Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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MOLDED SCENT IMPREGNATED DEVICES
Hunters and trappers have long used various natural
scents to attract game, just as others have long used various
artificial repellants, attractants and insecticides against
insects. Typical devices for attracting game include pads
saturated with a liquid lure, such as animal urine, the pad being
mounted in a small perforated container which is attached to the
hunter or nearby foliage. In the case of insects similar devices
have been ~sed to repel them. Another device sandwiches an
insecticide coated or impregnated sheet between a pair o~ per-
forated sheets containing an insect attracting substance. A
somewhat similar scheme has been proposed for controlling pests.
But especially in the case of the lures employed by
hunters, the typical scent impregnated pads tend to be messy and
of fairly limited effective duration. They require the hun~er to
carry a bottle or bottles of the scent or scents to be used which
are subject to leakage, spill and the like with ~he consequent
ruin of clothes, car seats, carpets, and so forth. The same
demerits are also true o~ liquid insect repellants and insecti-
cides applied to pads and the like. The laminated examples ofinsect lures and insecticides avoid the mess lnvolved with
liquids but lack the ability to disperse a scent well and/or to
readily increase or decrease a particular scent or combine or
interchange scents.
Accordingly, the present invention seexs to provide a
scent device primarily for hunting and trapping but also
adaptable to other uses, which device eliminates the deficiencies
of prior devices and is much more adaptable to various needs and
environments.
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Generally, the invention provides integrally molded,
honeycombed structures preferably of plastic material
impregnated with one or more differen~ scents. In one preferred
form the scent devices comprise circular, honeycombed wafers
which can be used separately or, if additionally fitted, can be
removably stacked together to provide varying levels of scent
intensity or a variety of different scents in a single stack. In
wafer form especially, the devices are light and compact and a
single wafer or a number of same can be attached to the person,
to foliage, or to some other support by means of an optional hook
of the same scent impregnated material attached to each wafer, or
by a pin, string or the like through one of the honeycombed aper-
tures. The honeycombed configuration o~ the devices, whether in
wafer or other form, allows maximum air movement in and around
all scented surfaces, as well as maximum surface area for aerobic
scent dispersion, the scent molecules being transferred only into
air currents and not lost by absorption into cloth or soil as is
the case with current such devices.
For hunting and trapping purposes artificially simu-
lated food scents such as "acorn", "fermented apple", and "pean~t
butter", or artificially simulated sex scents such as urine, musk
and natural pheromones collected from whitetail does during the
peak of their estrus cycle, are impregnated in the devices during
their manufacture. For other employments, insect rep~llan~s,
insecticides and attractants can be impregnated, as can deo-
dorants and deodorizers and the like for household and similar
applications or various fragrances for decorative and floral pur-
poses. In short, the honeycombed, scent impregnated devices of
the invention, though designed initially for hunting and trapping
purposes, have a wide swath of possible uses.
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~ Ience in a broad aspect the invention contemplates a
two-faced wafer of molded material impregnated with a scent, the
wafer comprising a circular disc having a plurality of honey-
combed perforations therethrough from face-to-face effective to
allow air currents to flow therethrough from face-to-face. Each
of the wafer faces includes means disposed at the center thereof
and molded integrally therewith for manually removably attaching
a plurality of the wafers together in stacked, axially aligned
and spaced relation to each other.
Other and further features and advantages of the in-
vention will become apparent from the more detailed description
which follows and the drawings, in which:
Figure 1 is a plan view of a scent wafer incorporating
the invention and includiIlg means for stacking the wafers to-
gether.
Figure 2 is a side view of a pair of the wafers of Fig-
ure 1 shown stacked together.
Figure 3 is an enlarged plan view of a suspending hook
for each wafer.
2~ Figure 4 is a side view of the hook of Figure 3.
Figures 5 and 6 are plan views of a wafer with the hook
attached and illustrating the folded and unfolded positions of
the hook.
The wafer form of the invention, as noted, comprises a
molded circular disc 10 honeycombed through at 11 and slightly
tapered at the edges in order to assist removal of the discs 10
from the mold. The apertures 11 are similarly tapered for the
same purpose and may of course be of any shape so long as their
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size and n~mber permit maximum flow of air currents through the
wafers. If the ability to stack the wafers together is desired,
the center of each wafer may be provided with an integral a~ial
boss 12 on one face 13 and an integral axial stud 14 on its oppo-
site face 15. The disc 10 and boss 12 have an axial bore 16which removably retains the stub 14 of an adjacent disc 10 so
that the wafers can be stacked together as shown in Figure 2. To
assist retention of the stub 14 in the bore 16 the former is
provided with a small integral collar 14a which snaps into a com-
plementary recess 16a in the bore 16. If it is desired to eq~ipthe wafers with means to suspend them, the disc 10 can be pro-
vided with a bore 17, parallel to the axis of the disc 10 and
just inboard of its edge, and a pair of parallel smaller bores 18
equally spaced circumferer.tially from the bore 17. The bore 17
pivotally anchors a headed st~d 19 on and integral with one end
of a thin, C-shaped molded hook 20 whose outer margin is congru-
ent with that of the disc 10 when the hook 20 is stowed, as shown
in Figure 5, on the disc face 13. The other end of the hook 20
is also provided with a smaller integral stud 21 which friction-
ally engages one or the other of the bores 18 to retain the hook20 in either its stowed position shown in Figure 5 or in its
operative position shown in Figure 6. In the latter posltion the
hook 20 defines an enclosed space 22 with the adjacent edge of
the disc 10 so that the wafer can be hung from a suitable
support.
The discs 10 and hook 20 are preferably molded of a low
density polyethylene plastic containing ethyl vinyl acetate to
render the plastic softer, flexible and more easily molded as
well as enabling it to carry or "absorb" the scent better. The
scents themselves are artificial simulations of natural scents
and are achieved by identifying the chemical constituents and
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their proportions of each natural scent and then artificially
reproducing those constituents and their combination to form an
oleagineous liquid. The latter is then mixed in with the low
density polyethylene and ethyl vinyl acetate and formed into
solid "beads" which are supplied to the molder. The molder in
turn tumbles together a 50-50 mixture of the "beads" and further
low density polyethylene and 7% vinyl acetate by weight in granu-
lar form plus suitable coloring. The mixture i8 then introduced
into the molding machinery and heated to about 280 F or less if
possible under high pressure to produce the wafers and the hooks.
In some cases where the scent is obnoxious -- fox urine is a good
example - it is best first to mold the wafers and hooks from a
mixture of 50% low density polyethylene and 50% ethyl vinyl
acetate and then to tumble them with the scent oil in a closed,
dedicated container in order to avoid irreparable "contamination"
of the molding machinery.
The wafer form of the invention is remarkably compact,
commercial examples measuring two inches in diameter and one-
eighth inch in thickness, the honeycombed perforations being each
a nominal 0.078 inches square and effectively about 162 in
num~er. They are presently marketed in groups of three enclosed
in a small air-tight container for preservation and rejuvenation
when not in use. In use it is the honeycombed structure of the
; wafers, which not only greatly increases their exposed area but
also allows air flow through them, that appears chiefly respon-
sible for their quite remarkable power in view of their small
size to disperse a scent or scents over a wide area despite
little air movement about the wafers. Non-honeycombed wafers
would have to be of much larger dimensions, and thus not be
nearly as handy and adaptable, in order to possess equal exposed
area. Even then the larger wafers would not possess the
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important aspect of allowing air flow through as weLl as around
them. After use the wafers return to full strength in the con-
tainers as new scent molecules push their way to the wafer sur-
faces. For hunting purposes two, three or even more wafers of
the same scent can be used to provide varying scent intensities.
For deer hunting usually one wafer is powerful eno~gh to attract
the animal but on calm days or in areas of low deer density two
or three wafers may be better. ~lternately, a number of wafers
of one or more different scents can be used to provide a combina-
tion of scents. Excellent combination.s for deer hunting, forexample, are "moist forest soil" and "doe in estr~s", or the
latter and "peanut butter". Similar flexibility is available for
wafers impregnated with an insecticide, an insec~ repellant or
attractant, with a deodorizer or deodorant, or with various fra-
grances and the like.
In the hunting field the wafers, which ~or that purposeare produced in natural forest colors, can be placed in animal
"scrapes", hung by their hooks on trees or other foliage, or
mounted above the ground on sticks to catch air currents, or
pinned to the hunter's clothing, and so forth. The wafers can
even be attached to target arrows and shot to appropriate spots
around tree stands without accompanying human odor. The latter
technique is particularly beneficial in heavily hunted areas
where the animals are especially cautious. A package of three
wafers outperforms liquid scents, lasting an entire hunting
; season, whereas three to five bottles of liquid scents are
normally required for a like time. Scents can be changed in a
few moments if a different one appears more effective. Since the
wafers are solid, in contrast to liquid scents there is no waste
nor can they ruin clothing, car seats and carpets and the like
through leakage. Scent quality and strength does not deteriorate
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or change during storage of the wafers in their containers. The
scent is "sealed" in the wafers until they are removed for use so
that they can be stored in the camp or at home with far less
chance of odori7ing either during storage. The wafers can be
used in all weather conditions as, unlike liquid scents, they
will not freeze or be diluted by rain, heavy dew or snow.
