US 6,182,562 B2Granted

Cracking die assembly for high production nutcracking apparatus

AssigneeMachine Design Incorporated

InventorsJames Bland Quantz, Pascal Walter Pitts

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Abstract

A cracking die assembly which is adapted for use in a high production nutcracking apparatus of the type wherein a nut is held between an anvil and a cracking die, and a shuttle then impacts against the rear end face of the cracking die to sharply advance the cracking die and thereby crack the shell of the nut. The cracking die assembly includes a mounting sleeve having a bore with an internal shoulder, and a tubular retainer mounted within a portion of the sleeve bore so as to engage the shoulder of the sleeve. An annular gasket is fixedly mounted in the bore of the retainer, and the cracking die is mounted in the bore of the retainer, and the cracking die has a radial flange which is positioned to lie between the shoulder in the bore of the sleeve, and the gasket. Also, the gasket and radial flange have conforming conical surfaces which engage when the cracking die is impacted by the shuttle, to thereby absorb the impacting force of the shuttle.

Claims10

Dependent claims

A cracking die assembly adapted for use in a high production nutcracking apparatus, and comprising

a mounting sleeve having an internal bore which defines a central axis and which includes a forwardly facing radial shoulder intermediate its ends,
a tubular retainer mounted within said bore of said sleeve forwardly of said shoulder, with said retainer including an internal bore which is coaxial with respect to the central axis,
an annular gasket mounted within the internal bore of said retainer, with said annular gasket having a rearwardly facing conical end face which is spaced from the radial shoulder of said sleeve,
a cracking die disposed coaxially within said internal bore of said retainer and including a radial flange disposed between said sleeve shoulder and said end face of said gasket, with said flange having an axial dimension less than the distance between said sleeve shoulder and said end face of said gasket for permitting limited axial movement of said die, and with said flange of said die including a forwardly facing conical shoulder which opposes the conical end face of said gasket and which has an inclination which matches the inclination of the conical end face of said gasket, and with said die having a forward end face which is adapted to engage the end of a nut to be cracked and an opposite end face which is perpendicular to said central axis,
whereby said cracking die is adapted to be impacted on said opposite end face and be sharply thrust forwardly a limited distance so as to impart a cracking force to a nut engaged by said forward end face of said die, and with the conical end face of the annular gasket being impacted by the conical shoulder on the flange of the die so that the annular gasket absorbs at least a portion of the impacting force.

2 more elements

In a nutcracking apparatus comprising a cracking die having a forward end face and a rearward end face, an anvil mounted opposite said forward end face of said die to define an opening therebetween which is adapted to receive a nut, means mounting said cracking die for limited movement toward and away from said opening, means mounting said anvil for limited movement toward and away from said opening and for biasing said anvil in a direction toward said opening so that a nut may be retained between said anvil and said cracking die, a free floating shuttle mounted rearwardly of said cracking die, and means for periodically sharply thrusting said shuttle forwardly into impacting engagement with said rearward end face of said cracking die such that a nut retained between said anvil and said cracking die will be cracked by the resulting forward movement of the cracking die, the improvement wherein said cracking die is included in a cracking die assembly which comprises

a mounting sleeve having an internal bore which defines a central axis and which includes a forwardly facing radial shoulder intermediate its ends,
a tubular retainer mounted within said bore of said sleeve forwardly of said shoulder, with said retainer including an internal bore which is coaxial with respect to the central axis,
an annular gasket mounted within the internal bore of said retainer, with said annular gasket having a rearwardly facing conical end face which is spaced from the radial shoulder of said sleeve,
a cracking die disposed coaxially within said internal bore of said retainer and including a radial flange disposed between said sleeve shoulder and said end face of said gasket, with said flange having an axial dimension less than the distance between said sleeve shoulder and said end face of said gasket for permitting limited axial movement of said die, and with said flange of said die including a forwardly facing conical shoulder which opposes the conical end face of said gasket and which has an inclination which matches the inclination of the conical end face of said gasket, and with said die having a forward end face which is adapted to engage the end of a nut to be cracked and an opposite end face which is perpendicular to said central axis.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.