Productivity enhancement apparatus for power operated skinning equipment

A skinner or derinding machine for shaping an item comprised of meat, fish or poultry material held by an operator's gloved hand or hands;

• the gloves having a color contrasting with a color of the item;
• the machine having a chassis, an operator position, two sides and a working surface including a rotatable gripping roller driven by a motor, and a blade supported on a blade mount located parallel to and behind the gripping roller;
• the item being advanced, when in use, from the operator position at a feed velocity by rotation of the gripping roller while the item is held by the operator against the gripping roller, wherein the machine includes an optical detection apparatus having at least two color cameras and including a signal processing means adapted to interpret the images formed by the cameras and generate a signal to be transmitted to an actuator within a safety apparatus if a gloved hand is detected in any image in unsafe proximity to the blade, the optical detection apparatus disposing said color cameras in order to view a surveilled volume located parallel to an axis of the gripping roller and in front of the blade through a window adjacent each end of the gripping roller;
• each window is located at a first end of a corresponding sealed tunnel within a side of the machine, each tunnel having a length, each tunnel commencing with an inclined mirror and terminating at a second end to include at least one said camera, each camera having a lens focused into the surveilled volume.