Footwear having internal metatarsal guard
AssigneeRed Wing Shoe Company, Inc.
InventorRussell Lane Davis
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present disclosure provides footwear with an internal metatarsal guard and a related manufacturing method. In the depicted embodiment, the metatarsal guard is internal in that it is located under the outer layer of the footwear. In the depicted embodiment, the existence of the metatarsal guard can be visually detected from the outside of the footwear being that the metatarsal guard is located in a raised area in vamp of the footwear. The footwear is constructed such that the metatarsal guard does not impinge into the foot volume of the footwear, and the metatarsal protection also is arranged and configured to maintain a high degree of flexibility in the footwear.
Claims3
A method of manufacturing footwear comprising:
- cutting a vamp from leather;
- debossing the vamp to form a recess in an inside facing surface of the vamp in a metatarsal covering region;
- molding a resilient material directly into the recess in the vamp to form a metatarsal protector;
- and
- connecting a liner over the metatarsal protector such that the liner is configured to directly define a foot engaging surface of a wearer's foot within a foot fitting volume of the footwear without another intermediate structure positioned between the liner and the wearer's foot, wherein the metatarsal protector is sandwiched directly between the leather defining the vamp and the liner;
- wherein the step of debossing to form the recess includes defining a middle portion of the recess and two opposed downwardly extending wings that are configured to be spaced away from a sole of the footwear such that a lower periphery edge of both of the two opposed downwardly extending wings is between 0.125 inches to 1.0 inch from a top edge of the sole.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.