Heat control for fabric molding

Claim 1

In a molding press for use in molding flat pieces of fabric into three dimensional shapes for use in garments, in which a plurality of unheated mold parts are mounted for vertical movement into a closed position with complementary unheated mold parts to mold one or more layers of fabric disposed between said mold parts, the improvement comprising a heater rack adapted to heat both sides of said fabric simultaneously, said heater rack being mounted for sliding horizontal movement between an operating position and a retracted position, said heating rack having an upper portion and a lower portion, said upper portion being disposed directly above said fabric and extending parallel thereto and said lower portion being disposed directly below said fabric and extending parallel thereto when said heater rack is in operating position, said heater rack in retracted position being moved horizontally completely away from said fabric to permit said mold parts to close and mold said fabric, each of said upper and lower portions of said heating rack having a plurality of elongated parallel heating rods extending longitudinally thereacross, said rods comprising a plurality of narrow rods disposed adjacent to each of the opposite side edges of said rack and a plurality of wider rods extending across the inner portion of the rack between said narrow rods, whereby more heat is provided along the side edges of said rack to compensate for increased heat dissipation along the sides of said rack and fabric, to thereby provide uniform heating and molding across the entire area of said fabric.