US 4,577,370 AGranted

Method and apparatus for opening axially shirring and dividing off thin-walled, cord-shaped tubular casing material, especially casings made of synthetic material, for the sausage manufacture

OwnerGunter Kollrossinventor

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Abstract

The invention is concerned with a method of opening, axially shirring and dividing off tubular casing material, especially synthetic casing for the sausage manufacture, to form tubular folds or corrugations, and of subsequently conveying the same to a processing location such as, especially, the charging tube of a sausage stuffing machine, with the shirring being performed by pushing forward the tubular casing material against stop means. In accordance with the invention, the said stop means will be put into operation only after the beginning of the advancing movement at a point located in spaced relationship behind the starting end of the tube and is then moved back in accordance with the length increment of the corrugation in the shirring direction. The divided-off tubular corrugations are fed to the processing location by reverting the movement of the stop means in the opposite direction, thereby maintaining an unshirred section permitting an easy closing of the front end of the corrugation for further processing on the stuffing machine.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A method for producing link sausages using tubular casing material which is wound on a reel in a flat condition, the method comprising;

unwinding a predetermined length of casing material from said reel,
opening said predetermined length of casing material to a tubular cross section,
moving a first point near the forward end of said tubular casing material into gripping engagement with a first gripping means,
synchroneously moving the first gripping means and the forward end of said predetermined length of tubular material for a predetermined distance,
gripping the tubular casing material by a second gripping means at a spaced point spaced by said predetermined distance from the first point, which predetermined distance corresponds to the distance which the tubular casing material and said first gripping means have moved,
moving the second gripping means together with the tubular casing means in the same direction but with a reduced speed relative to the unwinding speed of the casing material to axially shir the casing material to form a shirred length of tubular casing material having circumferential folds, with the portion of said casing material situated between said first point and said spaced point remaining unshirred,
cutting off said shirred length of tubular casing material from the remainder of the casing material,
laterally moving said shirred length of tubular casing material into a position ahead of the charging tube of a sausage filling machine and positioning said shirred length onto said charging tube, and
filling and closing said tubular casing material on said charging tube with sausage meat.

6 more elements

An apparatus for producing link sausages using tubular casing material which is wound on a reel in a flat condition, comprising:

means for feeding the wound casing material and for opening the casing material to a tubular cross-section,
a receiving means for receiving the tubular casing material,
said receiving means including a first gripping means for gripping a point near the forward end of the tubular casing material,
said receiving means including a means for synchronously moving the first gripping means and the said forward end for a predetermined distance,
said receiving means further including a second gripping means for gripping the tubular casing material at a spaced point spaced by said predetermined distance from the first point, which predetermined distance corresponds to the distance which the tubular casing material and said first gripping means have moved since the first gripping means grip the tubular casing material,
said receiving means having means for moving the second gripping means together with the tubular casing material in the same direction but with a reduced speed relative to the feeding means to thus axially shir the casing material to form a shirred length thereof which has circumferential folds, leaving the portion of said casing material between said first point and said spaced point unshirred,
cutting means for cutting off said shirred length of tubular casing material from the remainder of the casing material,
means for laterally moving the shirred length of tubular casing material to a position ahead of a charging tube of a sausage filling machine and means for positioning said shirred length onto said charging tube, thereby positioning said shirred length to be filled with sausage meat, and
means for closing the forward end of the shirred length prior to filling.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.