The Bootjack Hat Stand: Handles to Hold, a Crescent on the Instep

"I make the platform, A, for the foot to rest on, substantially in the form shown in the drawing, with a notch, or space, for the heel of the boot at its elevated end, in the usual form, as represented at B. I mount this platform, A, in two upright posts, or standards, C and D". "To pack this apparatus, for transportation, &c., I unscrew the knobs, d and e, at the top, take off the cross-bar, H, and take out the screws which secure the standards to the platform, (one of which is seen at g,) when the whole may be packed within the length of the platform."

**Platform.** Cut a platform 40 × 20 cm from plywood with a heel notch at one end, and screw a block under that end to raise it. **Standards.** Cut two 45 cm lengths of hardwood dowel and screw them upright through the platform's sides from below, so they can be unscrewed. **Cross-bar.** Drill a 36 cm hardwood strip at the standards' spacing, set it on their tops with glued dowel knobs so it lifts off, and round its ends as handles. **Arm.** Push a dowel rock-shaft through holes halfway up the standards so it turns freely. Glue a hardwood arm to it with a crescent cut from plywood on its end, long enough to rest on a boot's instep. **Test.** Take a rubber boot off, holding the handles, with the crescent on the instep. Then hang loads weighed on the kitchen scale on one handle end and find the one that tips it. Compare with the notebook. Unscrew and pack it.

**Frederick Ahl** of West Meriden, New Haven County, Connecticut, received US 22,404, dated 28 December 1858. He noted that jacks with a rigid piece pressing on the boot already existed; his claim is the platform, vibrating arm and cross-bar arranged together. **Honest limits.** Plywood and dowel stand in for his turned standards and cross-bar. The notebook treats the stand as a rigid block tipping about one edge; its weights and sizes are examples. Your tipping load is the result.