Depth control gauge for meat trimming knife

Abstract

A disc-shaped control plate is mounted within the central opening of a ring-shaped cutting blade of a power driven, hand manipulated, meat-trimming knife to control the thickness of portions of meat severed from a larger body of meat. The control plate is mounted on the end of a shaft which is removably mounted on the front end of a handpiece above a blade housing on which the cutting blade is rotatably mounted. A manually operated lever is mounted on the handpiece for raising and lowering the control plate between a depth control position and non-control position. A coil spring biases the control plate toward the lowered control position and a plurality of retention balls are biased by a second spring and retainer cage into a retention groove to maintain the disc in its lowered position until manually raised therefrom by operation of the lever. The position of the control plate is adjustable to regulate the thickness of the meat being severed, and the lever enables the plate to be rendered effectively inoperative when in the raised position which is desirable when severing portions of meat containing a considerably amount of fat from the larger body of meat.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.