The art of winding and reeling dates back many years and as the need increased, the abundance of such devices increased. The winding of yarns in garment manufacture, the winding of wire in the electrical field and the winding of cord in the fishing art are only a few of the many examples. Applicants device developed from a basic requirement of winding and unwinding a flexible member in a controlled manner and which has many uses. A primary use being in the controlled reeling or unreeling of an electrical extension cord.
The closest prior art known to applicant which relates to the disclosed invention is found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,844,359, 4,660,782 and 2,412,396. U.S. Pat. No. 4,844,359 describes a reel for limited reeling of a flat cable for an electrical connection between a stationary member and a movable member. This reel is particularly characterized in that a cylindrical inner wall is provided outside said rotary cylinder in an eccentric relationship therewith. This device also indicates that the flat cable is reeled on or supplied from the moveable member. There is no indication that a hollow crank rotating about a drum will guide the flexible member on to and off of the drum.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,660,782 describes a portable reel that has a mounted non-rotatable spool that surrounds a central rotatable spindle. An elongate radial arm is corotatably attached to the spindle and a first end of the arm has rigidly attached thereto a manually graspable tubular guide for flexible conduit to be carried by the spool. Applicants device does not have a rotatable spindle located centrally of the spool, nor does it have a rotatable arm nor does it have the arm mounted on the spindle Applicants device has a cover that can properly act as an end confinement for the conduit while the cover means is rotatably mounted on and adjacently encircling an outer circumference of the drum or spool.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,412,396 describes a self-locking reel for a drying line. An annular drum or spool is rotatably mounted and axially slideable on a fixed spindle with apertures and an end confinement plate. It is the drum or spool that rotates on a spindle, the drum having projections that engage the apertures when tension is applied to the flexible conduit. Applicants device has no rotatable drum on a fixed spindle nor does it have projections on the drum engaging apertures in the spindle actuated by a tension in the conduit.