GB638440A - Improvements in or relating to machines for cutting potatoes or like objects into chips or slices - Google Patents

Abstract

638,440. Potato-chipping machines. ABBOTT, G. J. Oct. 6, 1947, No. 26796. [Class 5 (i)] In a potato-chipping machine of the kind described in Specification 379,800, wherein potatoes are fed between parallel slitting blades, such as G<SP>2</SP>, and then against a transverse slicing blade D, the slitting blades are mounted so that they remain rigid against the forces encountered during normal operation, but can move if struck by a hard foreign body. The machine, incorporating the features shown in Specifications 614,998 and 614,999, includes a rotor B rotating within a casing A, the rotor having throats B<SP>1</SP> which carry the potatoes round to be slit by the knives G<SP>2</SP> and sliced by the blade D mounted on cover-plate A<SP>1</SP> pivoted on the casing. The slitting blades G<SP>2</SP> are mounted on vertical pivots G on a holder F<SP>1</SP> pivoted at F to the casing. The holder is normally latched to the casing by a latch H and catch H3, and includes a cam slot F4 which accommodates a roller E2 carried by an extension E of the coverplate A<SP>1</SP>. A leaf-spring A3 engages the fixed end walls of the casing A and tends to move the coverplate outwardly about its pivot. The latch H is adequate to resist the forces of normal operation and the shape of the cam slot F<SP>4</SP> is such that the pressure of the spring A<SP>3</SP> acts substantially through the pivot F, but if a stone strikes the knives G<SP>2</SP>, the latch H opens, and the spring A<SP>3</SP> then acts to press the roller against the cam surface F<SP>8</SP>, forcing the knives G<SP>2</SP> and D to fly outwardly about their pivots.