelets and across the lacing slit of an unlasted shoe upper and securing the ends to form a lacing of a length to provide a predetermined separation of the eyeletted edges, when the upper is applied to a last, lasting the upper, removing the last from the resulting shoe, and completing operations thereafter on the shoe while the lacing remains in place for subsequent use.

2. That improvement in methods of making shoes which consists in passing a dress lace through the eyelets and across the lacing slit of an unlasted shoe upper to form a lacing of a length to provide a predetermined separation of the eyeletted edges, when the upper is applied to a last, applying the upper to the last with the ends of the lace located inside the upper within a pressure area between the upper and the last, lasting the upper, removing the last from the resulting shoe, and completing operations thereafter on the mined separation of the eyeletted edges, when the upper is applied to a last, applying the upper toa two-part jointed last with the ends of the lace passed a second time through opposite eyelets and inside the upper within a pressure area between the upper and the last, breaking the joint in the last to release the shoe and the ends of the lacing, loosening the lacing, removing the last, and completing operations thereafter on the resulting shoe while the lacing remains in place for subsequent use.

4. An unlasted eyeletted shoe upper having a dress lace passing through a plurality of the eyelets and across the lacing slit with one end portion extending outwardly through the first of a pair of oppositely disposed eyelets, then across the lacing slit and then inwardly through the second of said pair of eyelets, and with the other end portion extending outwardly through the sec- 0nd of said pair of eyelets, then across the lacing slit in the opposite direction and then inwardly through the first of said pair of eyelets to form a lacing of a, length to provide a predetermined width of lacing slit when the upper is applied to a last for the shoe lasting operation.

5. A shoe provided with an eyeletted upper having a dress lace passing through a plurality of eyelets and across the lacing slit, and a last over which the upper is tensioned, the ends of the lace being secured by carrying them inwardly 0f the upper through certain eyelets and within a pres sure area between the upper and the last.

JOSEPH FOSSA.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 599,485 West Feb. 22, 1898 855,969 Paine et a1. June 4, 1907 2,103,667 Fossa Dec. 28, 1937 1,819,440 Pym Aug. 18, 1931 2,193,187 Baxter Mar. 12, 1940 OTHER REFERENCES Boots and Shoes: Their Making and Manufacture and Selling, by Wardley & Sabbage, vol. 4, page 37, figure 16, published by Pitman 8r Sons, Ltd, London, England; copyright 1935. (Available in Div. 11 or by photostat.)

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