US Patent Issued to Bridgestone Bandag on March 11 for "Expandable rim for tire tread buffing apparatus and method" (Iowa Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,246,503, issued on March 11, was assigned to Bridgestone Bandag LLC (Nashville, Tenn.).

"Expandable rim for tire tread buffing apparatus and method" was invented by Eric M. Henriksen (Muscatine, Iowa), Todd R. Frisbie (Muscatine, Iowa) and Christopher J. A. Ferrell (Bettendorf, Iowa).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A machine for retreading tires includes a rotatable hub that includes a moveable conical element, and an expandable rim disposed around the rotatable hub. The expandable rim includes a plurality of shoes. Each shoe of the plurality of shoes may have a base portion and a rim portion. The base portion may have a two-piece constru...